Why do superhero comics and movies appeal to you, in particular? Some historian friends of mine aren’t fond of them because of the savior idea that’s inherently present in them.

Well, partly I was a fan of superhero comics and movies before I became a historian. And partly because I’m a historian who studies the 1930s when superheroes were invented, I’m interested in the historical context, the way that superhero media respond to certain sociocultural anxieties – whether it’s urban crime and corruption, fascism, and war in the 1930s and 1940s, or the moral panics of the 1950s, or the counter-culture, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and Watergate in the 1960s and 1970s, Reaganism, the war on drugs, and urban decay in the 1980s, and of course 9/11. 

Now, yes, there have always been arguments that superheroes tend towards a Great Man view of history or sometimes even a quasi-fascist worldview where superior beings remake the world through violence (the thesis of Watchmen). However, these takes are rather reductive – superheroes play many different roles that don’t fit into that niche. 

Superheroes are often portrayed as inspiring and motivating ordinary people to take action as opposed to hero worship, whether we’re talking about Cap exhorting SHIELD agents to fight HYDRA in Winter Soldier or the people of New York helping Spidey fight the Green Goblin. And superheroes can also inspire non-dominant groups in a world in which they see few role models in dominant culture – hence why Wonder Woman became such an iconic figure, especially during the 1970s when the women’s liberation movement was at its peak, or how the X-Men have been used to discuss a myriad of outsider groups fighting against discrimination.