SOURCE: "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? An Examination of the American Monomyth and the Comic Book Superhero," in Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 22, No. 3, Winter, 1988, pp. 157-73.

In the following article, Lang and Trimble trace the tendency towards demythologizing comic book superheroes in American popular culture.

It happened just a short time ago, the summer of 1986. DC Comics, the publisher of the Superman family of comics, turned 50 years old and, to celebrate, decided to do some housecleaning. They cleared away the dead wood: Green Lantern, the Flash, Hawkman, Hourman, Sandman and many other heroes from what is now called the Golden Age of Comics, the years 1938 to 1946.

Many of these characters were laid to rest without much fuss or bother. They had long ago passed from the public's notice, their gold tarnished. Underneath there was only lead. Or, in the case of Superman, only steel.

Superman...