Superheroes don’t have it easy. In their never-ending fight against evildoers, they’re forced to contend with supervillains while selflessly putting their own needs on the backburner. At least they make it out of all their battles safe and sound — thanks to superpowers.
They can fly, are ultra-strong, or may have a few other fantastic tricks up their sleeves. Their special abilities have all kinds of different explanations.
For his part, Superman comes from the planet Krypton, meaning he’s actually an extraterrestrial who happens to look like a human. A spaceship brought him to Earth as an infant, and he draws his superhuman powers from the sun, which charges him up, as well as the low gravity of his adopted home planet.
Spider-Man, meanwhile, got bitten by a radioactive spider, granting him his “spider sense” and ability to climb up walls.
Sometimes genetics help, too — like with Wonder Woman, the daughter of an Amazonian and a god.
There have always been superheroes
“All the characters we see wherever, in comics and movies, nowadays actually originated in ancient times or even further back,” says archaeologist Michael Merkel, curator of the exhibition “Mythos Superhelden” at the Archäologisches Museum Hamburg.
The deities in Greek and Nordic-Germanic mythology possessed astonishing powers, he explains: “There’s Zeus, who hurls lightning, or Neptune, who can unleash storm surges. Thor, the god of thunder, can conjure up storms.”
For their part, the pharaohs also cast themselves as superheroes — as sons of the sun god, responsible for light in the world. “The underlying reasoning was that there was basically no other way to explain unusual natural phenomena. Our superheroes today bear similarities to these deities, even if we don’t deem them as such,” adds Merkel.
Superman, the moral crusader
Generally, when people think about superheroes, what comes to mind is not so much gods and goddesses, but rather the action figures they know from their childhoods — they wouldn’t guess that action figures were popular even 2,000 years ago, in ancient times. “Back then, you could buy gladiator figures around the big arenas,” Merkel told DW. “They were made of clay and had removable helmets or movable arms.”
The triumphant gladiators and deities of ancient times have given way to the heroines and heroes of modern day — those legendary, costumed characters whose stories found their origins in comics and now are raking in ticket revenue at the box office in blockbusters on the big screen.
Superman was the first superhero to claim world fame. He saw the light of day in 1938 — with the release of Action Comics #1 in 1938.
With his red cape and muscles bulging out of his tight full-body suit, he fights for justice — any place, any time — and has a definite noble streak to him. “Many superheroes came about in a time characterized by the Americans’ strict ideas of morality,” Merkel says. “They wouldn’t do anything illegal. They always had to be ‘clean’ and decent.”
Deities that are all too human
If comics had used Greek gods and goddesses as their role models, Superman surely wouldn’t have been quite so virtuous. After all, Zeus, Heracles (editor’s note: known to the Romans as Hercules), Hera and the like weren’t concerned about following a moral compass. On Mount Olympus, envy, greed, sexual debauchery, wrath and vindictiveness were on the agenda.
Zeus, the king of the gods, for instance, would constantly cheat on his spouse, Hera, and his son Heracles was conceived through one such escapade. Out of fear of jealous Hera’s wrath, Heracles’ mother abandoned him. As chance would have it, though, the child ended up in the care of Zeus’ wife, who didn’t know where he came from. Heracles owes his terrific strength to her divine breast milk. The boy also easily burst out in rage. For instance, if he felt he was admonished unfairly, he would go beserk.
People venerated the ancient gods and goddesses 2,000 years ago anyway — despite their all too human faults.
According to Merkel, current superheroes came to be in a different historical context. “Superman basically served as a role model for the soldiers and young people,” he says.
The Marvel comic hero Captain America was also viewed as such. Created in 1941 as a personification of pure patriotism, he was sent to fight against Nazi Germany. His nemesis: the supervillain “Red Skull.”
No violence? Not an option
They may try to show decency in their conduct, but modern superheroes are anything but pacifists — violence is a more than legitimate means to fight evildoers.
That also goes for Wonder Woman, aka Diana, created in 1941 and the first woman to fight for freedom and justice in a comic, with her Lasso of Truth and indestructible bracelets. She was the epitome of the pin-up girl from the Second World War. Her red chestplate featured the American bald eagle, her hot pants were the colors of the US flag and she wore a sort of tiara on her head, while red boots gave the finishing touch to her outfit. She exudes self-assuredness, strength and intelligence.
When Wonder Woman made her debut in the domain of superheroes, her male counterparts Superman and Batman (Batman had already been around since 1939) had already engaged in all kinds of adventures. Their comics were wildly popular and printed millions of copies — even if parents were concerned the excess violence depicted in them would have a negative impact on children. Wonder Woman then came to save the day. She wasn’t as brutal with villains and made more of an effort to resolve situations peacefully.
How diverse is the world of superheroes?
Wonder Woman wouldn’t end up being the only major female character to star in the ever-growing superhero universe. The variety of heroes has kept growing ever more diverse.
T’Challa, aka Black Panther, appeared on the scene in 1966 as the first Black superhero in American mainstream comics.
In 1975, the Black mutant Storm, who was raised by witch-priestesses in Africa, made her debut, joining the X-Men team. Their teacher, the telepath Charles Xavier, uses a wheelchair.
And Batgirl ended up in a wheelchair, too — continuing to support Batman as an oracle.
On the silver screen, however, the diversity leaves much to be desired. Only in 2018 did Marvel have a Black superhero, Black Panther, save the world all by himself.
And in 2019, the first woman was given the task of saving the day without any male support for the first time. “Captain Marvel” went down as a real box-office hit.
The series “Ms. Marvel” later followed in 2022, casting a Pakistani-American, Muslim teenager as a mutant superhero. Millions of South Asian women now finally have their own role model.
“Basically all countries have stories of superheroes,” says Michael Merkel — from Asia to Africa, from Europe to the Americas. And he feels these superheroes are urgently needed: “I think there are still so many supervillains in the world. And so we need heroines and heroes to give us hope.”
The exhibition “Mythos Superhelden. Von Herakles zu Superman” (The Myth of Superheroes: From Heracles to Superman) is on until April 26, 2026 at the Archäologisches Museum Hamburg.
This article was originally written in German.
