Superheroes

General George S. Patton once said that “Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.” Even though weapons are the tools used to win wars, it is the men that win them. However cliché it may sound, people are living weapons, who must be loaded with ammunition just like any other weapon. So what kinds of bullets are put in a person? Fifty caliber? Nine millimeter? Three hundred eighty caliber? As a matter of fact and of common sense, that is not what men are loaded with. No, men are loaded with completely different varieties of ammunition. Justice, truth, and strength. These are the things that make a man run through a war-torn field, watching

But once America was involved, Cap and many other heroes were actively supplying moral support and delightfully accepted distractions. Characters such as Batman and Robin were found bringing new, American-made weapons to soldiers on the front lines, while others like Bucky were inspiring younger men that had been sent across the Atlantic not to give up. In fact, one statistic, given in the PBS special presentation titled Superheroes: A Never-ending Battle, states that one out of every four magazines sent overseas was a comic book. Assuming every American soldier possessed at least one magazine each, that adds up to about four million, twenty-five thousand comic books! The real-life heroes of World War II could not get enough of the comics about Captain America and his sidekick, Bucky or about Captain Marvel, all of whom continued to provide them with a new perspective on what they were fighting for. Comics helped inspire them, but also distracted them from the fear that they felt on an almost daily basis. No amount of justice, truth, or strength could ever eliminate fear. The fear of dying a cold lonely death in a mud hole in a faraway country, fear of leaving a family behind in America without anyone to provide for them now, and fear of

For instance, the previously mentioned character, Bucky, sidekick to Captain America, was used to inspire the youth of America, not only to join up, but also to help with the war effort in America. Collecting scrap metal, donating used comic books to be recycled for the paper, and other beneficial tasks that allowed the young people of the land of the free to remain involved with the fighting that was occurring in Europe. A significant example of a young man that was affected by the influence of comic books was Stanley Lieber. This man himself worked in the comic book industry as a writer, coming up with the dialogue that was found throughout the exciting comics that were turned out by the comic book publishing company, Timely Comics. But when he felt the pull of patriotic loyalty, he signed up for the U.S. army and was shipped out for Europe. Now this may seem like a random person to mention, although it really isn’t. As it were, Stanley Lieber is still very much alive and very famous. However, he is not addressed by his birth name anymore. Nowadays he is known by millions of people across the globe as Stan Lee, the father of comic books. It is very ironic that even a comic book writer was influenced by his own work to join the fight against the Axis