HERCULES AND SUPERMAN:

THE MODERN-DAY MYTHOLOGY

OF THE COMIC BOOK

SOME CLINICAL ApPLICATIONS

Elaine Caruth} Ph.D.

"Future folklorists will find in them the my-

thology of the present day."
-QUENNELL (1941)

A little boy writes to a magazine, "Dear Editor: I love your stories

wherein Jimmy goes into the past and meets a hero who is sort of a
replica of Superman, such as Samson, H er cules, Atl as, et c. What will
you do when you run out of heroes?" (Su per man 's Pal-Jimmy Ol -
sen, 1964).
The heroes of the early comics were, in fact , not only replicas of
mythological heroes from the past, but in some cases have actually
seemed to prophesy the future. For example, almost three decades
ago the infant Kal-EI, surely the world's youngest astronaut, fired the
retro-rockets on man's first spaceship, plunged into Earth's atmo -
sphere, and crashed like a meteor onto the farm of Eben and Sarah
Kent and into the lives of untold millions of American youngsters.
Separated prematurely from his parents, expelled in cataclysmic
fashion from his native planet, Krypton, he discovers himself now a

D r. Caruth is Clin ical R esearch Psychologist, Proj ect on Childho od Psych osis, R eiss-
Dav is Child Stu dy Cent er, Los Angeles.
A prelimina ry ve rsion of th is paper was p resent ed at th e 43rd A nn ual Me eting of
American Orthopsychiatric A ssociation, San Francisco, California, April, 1966.
2 Elaine Caruth

stranger in a foreign land. Although weak and vulnerable in his

adopted identity as Clark Kent, he gradually finds (one suspects in
Walter Mitty fashion) relief and protection in a secret identity as the
omnipotent Superman. His magic powers, however, would disap-
pear if this secret identity were revealed to the world.
As early as 1940, only two years after Superman had entered the
comic book field, his general and fantastic popularity had already sur-
passed that of such time-honored favorites as Little Orphan Annie,
Dick Tracy, and Popeye. "Superman's appearance triggered an ex-
plosion in the comic book world" (Becker, 1951). As a matter of fact,
this particular comic book proved of such appeal that not only has it
been made into movies and television serials, but in the '40s was put
into a hard-cover book without benefit of cartoons, accompanied by
only a few illustrated plates (which, parenthetically, would be of
great value in today's collectors' market) (Lowther, 1942).
Many have come forward to testify for or against, to justify or vil-
ify, to condone or condemn this intruder into the field of children's
literature. These arguments for and against, however, are primarily
of didactic and historical interest (Jenkins, 1934; Wertham, 1954).
For while the critics were in action pro and can, the children "bought
the comic books, listened to the radio program, heeded Superman's
preferences in literature, clothing, bubble gum, and toys" (Becker,
1951). Man and Superman: he came, was seen, and conquered. Un-
able to beat the trend, the adults joined it, went one up on it, as it
were, and eventually wrote or Supermanship (Potter, 1959). Recently
this battle has been revived clue to the resurgence of interest in com-
ics, first by the avant-garde adults, and subsequently by the children,'
and has again become the focus of literary battles (Feiffer, 1965;
Schickel, 1965) as well as the basis of a Broadway musical.
Others with such divergent viewpoints as the sociologist, the writer,
the political commentator, and the psychologist have come forth
neither to praise nor to malign but to understand. As early as 1940
Brown pointed out: "Neither is it, to those versed in primitive myth
or to students of the blacker arts of modern demagogy, difficult to
understand why the new comics should have become so generally and
fantastically popular. For Superman, handsome as Apollo, strong as
1 The current popularity of television's Batman has developed since this paper was

proposed and will not be discussed at this time.

