Superman e a guerra : dos magnatas das munições ao arsenal da democracia

Abstract

The present work studies how Jerry Siegel, on Superman s stories, wrote about war. For that, we chose as object the comic books that featured Superman in two periods: June 1938 to July 1939 and January to December 1942. By comparing it with other comics and discourses of its time, we searched to understand what contributed to the way Siegel writes about the causes of war, its consequences and its nature. The access to Superman s comic books happened through the series Superman Chronicles. That included editions of Action Comics, Superman, World s Finest Comics and New York World s Fair. Besides materials about comic books, we used a variety of sources to understand the context in which Superman was written: presidential speeches, literature and more ancient documents. Our work also addresses the construction of the American hero and super-hero inside comic books throughout the end of 1942, comparing Superman with other characters and stories.