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After WW2 superhero comics fell out of fashion, and some of the most successful were the horror, true crime, science fiction, and romance books. These did really well until about 1952, when the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency decided that the decline in youth morals were largely due to, you guessed it, comic books (and not all the other issues of the 50s including lingering chaos from the war). This was largely driven by Estes Kefauver (D-TN), a crusader against the mob, who decided to use the panel against the mob's influence in magazine and comic distribution (which were, to be fair, mobbed up to all hell).
To avoid government restrictions the Comics Magazine Association of America instituted the Comics Code Authority, which effectively prohibited the depiction of everything that made those horror and true crime books possible - science fiction could work around it, though, because "aliens" weren't "criminals," invasions weren't crime, and ray guns didn't have to have gory effects.
So then we get this early to mid 50s period where alien invasion and giant monster books are really popular, so when DC (and later Marvel) took a chance in bringing back Superhero books, the most logical opponents were these aliens and giant monsters they'd been using. Again, you couldn't depict criminals in a sympathetic light, but an alien? That was a foe you could give complex motives to without breaking the Code.
And as the code weakened, after the silver age, it was pretty much comic book tradition to have alien threats. Audiences were used to it, expected it, accepted it.
edit: I want to be clear that this is just my personal take, not OBJECTIVE FACT, based on the history and marketing patterns of early comics.
Last edited by mcoorlim; 04-04-2021 at 09:02 AM. Reason: disclaimer
If you have a team series, it helps to have a threat that outnumbers the team but where individual members don't need to be defined the way you would with a superteam of villains (The Brotherhood of Mutants, The Masters of Evil, The Injustice Society.)
An alien army works as the bad guy for the team's first film because they don't need much set-up and the audience understands what's going on.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets
Just your opinion or not, it fits the data pretty well. Even when the Silver Age began, aliens were showing up every second or third issue, even in titles like Detective Comics. Scale and scope are the only thing that's really changed.
As for films, if a threat big time enough to soak up all the Avengers or JL's attention is homegrown, That would imply conditions that would make the cinema world unrecognizable in comparison to our own. The Falcon And The Winter Soldier is getting close to that, but they're trying to keep it dialed back enough that it doesn't turn MCU Earth into a completely different planet. So if you still need a threat making it worth Assembling Earth's Mightiest, And you don't want to turn Earth into Krypton, where else is the threat going to come from except outside?
As an added bonus, with aliens, you can make all kinds of commentary about the human condition, but you don't actually have to point your finger at anybody.
Heck, the Justice League Of America originally came together to battle the menace of Starro The Conqueror.
Last edited by Spike-X; 04-11-2021 at 04:50 PM.
I remember reading a few complaints about it being cliche when Morrison had the JLA come together to fight an alien invasion in the 90s.
Interestingly, I think part of the reason aliens are used is because most major superheroes are sci-fi based. Having the sci-fi protagonists deal with magic can cause some friction with the setting.