Alex Grand is an internationally established comics historian, founder of the Comic Book Historians, and a regular panelist at Comic Con International: San Diego, Wonder Con, and San Diego ComicFest. He has been featured in comics-based documentaries, television, and radio programs and has appeared or been published in The Wall Street Journal, Hollywood Reporter, The Comics Journal, The Jack Kirby Collector and Alter Ego. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword by Jim Steranko

Preface

Introduction

Part 1-Building Blocks

[...] Comic Book Origins

[...] Strips' Legacy in Modern Storytelling

[...] Strips That Influenced Superheroes

[...] Pulp Fiction to Comic Books

5.Classic Hollywood Cinema and the Golden Age of Comic Books

6.Classic American Illustrators Intersect with Comic Books

7.Macfadden and Houdini, the ­Real-Life Superman and Batman

Part 2-The Rise and Fall of Superheroes

8.Superman's Greatest Strength: Litigation

9.Cosmic Rays Create Superpowers

10.Golden Age Comic Book Artists Leave Superheroes

[...] Comics versus Fredric Wertham

Part 3-Flight of the Superheroes

12.Julius Schwartz's Silver Age

[...] Birth of the Marvel Comics Group

14.Golden Age to the Marvel Age

[...] Monsters Became Superheroes

[...] Lee, Kirby, and Ditko Advanced Superheroes

[...] Marvel Method's Credit Controversy

[...] Lee Expands Superheroes Beyond Comic Books

[...] Kirby's Space Gods

Part 4-Modern Superheroes

[...] Starlin and the Death of Superheroes

[...] Byrne and the Modernization of Superheroes

[...] Moore and Deconstructing the Superheroes

[...] Origin of the Superhero Graphic Novel

Part 5-Diversity and Aftermath

[...] in ­20th-Century Comic Books

25.African Americans in ­20th-Century Comic Books

[...] Death of the ­20th-Century Comic Book Greats

Epilogue

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index