the first superhero was...?

[Powerboy]

For the label "superhero" to have any meaning, for any label to have any meaning, then yes it's important to attach this distinction.

The topic is "first superhero" and not "first hero" (because that would be an even bigger can of worms).



Languages and meanings of words change. Values change. 3000 years ago, the English language didn't exist. The word "super" is of course Latin in origin and it means "over" or "above" and was used as an adjective and at times negatively (the last Roman King was called Tarquin Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, with Superbus meaning excessive insane pride...over time, superbus became superb, and then super).



I'd argue that Superman and the superhero genre is a character of the modern American world. The superhero genre is fundamentally an American genre after all. Other countries have tried to produce their take on superheroes but none of them have established themselves, even in their home countries, as icons on the same level as American superheroes.



The Ancient Greek and Roman world had an attitude to Heracles that's totally remote. People of Ancient Greece worshipped Heracles as quasi divine and sometimes as a real god, and made temples to him and honored him and so on. Bloodlines of famous kings claimed to descend from Heracles. Alexander the Great and his family are supposed descendants of him. Whereas nobody today in real life would walk around and erect temples to Superman and worship him as a god...and before people bring up a few fringe fans, let me point out that people who identify as "Jedi" or as Superman aren't as big as even a cult like Scientology in terms of popularity, adherence, and observance. To the extent that people are flocking away from the big major religions of the world, they aren't building altars to superheroes, not yet anyway.

No major political figure elected to high office will walk around and claim that they are actually descendants of Superman, Batman, or the bloodline of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. People in Ancient Greece did that. So when people say that Heracles and others were the superheroes of the Ancient World they do not know what they are talking about. The attitudes and mores of people in the past doesn't even remotely approach anything like superhero fandom.



People in the Ancient World didn't consider Heracles a mythical character. A lot of people thought he legit existed and believed in the stories of the 12 Labors as literal events. Real historical people claimed descent from Heracles. Heracles came to be worshipped as a god. No comic fan thinks of Superman versus Doomsday as a real event of history which actually happened in the early 90s in the same way the OJ Simpson Murder Trial and Bill Clinton are real events in the same time period.

The fact that Heracles and Thor are comic characters by Marvel later on, doesn't mean that the attitudes towards them are consistent to how they were in Ancient times.

Would people call Jesus Christ is a superhero? Or the Prophet Muhammed? Or you know in India, you have a polytheistic religion called Hinduism where people believe in Krishna and others as legit real people and the events of the text as stuff that really happened. Are you gonna tell a billion people (far bigger than the fandom of superheroes) that their centuries and millenia of belief is equivalent to stuff made up by exploited and cheated American writers and artists of the mid-20th Century?

Interesting points.

When I say I consider Heracles to be a mythical figure, I consider a myth to be a religion few people believe anymore and a religion to be a myth lots of people believe. That's simplistic but has it's points.

I think that, in the modern mindset, thanks largely to the superhero genre, the distinction between myth and superhero fantasy has blurred. To the average person, a Hercules story of any kind is sort of a prehistoric version of a superhero story.

I think back to the Dungeons and Dragons Deities and Demi-gods book which essentially took a dozen pantheons of gods, once worshipped as parts of religions, and made them fantasy characters no different than Gandalf and Arthur, Merlin and Frodo. By that time, Thor had been rewritten as a modern comic book character. Of course he was different by far from mythology but even Superman has undergone rewrites and restarts. And, yes, I've read the Norse myths. Marvel Comics is just Thor translated into the 1960s and to the present just as Hercules the Legendary Journeys was really a modern social take on Heracles and just as Superman 2021 is a 21st century take compared to what he was in 1938.

Without the American superhero comic book genre, probably no one would apply the term super hero to Heracles or Gilgamesh or Thor. But the term would not exist or have caught on without modern comics. Ancient mythology, pulp tales and such, to modern thinking, lend themselves to the super hero genre. It has been said that Jules Verne was the Father of Science Fiction but Edgar Allan Poe was the Grandfather because what he did was proto-SF or led to SF (He was most noted for what we call Horror but that wasn't all he wrote). At the very least, pulp is the grandfather of the superhero and mythology the great-grandfather.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Interesting points.

Thanks.

When I say I consider Heracles to be a mythical figure, I consider a myth to be a religion few people believe anymore and a religion to be a myth lots of people believe. That's simplistic but has it's points.

That's fair. But again, the reason why Heracles is myth and other stuff isn't, is arbitrary. After all Polytheism of the kind that existed in Ancient Greece and Rome, and the Norse lands, is still alive and kicking in India. There's no intrinsic reason why Heracles is a myth. Had things been different, that might not have come to pass.

