SOURCE: "Introduction: The Rise and Decline of Escapism, 1929-1945" and "Terminus Ad Quem," in Comic Books and America, 1945-1954, University of Oklahoma Press, 1990, pp. 3-13, 111-20.

In the following essay, Savage places the comic book hero in a historical context, from World War II to the Vietnam era.

During the 1930s, purveyors of popular culture offered escape to the American people. Perhaps they were simply trying to ease Americans through a difficult time by making no offensive reference to the extent of economic calamity wrought by the Depression. If so, the tactic led them conveniently away from the arena of social commentary and thus from the taint of controversy. Concern over Communist activity (the legacy of the Red Scare of the 1920s), distrust of some labor unions, and reaction to even the vaguest of utterances suggestive of socialist sentiment in response to the perceived collapse of capitalism—easy...