I got my first Spider-Man comic in 1979. I was 3. Spider-Man was cool because he swung around on webs and beat up bad guys. As I grew older, I, the nerd, loved him as a fellow nerd made good.
But I also loved Superman because he spoke to quiet, restrained strength, and because he -- like my other favorite DC character, Green Lantern -- was fundamentally, proudly American.
The essential conceit that made it so comic book writers would be employed by multinational, multibillion-dollar conglomerates was precisely that comics *are* for everyone: That they tell timeless tales (AND SO MANY SOAP OPERAS) that can speak to everyone, strong and weak.
Because of the nature of the medium and the writers, you're going to end up with some well-intentioned, cringeworthy misfires: The Green Lantern-Green Arrow team-ups of the late Sixties had their hearts in the right place and God knows where their prefrontal lobes were.
The Civil War storyline ran off the rails when fan feedback suggested the readers identified more with Dick Cheney, pardon, Tony Stark; the fit the writers pitched in response was satisfying and saddening at once.
As I grew into a man -- always a nerd at heart, but in a society that classified my form of socially awkward nerdiness as less of a negative mark than a charming quirk -- I loved those characters for inspiring, however faintly, heroism and responsibility, truth and honor.
It may be that Jung was right or overthought matters too much, but the secret to the endurance of these characters -- weirdos of varying abilities who run around in spandex body-condoms -- is that they are indeed for everyone.
These characters will fade from memory as the years pass, but the essentials of their stories will remain. Pretending otherwise is the sort of thing people who wanted to make meaningful art but instead ended up standing in the shadow of Rob Liefeld(!) do. Don't be those guys.