I think that, in the modern mindset, thanks largely to the superhero genre, the distinction between myth and superhero fantasy has blurred. To the average person, a Hercules story of any kind is sort of a prehistoric version of a superhero story.

That's fair. Again I will point out that this is how Americans and people exposed to American culture percieve stuff. And even then, not always the same way. For instance, the GOD OF WAR games has a different take on Greek and Norse Myths from the Marvel and DC stuff, and the gods there are presented very differently and critically than in superhero stories.

Europeans and others would still see Heracles and Achilles as myths and not as superheroes. For them superheroes is stuff in America.

Without the American superhero comic book genre, probably no one would apply the term super hero to Heracles or Gilgamesh or Thor. But the term would not exist or have caught on without modern comics. Ancient mythology, pulp tales and such, to modern thinking, lend themselves to the super hero genre.

That's true. And I agree with that.

It has been said that Jules Verne was the Father of Science Fiction but Edgar Allan Poe was the Grandfather...

Science-Fiction has neither father nor grand-father. It has a Mother, Mary Shelley, author of FRANKENSTEIN and THE LAST MAN. Shelley invented science-fiction overnight with Frankenstein.

At the very least, pulp is the grandfather of the superhero and mythology the great-grandfather.

Superhero genres drew influence from everything and anything that existed before. A lot of the influence was cinematic, German Expressionist movies, horror movies, comedies and others and so on. And pulp action stories like Doc Savage, The Shadow and others definitely inspired superhero comics and stories. No doubting that.

But still, the superhero genre that came from Action Comics#1 is fundamentally different from its influences.

[DrNewGod]

...I'd argue that Superman and the superhero genre is a character of the modern American world. The superhero genre is fundamentally an American genre after all. Other countries have tried to produce their take on superheroes but none of them have established themselves, even in their home countries, as icons on the same level as American superheroes...

It's probably worth a thread of its own, but I'm very curious why that is. What is it about The US that caused it to adopt this fictional character type so closely?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It's probably worth a thread of its own, but I'm very curious why that is. What is it about The US that caused it to adopt this fictional character type so closely?

Nobody has a real satisfying answer to that. It's like asking why Robin Hood as a folklore character emerged in England and didn't in France or Spain. How did the Vampire emerge in Eastern European folklore and not in Western Europe?

You can argue that there's something in the American pioneer spirit or frontier spirit, or emerging imperial confidence, that inspires the development of ideas like this, a land of opportunity and possiblity. That stuff pre-existed superheroes.

You had the Horatio Alger stories, the Tom Swift Edisonade stories, Hugo Gernsback's Golden Age science-fiction stories which was all about American entrepreneurs and geniuses having this bold confidence about the future being theirs, that they get to harness everything and do anything. And in a way the superhero genre is an evolution within that mentality, so Superman, a bold confident assertion of American spirit and genius, of the immigrant who arrived in America and became the champion and defender. And other superheroes that followed are more or less variations on that, Batman is of course the American Imperial Capitalist who can harness the knowledge and skills of people across the world to make himself a one-man army against crime.

Academically speaking, Superheroes are all variations of "the romance" which is this genre of writing in the 1600s where people wrote fantasies and other stuff about ideal worlds and places. Stuff like Pilgrim's Progress and so on. And a lot of people pointed that where in England and France romance evolved to become the realist novel in America romance continued to be a major dominant genre, and that led to America embracing science-fiction as a major popular genre far more deeply than other countries, and superhero stories are largely science-fiction.

[Zelena]

Europeans and others would still see Heracles and Achilles as myths and not as superheroes. For them superheroes is stuff in America.

Nowadays, Heracles and Achilles are seen as myths because their legends have survived over the centuries. Before, they were just stories. Did the Ancients really believe in these stories? Hard to say.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Nowadays, Heracles and Achilles are seen as myths because their legends have survived over the centuries. Before, they were just stories. Did the Ancients really believe in these stories? Hard to say.

They did believe in it. We have many historians talk about Heracles and the Trojan War as stuff that really happened, referred to the same way that Caesar and other stuff did. Plutarch in his famous Parallel Lives writes a biography of Theseus, the mythological hero, as if he were a real person the same way Caesar and Alexander were. We have many families, claiming descent from Heracles. Alexander the Great and his father is a famous example.

