Symbolism in Detective Comics

[kcomics]

I feel like I'm missing some of this. I grew up watching/reading about these characters, but I don't think I'd ever thought about what they represent or why until fairly recently, and a lot of it is pretty interesting. Does anyone know where I could learn more about the symbolism in DC Comics?

[DABellWrites]

Do you mean what the characters represent?

[kcomics]

Do you mean what the characters represent?

Yes, mostly.

[DABellWrites]

Yes, mostly.

Well, it depends. These characters represent things to many different people. I can claim for certain, Superman represents dependability, strength, and being the guy who won't let you down. I based this off the Superman imagery I've seen in business and my city.

[kcomics]

Well, it depends. These characters represent things to many different people. I can claim for certain, Superman represents dependability, strength, and being the guy who won't let you down. I based this off the Superman imagery I've seen in business and my city.

Cool. I'm just trying to create my own comics universe for a NaNoWriMo project, and I didn't want to do something weird with the symbolism that made the message seem odd, so I thought it would be a good idea to learn about symbolism in comics, but I wasn't sure where to begin, so I thought I'd ask, and since this is the DC board, I decided to ask about DC Comics in particular.

[Lightning Rider]

I think it would probably help to go by character, by era. And when looking into the well-defined eras (the origins especially), it helps to look at the author's influences and intentions.

So Golden Age Superman, for example, is a depression-era people's champion. His adventures are informed by the era's struggles against corruption and war. His origin contains both futuristic and religious overtones. Marston's Wonder Woman was highly influenced by the women in Marston's life & Greek mythology. Silver Age characters like Barry Allen and Hal Jordan marked concrete step into science-fiction and featured high concepts about chemistry, physics, space travel, and aliens....etc. Years later different writers would add different wrinkles to each of them and shift what they represent depending on the story.

Looking at the JLA as a pantheon also helps distinguish what they represent.