Superman — the most humane superhero of them all, a Big Blue Boy Scout who believes in truth and justice— has suddenly the most controversial character in pop culture.
From debates about the Last Son of Krypton’s immigration status to assertions that director James Gunn intended a Superman subplot to be an allegory of Israel’s war in Gaza, social media is abuzz about Superman, played by David Corenswet in the new movie. Even the White House via its official X account couldn’t resist getting in on the action, posting an AI-generated image of President Trump as the Man of Steel.
But this isn’t the first time pundits have tugged on Superman’s cape, attempting to drag him — and comic books — into a culture war.
Before heavy metal was said to incite satanism, before a rise in crime was pinned on hip-hop music, and before video games were blamed for mass shootings, it was comic books that fired the first shot of the Pop Culture Wars.
The most popular comics of the late 1940s and early 1950s didn’t feature Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman. Instead, they were crime and horror comics from upstart, independent publishers like EC Comics. These cutting-edge comics owed their success to shock value, featuring gory horror, gross-out humor, and raw ripped-from-the-headlines true-crime-inspired stories that drew the ire of parents, pastors, and politicians alike. Comic books were rock ‘n’ roll years before Elvis cut his first record.
Every culture war has its Tipper Gore, and the comic-book moral panic was no different.
Enter: Dr. Fredric Wertham, the psychiatrist and media personality who in 1954 — a year in which the comic book industry sold a staggering 1.2 billion issues — published his anti-comics treatise, Seduction of the Innocent. In it, Wertham railed against comics as a cause of juvenile delinquency, dyslexia, and other childhood behavioral problems that kept anxious parents up at night.
In addition to concerns about imitative violence and instructive depictions on how to commit crimes, Wertham was highly critical of what he perceived to be predatory advertising practices of comic book publishers, especially when it came to selling air-powered pistols, pocket knives and bullwhips to kids. His solution? Prohibit the sale of crime and horror comics to children.
Even Superman wasn’t invulnerable to Wertham’s criticism. As an anti-fascist social psychiatrist, Wertham decried Superman as a genetically superior savior who, through his might-makes-right methods, promoted fascist ideals. He equated the hero’s authoritarian power and vigilante justice with an uncritical glorification of force and saw Superman —and other superheroes — as fostering a sense of learned helplessness in children and contributing to juvenile delinquency by encouraging fantasies of omnipotence and dominance.
Like Nazis who misappropriated Nietzsche’s Übermensch, Wertham deeply misunderstood Superman as fascist; he even went so far as to compare Superman’s “S” shield to the Nazi SS logo. Wertham’s superficial assessment failed to account not only for Superman’s World War II-era Nazi-smashing adventures, but the character’s earliest depictions as an essentially socialist folk-hero.
Wertham’s anti-comics crusade whipped America into a frenzy, culminating in congressional hearings that pressured the industry into adopting the Comics Code Authority — a sort of Hays Code for comics — codifying superhero “do’s and don’ts,” like good triumphing over evil.
While Wertham wasn’t an advocate of the Code, he was ultimately responsible for it and the resulting overnight overhaul of the comic-book industry. Crime and horror publishers were buried. New life was breathed into the concept of superheroes, resurrecting DC Comics and giving birth to The Marvel Age of Comics, forever changing the landscape of American pop culture.
Indeed, the now-discarded Comics Code was instrumental in crystallizing our perception of Superman — as epitomized by Christopher Reeve’s paragon of virtue seen in Richard Donner’s 1978 classic, Superman: The Movie — and standardizing his morality across all superheroes. This back-to-basics take on the superhero is essential to Corenswet’s portrayal of Superman, who Gunn has said embodies “kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old-fashioned.”
To die-hard comic book geeks, Wertham remains Lex Luthor — the ultimate archenemy —and Seduction of the Innocent is comic-book kryptonite. Despite his extensive progressive bona fides, Wertham’s hatred of the comics medium has forever branded him a right-wing zealot in the minds of comic fans.
It’s easy to laugh off Wertham’s criticisms of comic books — especially Superman — as the rantings of an old man shaking his fist at a cloud. But his warnings could still prove prophetic. As both the right and left co-opt popular IP like The Punisher and Super Mario Bros.’ Luigi to advance political agendas, and as some comic fans unironically idealize fascist Superman parodies like The Boys’ Homelander and Invincible’s Overman, it’s not impossible to imagine Superman himself being hijacked by those with ill intentions, especially once the character enters the public domain in 2034.
In an era saturated with protagonists driven by grievance, narcissistic injury, and the authoritarian impulse that only they can restore order, it’s reassuring to know Superman’s humble decency is resonating with moviegoers.
After all, wouldn’t it feel good to prove Wertham wrong?
Vasilis K. Pozios, M.D., is a forensic psychiatrist with a longstanding interest in the intersection of mental health, pop culture, and violence. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Daily Beast, where he’s explored how cultural narratives both reflect and shape societal values.
