Coming from a cold-war society, Marvel Comic creators wanted their characters to redefine the superhero by eliminating pre-existing conventions. Marvel Comics under the creative drive of Stan Lee, started to feature a strong line of anti-heroes. [5] These characters didn’t typically have greatness “thrust upon them,” but grabbed it from the depths of their suffering. The first of such super heroes was the Fantastic Four; which debuted in 1961. The Lee and Kirby story involved a group of four characters who acquired their powers amidst a space trip “that went wrong.” Marvel Comics, through its characters, combined science fiction, fantasy and sometimes horror genres. One of the characters, known as the Thing, was permanently altered into an orange, monstrous form. Besides the DC Comics character the Martian Manhunter, who appeared in 1955, there were few characters that appeared non-humanoid. That clearly changed as Marvel Comics continued to “roll out” their characters
. In 1962, The Hulk and The Amazing Spider-man were released. The Hulk, a victim of a gamma radiation accident, was a tortured soul trapped within the body of a green behemoth. Spider-man, which was the most popular of these new heroes, was a teenager who, upon being bit by a radioactive spider, gained powers. The core of Spider-man’s appeal didn’t come from his powers, but rather from his alter-ego Peter Parker. Parker, being a teenager, was often filled with self-doubt. This perfectly captured the persona of the average young person during the 1960s who lived among such controversy as the civil rights movement, the destruction of segregation and the advent U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
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