Hercules an d Sup erman 3

Hercules, chivalrous as Lancelot, swift as Hermes, embodies all the

traditional attributes of a hero-god."
This relationship to folklore has also been p ointed out by the psy-
choanalytic writer. For example, Martin Grotjahn (1957) has writ-
ten: "The folklore and fairy tales of yesterday take up where the
mythology of the an cients left off. They are, as Freud said, 'the run-
down mythology of former times.' Today a new form has been found .
It is represented by the movies, the funnies or comic strips, and more
recently by the new art of television which is the latest stage in this
progression.t " This relationship to mythology was also noted by
Bender and Lourie (1941) who wrote, "Comic books can probably
best be understood if they are looked upon as an expression of th e
folklore of this age. They may be com par ed with the mythology, fairy
tales, and puppet shows of th e past ages.... that they supply a real
need for the child there can be no doubt. "
These authors suggest that com ics offer a kind of therapeutic effect
to the normal child and, in addition, have found them a crucial posi-
ti ve factor in the fantasy life of several em otionally disabled children.
They emphasize the predominance of fantasies of omnipotence in
their content, now expressed in terms more appropriate to the pres-
ent da y. W e are reminded here o f Sandler and N agera's anal ysis of
fan tasy (196 3) in which they noted that" one of the main mechanisms
used b y cer tain ch ildren to deal with lowered narcissistic ca thex is of
the self was th e cre a tion of daydreams in which the ch ild could r estore
his diminished self-esteem through th e creation of ideal and satisfying
si tua tion s in which he pla yed a cen tral and ofte n heroic role ."
Our child patients ma ke ample use of com ic book heroes for this
kind of fantasy as they work with u s on their problems. Recently I had
occasion to observe severa l preadol escent gir ls who, during treatment
hours, became deeply in volved in a number of com ic bo oks which had
been deposited there for safekeeping fro m parental disapproval and
disposal. Each of these ch ildre n happened to have one parent in a
professional field; all were extremely bright and well-read in addi-
tion to their addicti on to the com ics; all presented some what similar

" Ekstein , in a per sonal communicat ion , has suggested th at comic bo oks a re th e " r u n -
down fairy tal es of former tim es." H e was awa re, of course, as mu st have been Freud,
that the qualifi cation " r u n-down" is but an expression of th e writ er's longin g to re tu r n
to literature that had ap pealed to him in th e pa st.
4 Elaine Caruth

features in their symptomatology and personality organization. These

were children who might best be described as possessing marked oral
character traits; they were overweight, one severely so, and the most
salient feature of their personalities was an incorporative, devouring
mode of relating, alongside of a determined denial of any experi-
enced dysphoric affect.
These were children with seemingly bottomless appetites for
things, children who demanded incessantly concrete expressions of
interest and approval on the one hand, while on the other hand they
denied and desperately strove to ward off any awareness of underlying
feelings of impotence and helplessness with all the attendant anxiety
and rage. They turned to reading comics during treatment at those
junctions when they had to struggle against the eruption of strong
feelings of helplessness and anger. They felt that no one could really
listen and understand their needs, and acted as if they had determined
to turn only to themselves for help. Having once been disappointed
in the outside world, they now felt they had to grab for themselves
since they were convinced they would not be given to. One child, for
example, who was insatiably jealous of her younger sister, revealed
that she had decided never again to turn to her mother for help after
her appeal had been rejected at an earlier date in favor of the younger
sibling's need.
This was a child who initially presented an overlay of phobic symp-
tomatology which was successfully resolved through more conven-
tional play therapy sessions. However, with the gradual emergence
of deeper character problems, the play turned from playacting to
acting out (Ekstein and Friedman, 1957). She first initiated activities
via which she could create a situation designed to involve the thera-
pist in a feeding activity and made elaborate preparations for a feast
for which she eventually provided the food. With the deepening of
the transference, however, she created a nurturing but communion-
like relationship by withdrawing into the world of the comic books
through which she both acted out her desires for omnipotence and
her feelings that the therapist was helpless. Simultaneously, she main-
tained communication on a level that revealed the very regressed de-
sire to be loved and understood without any conditions being imposed
upon her, to be granted unlimited, "on demand" feeding on this
Hercules and Superman 5

sym bolic level whereby she devoured with her eyes rather than with
her mouth."
Through their reading, the children virtually seemed to re-create a
glass wall between themselves and the therapist, reminiscent of the city
of Kandor, shrunken and placed within a glass cover by Superman's
evil nemesis Luthor. Behind this shield the child is walled up as in a
fortress by which she is both protected and imprisoned simultane-
ously. The tremendous denial of the need and longing for others was
graphically portrayed by the one child who decided to create her own
comic strip world and call it "Utopia." Its first inhabitant was a half-
man, half-woman figure, truly sufficient unto itself like Superman,
about whom it has been said, " N oth ing less than a bursting shell could
penetrate his skin" (Seldes, 1942), and who knew not of earthly needs
such as love, affection, or medical and psychological assistance. This
child, who desperately clung to a denial of any softer feelings behind
the front of an all-powerful self-sufficiency, subsequently read, with
blushing in sight, the following story: Superman, separated somehow
from the gentle alter ego of Clark Kent, turns into a cold, feelingless
monster who tries to kill Clark Kent.
Parenthetically, it should be mentioned that two of these particu-
lar children were also devoted students of mythology and began to
elaborate with the therapist upon the many parallel features of the
various gods and the various "su per" characters.
The use these nonpsychotic youngsters made of the comic books
is in marked contrast to that of an eight-year-old borderline schizo-
phrenic little boy, who did not merely identify with the characters or
use them as ego ideals, but rather merged with them in a fusion
kind of relationship in which he, as the "Super-Bobby," could fly,
knock down walls , etc. This was a borderline boy whose level of
functioning fluctuated rapidly, but generally there was sufficient ob-
serving ego function to r estrict the acting out of these fantasies to the
treatment room. Occasionally, however, there were episodes where
the inability to distinguish cleariy between himself and the super-
identity led to dangerous psychotic acting out.
Although the present paper deals primarily with the so-called ac-
tion comics, it should be noted that many other types of comics are
3 S. W. Friedman, M.D. : personal communication.
6 Elaine Caruth

