HEROES AND VILLAINSPSYCHOLOGY OF COMICS

HISTORY OF COMICS

• Superman – July 1938 Action Comics #1

• Batman – May 1939 Detective Comics #27

• Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham - 1954

• Comics Code Authority – 1954

• Fantastic Four – November 1961 Fantastic Four #1

• The Killing Joke by Alan Moore & Brian Bolland - 1988

• Marvel bypasses CCA – 2001

• DC bypasses CCA - 2011

COMICS CODE AUTHORITY

• Crime is depicted as bad

• Respect for authority

• Good always triumphs over evil

• No excessive violence

• No horror, terror, gore, excessive blood, lust

• No vampires, zombies, werewolves, or cannibals

• No profanity, nudity, exaggeration of female anatomy

• No “illicit sex relations” or “sexual abnormalities”

https://youtu.be/EvLlWh-guck

WHAT MAKES A HERO?

WHAT MAKES A VILLAIN?

THE DUALITY OF CONFLICT

CONTROL & JUSTICE CHAOS & ANARCHY

DUALITY

SELFLESSNESS VS NARCISISM FEAR VS WILL

AXIS

JUSTICE LEAGUE VS CRIME SYNDICATE

UNDER THE MASK DR. ANDREA LETAMENDI

• Director of Clinical Training at

Hathaway-Sycamores Child &

Family Services in L.A.

• PhD in Clinical Psychology from UC

San Diego

• BA in Psychology from Cornell

• Host – The Arkham Sessions

DARK REFLECTIONS

• Why do we love villains? Why are

we drawn to the morally corrupt

criminal, the bloodthirsty monster, the

self-aware psychopath? • They bring out the super in

superheroes.

• The villain will draw out the

intelligence, power, physical and

emotional strength from a hero.

THE SYMPATHETIC VILLAIN

• We understand that a path toward

destruction is always wrong at the

moral level, but at the psychological

level there is always an unmet need

driving the behavior: A warm hand

to hold for Victor Fries, a sense of

community for Oswald Cobblepot,

stability for Basil Karlo, wholeness

for Harvey Dent.