The Spandex Index

Superheroes are now so deeply entrenched in popular culture that their stories rarely feel surprising anymore. We know the costume, the secret identity, the moral code, the battle between good and evil. But was it always like this?Writing these lines on a beach in Cyprus, I’m aware that ancient myths had already given us figures like Heracles, Achilles, Samson, and Gilgamesh: larger-than-life characters with extraordinary strength, divine origins, or heroic destinies. In many ways, they feel remarkably close to modern superheroes. But they were never called superheroes, and they did not belong to the cultural machinery that would later turn the superhero into a genre.Robin Hood and Zorro also come to mind, but while they had the costumes, secret identities, heroic missions, and dramatic public personas, they lacked superpowers.So: close, but no cigar.The Golden Age of superhero comics in the US began at a very particular historical moment. Stories about heroic figures with…