also utilized by the patients. One child, who was preoccupied with
how much money the therapist was getting, and was convinced th at
she could be tolerated for no other re ason, read and reread about
Richie Rich, the poor little rich boy who is turned over to the care of
servants and then has the nightmare of being deserted by them after
he inadvertently helped them to become wealthy. After several years
of treatment, the patient finally revealed her concern that the thera-
pist would terminate treatment after the therapist had "gotten
enough money out of my parents." Another favorite was Archie who,
after disobeying his parents and spending money me ant for television
repairs to gratify his appetite, is trapped in the television set , a he lp-
less, passive on looker as he is changed from channel to cha n nel, a
truly drastic punishment for a greedy, rebellious child .
Since the modern comic book with its specific mythology has mean-
in g much beyond the clinical applications described above, I wou ld
like to turn to a brief d iscu ssion of the comics th emselves. I shall at-
tempt to utilize clinical experience to learn somethin g about their
function in the maturation an d development of normal children who
are not in need of clinical help.
With r espect to why the com ics have su pplan te d earlier form s of
mythology, Arlow (196 1) sugg ests th at, " because th e official rel igiou s
m yths no longer fit th e in ternal plights of th ose who requir e the m,
th ere is a re acti vation of th e old myth ologies.. .. th e var ious media
of mass comm un ication, com ic books an d liter ature have been is-
suing forth a stream of reanimat ed m ytho log ical figures in d istin -
guis hable from their classical prototypes. Patients in quest of th e
realization of their narcissistic ego id eals almost in variably introduce
evidence of some such id entification during the course of their treat-
m ent, fr om various representations of th e Greek gods, to th e her oes
of the comic books."
The rel ationship bet ween play an d fantasy has been car efu lly elu-
cida ted by Freud in th e 1908 pap er , " Creative Writers and Day-
dreaming," and was su bseq ue n tly elab orated by Ek stein and Fried -
man (1957) with re spect to the gene tic de velopment of thinking
from th e stage of helpless impulsin g to th at of re ali ty-dominated sec-
ondary process thought, along a devel opmental con tin u um of diff er-
ent levels of play and fantasy activity.
Hercules and Superman 7

Freud pointed out that "every child at play behaves like a creative
'writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, re-arranges
the things of his world in a new way which pleases him ... he takes
his play very seriously [tJhe opposite of what is play is not what is
serious but what is real he likes to link his imagined objects and
situations to the tangible and visible things of the real world. This
linking is all that differentiates the child's 'play' from 'phantasying'.
. . . the growing child, when he stops playing, gives up nothing but
the link with real objects; instead of playing he now phantasies. He
builds castles in the air and creates what are called day-dreams."
Freud goes on to specify that the motive forces behind the production
of fantasies are unsatisfied wishes and an unsatisfying reality. Fur-
thermore, these fantasies can be described in terms of very specific
temporal characteristics; they hover between the present in which
the wish is aroused, the past in which the wish was fulfilled, and the
future to which the child assigns the play or fantasy situation when
the wish will again be fulfilled.
Ekstein and Caruth (1965) have attempted to re-evaluate this con-
cept of fantasy in the light of newer notions of ego psychology and
with specific application to Utopian fantasies. Instead of emphasizing
the regressive wish in the service of instinctual gratification as has
been the tendency of many writers (who have perhaps overlooked
Freud's own emphasis that the child's play is dominated by the wish
to be grown up and by the attempt to master), they have suggested
that despite the seemingly magical, regressively dominated manifest
content of the myth or fairy tale or Utopian fantasy ("the grownup's
fairy tale"), the hidden truth behind each fantasy reveals the fact
that the world of "immediate impulse fulfillment must be renounced
in favor of the world of reality in order to gain the capacity for post-
ponement, delay, and intermittent gratification which must be sought
for and worked for ever and ever again."
The baby's first play with the spool accompanied with the words,
"Mommy go-mommy come," has been described as his first great
cultural achievement (Freud, 1920). He moves thereby beyond the
hallucinatory wish fulfillment to play in which he weaves the fantasy
around an external object (Waelder, 1932). This embodies the es-
sence of all future play and fantasies and may well be considered the
8 Elaine Caruth

