World War II and Comics

As I said in my previous post, Jewish comic book writers put many themes of their lives in the comic books that they were writing. Not only Jewish authors, but comic book writers of all races were affected by World War II and it showed in many of their works. Many authors put Nazi's in their comics as the villains that need to be stopped by the heroes in their stories. In the end the hero of the story would end up killing or stopping the Nazi's. Many times this ended with the war being over. Themes like this have continued going on today. We see war themes in many new comics and the movies that come from those comics. I really liked the comparison of the Superman comic to Watchmen. I have not read watchmen, but I did see the movie. Within the movie Dr. Manhattan is placed in a war and the outcome of the war is changed because of his contributions. I think authors write stories like this to express their views on the war.

Along with directly writing about wars that are going on, authors in "The Golden Age" were affected away from their own jobs as well. I thought the story of DC and All-American Comics was very interesting. Both had sort of opposite views on the war and what should be done from their stance as comic book companies. However, after Pearl Harbor was attacked, both sides became pro war and began putting statements such as "Keep 'Em Flying" in their comics showing their loyalty to the troops and the war. While I am not really for people having their opinions about war and politics all over the media (it gets annoying to be honest), this small statement showed how the comic book companies stuck together and were able to create the major comic book empires that we see today.