Imagine if tomorrow, you have Presidential candidates claiming bloodline descent from Superman or Batman or Spider-Man. Julius Caesar and his family claimed to be descended from Aeneas and the goddess Venus (mother of Aeneas). You also see this in Norse sagas, where quasi historical figures like Ragnar Lodbrok is supposedly descended from Odin. So no, mythological figures like Heracles have no substance or comparison with modern superheroes. It's just not the same thing.

If someday, superheroes become public domain, then maybe you can see stuff like that happen. Sherlock Holmes for instance is in public domain and he has become a kind of legendary figure, treated at times like an actual historical person (there was this historical novel series called Flashman where Sherlock Holmes shows up in-page interacting with historical figures and treated as a real guy who existed in the late Victorian age). I have come across people in real life who think Sherlock was an actual dude.

[Powerboy]

Science-Fiction has neither father nor grand-father. It has a Mother, Mary Shelley, author of FRANKENSTEIN and THE LAST MAN. Shelley invented science-fiction overnight with Frankenstein.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...cience_fiction

Apparently, what counts as the first science fiction story is a matter of great debate even among respected science fiction writers.

I think people tend to go with Verne because of how prolific he was and because so many of his speculations turned out to be true while Mary Shelley took existing scientific speculations and used them as a basis for her story.

I found the characterization in the novel to be so believable that it made the whole thing seem believable. In fact, there was a made for television movie called "Prototype" with Christopher Plummer in which the novel was discussed, how different in was from the Karloff movie and that very point was made of how it felt so poetic and yet so realistic in characterization that it made the story seem almost believable.

Published in 1818, the science, of course, turned out to be erroneous but it was genuine scientific speculation based on real scientific theories of the day.

[Powerboy]

They did believe in it. We have many historians talk about Heracles and the Trojan War as stuff that really happened, referred to the same way that Caesar and other stuff did. Plutarch in his famous Parallel Lives writes a biography of Theseus, the mythological hero, as if he were a real person the same way Caesar and Alexander were. We have many families, claiming descent from Heracles. Alexander the Great and his father is a famous example.

Imagine if tomorrow, you have Presidential candidates claiming bloodline descent from Superman or Batman or Spider-Man. Julius Caesar and his family claimed to be descended from Aeneas and the goddess Venus (mother of Aeneas). You also see this in Norse sagas, where quasi historical figures like Ragnar Lodbrok is supposedly descended from Odin. So no, mythological figures like Heracles have no substance or comparison with modern superheroes. It's just not the same thing.

If someday, superheroes become public domain, then maybe you can see stuff like that happen. Sherlock Holmes for instance is in public domain and he has become a kind of legendary figure, treated at times like an actual historical person (there was this historical novel series called Flashman where Sherlock Holmes shows up in-page interacting with historical figures and treated as a real guy who existed in the late Victorian age). I have come across people in real life who think Sherlock was an actual dude.

I think there is one particular politician that shall not be named who a huge segment of the population seems to believe him no matter how ridiculous his claims get and I can see certain shamans and cultists believing it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...cience_fiction

Apparently, what counts as the first science fiction story is a matter of great debate even among respected science fiction writers.

Usually by those who don't want to admit that a woman was the one who created their entire livelihood. Because writing women out of pioneer stories is a long tradition, you know. Academically everyone generally agrees that FRANKENSTEIN is the first. Sure you had people do stories about people in space, or automatons before, but that was usually based on mythological fancy or based in alchemy and fantasy. Not the same thing.

I think there is one particular politician that shall not be named who a huge segment of the population seems to believe him no matter how ridiculous his claims get and I can see certain shamans and cultists believing it.

Well that guy, and people like that guy, are real egomaniacs and they like to base everything on their own personal identity and brand, their own initiative and so on...whereas crediting or inventing some kind of bloodline would be antithetical to that. Hitler for instance never claimed that he was descended from King Frederick the Great or from Siegfried or any such thing. He liked to present himself as a true come-from-nowhere self-made individual with a strong will.

Whereas in the Ancient World people believed in family, bloodline, and inheritance and stuff.

[Powerboy]

Usually by those who don't want to admit that a woman was the one who created their entire livelihood. Because writing women out of pioneer stories is a long tradition, you know. Academically everyone generally agrees that FRANKENSTEIN is the first. Sure you had people do stories about people in space, or automatons before, but that was usually based on mythological fancy or based in alchemy and fantasy. Not the same thing.