first Superman fantasy. The baby experiences, in the present, the

frustration engendered by mother's leaving, and remembers the past
gratifications of ego needs as well as instinctual needs attendant upon
her presence. He then works adaptively in the present, via the play,
to enable himself to bring her back; truly a magical feat fit for a Su-
perbaby whose omnipotent fantasies cloak, in Walter Mitty fashion,
the deeper feelings of inner helplessness and impotence of the Clark
Kent-like real baby.
In addition to these generic factors common to the myth, fairy tale,
Superman comic, and Utopia, there are also specific attributes and
characteristics common to each which leads to their varying appro-
priateness and appeal to different age groups and different person-
ality organizations. The fairy tale, for example, is a cautionary tale
which speaks to the child who is struggling to renounce the early
childhood gratifications, the primary process world dominated by
the pleasure principle, for the world of delay, postponement and
work; and to the child who is still in the process of internalizing the
parents and has not yet effected a stable identification with them.
The comic books, specifically the action comics with which I am
primarily concerned here, are of particular appeal to the older la-
tency and preadolescent child who is in more of a transitional phase
between primary and secondary fantasy interests, between infantile
sexuality and latency, between role playing and identity formation.
By primary process fantasy I refer to those fantasies devoid of any
possibility of fulfillment in reality because they are dominated by the
type of thinking found in dreams and fairy tales, that is, prelogical
magical thinking. Secondary process fantasies, on the other hand, ad-
here to the reality principle and are potentially realizable in reality.
Superman and his associates, the Justice League of America, straddle
both worlds, as it were, and are fully committed to neither. The
stories are couched in the language of the secondary process, and the
magical feats are garbed in a pseudoscientific technology. The heroes,
too, are engaged in a kind of superego struggle with their personal
Satan (Luthor) and the inhabitants of Earth 3, a kind of idlike moral
inverse of Earth 1, where all that is good is bad, and all that is bad
is good.
For many children these comics seem to serve the function of a kind
of forbidden game; neither fully fantasy nor fully play, but transi-
Hercules and Superman 9

tional between these two phases of psychic activity. They have the
combined impact of appeal to visual imagery, of the utilization of
the magic thinking of the primary process, of a hint of the secrets
of the adult world of reality (Bechtel, 1941), and, all too frequently,
of the added enticement of parental disapproval.
In many ways the myth of the genesis of Superman is a retelling
of the story of a growth-individuation struggle, and the autism-sym-
biosis conflict. For Superman, prematurely separated from his par-
ents due to the violent destruction of the planet Krypton (suggesting
also some archaic birth fantasies), is endowed with superpowers here
on Earth where he arrives alone. The price he pays for these omnip-
otent powers, which must be kept secret, is an autisticlike isolation
devoid of object relations. He can maintain this unique primary proc-
ess secret identity only through the autistic retreat, otherwise he,
too, is prey to the destructive forces of evil like all other mortals. On
a somewhat different level, we can also see how the Superman-Clark
Kent dichotomy is a disguised version of the preadolescent's disillu-
sionment in the parent who has gradually become stripped of the
omniscience and omnipotence with which he had been previously
endowed.' Thus, we find endless variations of the theme of how to
distinguish the real hero from the identically appearing robot or some
other kind of imitator, reflecting the internal struggles of this age
child with the bipolar images of his parents as well as of himself.
The specific use that individual children make of these borrowed
fantasies will vary with such factors as age, the nature of the specific
psychic structure with particular reference to ego functions and
thought processes, as well as drive organization, and finally with the
particular ideological and cultural milieu of the child.
For certain children, as well as for certain adults, there is also no
clear-cut demarcation between thought and act, between fantasy and
acting out. For example, in more primitive cultures and in more
primitive personality organizations, the thought and act may be so
closely equated that there can be no maintaining of a stable differ-
entiation in function between fact and fantasy, between inner and
outer reality which not only meet but fuse. Thus we may have a kind
of "fantasying out" in action or "acting out in fantasy" as with the
child who, imagining himself to be Superman or anyone of the myriad
~.~ The creators of Superman were themselves in their adolescent years at the time.
10 Elaine Caruth

of magically caped Olympianlike heroes of the Justice League, goes

flying off the roof top only to discover instead the sad fate of Icarus.
In somewhat similar fashion, we have also the individual who is so
fully convinced of the power of the thought to become a reality that
there may occur a kind of "voodoo" death; the very thought that one
was being acted upon by another's thoughts creates a corresponding
fantasy of such potency that it may create a complementary re action
or "actin g in" on the part of the subject; a theme not entirely alien to
these types of comic books. Testifying to the growing recognition of
the importance of such mechanisms, a case has recently been reported
in which a fatal asthmatic condition developed in a previously healthy
adult male, follo-wing his mother's prophecy of "dire results if he
went counter to her wishes" (Mathis, 1959). Mathis concluded that
there was an indirect connection between the mother's death wish and
the final fatal outcome, and suggested that "fatal psychosomatic con-
ditions can be modifications of the more primitive and direct 'voodoo
death.' " The equation of thought and act which links the child, the
dreamer, the schizophrenic, and this kind of religious and supersti-
tious belief is a frequent theme in the Superman kind of comics where
superpowers, such as super-vision, flying, etc., have little allegiance to
everyday principles of physics, psychology, and physiology.
It is of interest to note that Arlow (1961) has recognized that such
regressive aspects as the concrete, audible, and visible forms in which
the mass media mythology is communicated may have important
bearing not only on ego structuring and fantasy formation during
childhood, but on the general problem of acting out as well.
Comic books are an integral part of today's literature for children,
and their reading fulfills an important psychic function in the inner
life of those latency and preadolescent children whom they attract.
In both form and content they seem to appeal to a transitional phase
of development, marking the shift from a predominantly infantile
pleasure-principle-dominated level to a more mature reality-prin-
ciple-dominated level of functioning; and like the myth and the fairy
tale, they facilitate the working-through process. They do so in part
by externalizing the conflict, enabling the child to identify and come
to grips with some of the conflicts and reflect on a variety of potential
resolutions, facilitated in this by the opportunity for catharsis, abre-
action, identification, etc. It has been suggested that "myths must
Hercules and Superman 11

originally have served an ego need; to explain existing phenomena)

albeit in a prelogical fashion.... Superman readers regress to that
prelogical state in order to relax for a while and become all the more
logical thereafter. "5
In addition to the use made of comic books by many healthy chil-
dren, they may well be of specific importance in the inner develop-
ment of children experiencing certain psychological difficulties. It
has been found clinically that some children turn to reading the com-
ics during the therapy session at moments when this activity can be
understood as a meaningful communication about, and reflection
of, the nature of both the transference and the resistance. The nature
of this communication varies considerably. At times the act of read-
ing comics during a therapeutic interview can express a need for and
experience of a regressive, communionlike, infantile relationship in
the transference. In other instances this activity fulfilled a necessary
defensive function that served as a brake to slow down the eruption
and expression of more intense conflictual feelings, as may well be
true of the act of reading any material during the therapeutic session.
At times it appeared as an ego-syntonic piece of behavior reflecting a
characterological tendency of the type of child who feels fully iden-
tified with the controlling self-sufficient parental role; at other times
it served as an activity which symbolized an underlying need for end-
less and limitless feeding. Further, as was noted above, it may repre-
sent a kind of temporary retreat from the pressures of secondary
process reality-oriented functioning to a more primitive world of the
primary process dominated by the pleasure principle.
Finally, for those parents and educators concerned with possible
detrimental effects, let them be reminded that: "Superman has about
him something of Goethe's 'Sorcerer's Apprentice,' of Dr. Faust, of
Hercules, and of Atlas. To be sure, Jules Verne and H. G. Wells also
make their contribution to his costume and trappings, but essentially
he owes his effect to the vanishing remnants of ancient mythology,
that collective memory of mankind which has been combined with
Utopian anticipation" (Politzer, 1963). Furthermore, "honest and
incorruptible, ... he is on the side of angels ... in favor of slum clear-
ance, [and] ... he would not strike a mother except in self-defense"
(Seldes, 1942).
5 Maria Piers, Ph.D.: personal communication.
12 Elaine Caruth

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