Well that guy, and people like that guy, are real egomaniacs and they like to base everything on their own personal identity and brand, their own initiative and so on...whereas crediting or inventing some kind of bloodline would be antithetical to that. Hitler for instance never claimed that he was descended from King Frederick the Great or from Siegfried or any such thing. He liked to present himself as a true come-from-nowhere self-made individual with a strong will.

Whereas in the Ancient World people believed in family, bloodline, and inheritance and stuff.

Well, yes. People trying to count the Gilgamesh Epic as the first science fiction story just because the character tries to use reason is stretching credulity to the breaking point though it does seem quite a number of science fiction writers say "Frankenstein" is the first story that is undeniably science fiction.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Well, yes. People trying to count the Gilgamesh Epic as the first science fiction story just because the character tries to use reason is stretching credulity to the breaking point though it does seem quite a number of science fiction writers say "Frankenstein" is the first story that is undeniably science fiction.

Because with science-fiction, there's a before and after Frankenstein in a significant way that there isn't with anything that came before or since.

[Kirby101]

Because with science-fiction, there's a before and after Frankenstein in a significant way that there isn't with anything that came before or since.

And again, that just denotes most significant and is not a qualification for first.

Was Jules Verne the first story about a trip to the moon? No, it might be the most important or significant, but it was not the first. There were almost a dozen before, including one by Lucian in the first Century.

Is Jules Verne the first science fiction author? Again no, even though there is a before and after Verne. Your criteria just doesn't hold up.

[DrNewGod]

Nobody has a real satisfying answer to that. It's like asking why Robin Hood as a folklore character emerged in England and didn't in France or Spain. How did the Vampire emerge in Eastern European folklore and not in Western Europe?

You can argue that there's something in the American pioneer spirit or frontier spirit, or emerging imperial confidence, that inspires the development of ideas like this, a land of opportunity and possiblity. That stuff pre-existed superheroes.

You had the Horatio Alger stories, the Tom Swift Edisonade stories, Hugo Gernsback's Golden Age science-fiction stories which was all about American entrepreneurs and geniuses having this bold confidence about the future being theirs, that they get to harness everything and do anything. And in a way the superhero genre is an evolution within that mentality, so Superman, a bold confident assertion of American spirit and genius, of the immigrant who arrived in America and became the champion and defender. And other superheroes that followed are more or less variations on that, Batman is of course the American Imperial Capitalist who can harness the knowledge and skills of people across the world to make himself a one-man army against crime.

Academically speaking, Superheroes are all variations of "the romance" which is this genre of writing in the 1600s where people wrote fantasies and other stuff about ideal worlds and places. Stuff like Pilgrim's Progress and so on. And a lot of people pointed that where in England and France romance evolved to become the realist novel in America romance continued to be a major dominant genre, and that led to America embracing science-fiction as a major popular genre far more deeply than other countries, and superhero stories are largely science-fiction.

Interesting points all. As to Robin Hood, I've heard speculation that the legends roots germinated during the Norman Conquest of England, when humble Saxons here and there lashed out at their occupiers. Even when the Normans fully assimilated/melded into subsequent English culture, hostility toward France helped keep Robin Hood alive.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Interesting points all. As to Robin Hood, I've heard speculation that the legends roots germinated during the Norman Conquest of England, when humble Saxons here and there lashed out at their occupiers. Even when the Normans fully assimilated/melded into subsequent English culture, hostility toward France helped keep Robin Hood alive.

The stuff about Robin Hood as someone rebelling against the Normans was made up by Walter Scott (the man who invented Historical Fiction as a genre btw) but actual medieval ballads with Hood didn't have that. After all the Saxons weren't "humble" they were themselves invaders from Europe who settled in England and oppressed the peasantry (and notably practised slavery until the Normans ended things). The Saxons were just a bunch of petty nobles who lost a fight with even stronger petty nobles but they weren't in any sense better or different from them.

The whole idea of Saxon reconstruction came later and it's a big part of Modern English nationalism (and also Brexit delusions) but it's historical nonsense.

The original ballads of Robin Hood is more or less what you see what you get. A dude lived in a forest stole from the rich and gave to the poor, got into scrapes with the Sheriff of Nottingham, hung out with his merry men. Later on people said he was rebelling against King John and supported the Good King Richard the Lionheart and so on.

There was this cool movie in the '70s, called ROBIN AND MARIAN with Sean Connery as an older Robin Hood and Audrey Hepburn as an older Marian, and it's really great. To me it's not far from the superhero deconstructions you get with Moore and Miller though the director based it on westerns with aging cowboys finding out that the wild west (or the forest) is getting civilized and all.

[OopsIdiditagain]

Probably some drawing in a cave.