The Denton Record-Chronicle recently talked to University of North Texas professor Shaun Treat, a communications studies teacher who’s generated national buzz over a graduate course he’s named “The Mythic Rhetoric of the American Superhero.”

Lucinda Breeding

He’ll teach 15 students this fall about what figures like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Hellboy and Wonder Woman say about Americans.

Here’s a hint: They say a lot.

There’s a lot to like about Treat. He’s got guts to frame what many think is a frivolous pursuit as a legitimate body of literature. A lot of people see comic books and graphic novels — which are often collections of comic books following a superhero through trials and triumphs — as something for fanboys. Comic books are the province of socially awkward boys who retreat into fantasy when the schoolyard gets too tough, or so we say. And when Marvel turns the more popular stories into movies, we see them as simple summer fare.

Treat begs to differ. He finds that the American superhero has a story to tell about what we think we deserve. The superheroes we love say a lot about what we’re afraid of, what we lust for and our perpetual belief that we need salvation.

Don’t brand Treat as an Ivory Tower egghead who draws a government paycheck to leaf through comic books. The professor has a solid point to make. Popular culture matters, and its far from being meaningless.

Superheroes do really important work, Treat says. During World War II, an edition of a Superman comic depicted the Man of Steel knocking Adolf Hitler out cold and then dragging him to the League of Nations for a trial.

The confections we consume might taste lighter than bubble gum, be it celebrity train wreck gossip, romance novels or mindless action movies, but meaningless? Surely not.

As far as superheroes are concerned, more of us are encroaching on fanboy territory thanks to the blockbuster movies.

“Even people who aren’t comic book readers are trained in the superhero rhetoric because of the movies,” Treat said.

We need these ill-fated characters, with their mutated blood, experiments gone wrong and loneliness because we live in a scary, unstable world. Real monsters lurk outside our borders. Sometimes, they managed to get in. Our space-age, wireless technology didn’t keep terrorists from taking down the World Trade Center, and a troop surge in Iraq has come with costs.

Treat said superheroes borrow from all sorts of mythologies to create saviors who fly, sling webs or, in the case of Batman, use intelligence and the best of technology to defeat the constant criminal element that keeps our moral dilemmas in motion. Superman borrows from Christianity, Treat said, and in The Matrix, Neo is Jesus with guns.

Superheroes have changed with the times. Cartoonists in the 1930s created the characters that would become comic book superheroes. As the country has matured, its Technicolor saviors have gotten more complicated.

“After Vietnam, and after Watergate, and even now after the war on terror and Iraq, these superheroes have feet of clay. Mortality and fallibility are part of the whole thing,” Treat said.

On Friday, millions surged into the multiplex to see The Dark Knight , a heart-pounding showdown between Batman and the lawless supervillan The Joker.

Why do we need Batman, the dark side of a billionaire do-gooder who wants people to fear him just a little?

What use do we have for a superhero who Treat says flirts with terrorism himself?

Batman works outside of the law, using violence and fear to influence both friend and foe.

Maybe it’s all election-year worry, and all the chatter about the limits and failings of our democracy. Treat said it’s likely a stewpot of issues that has Americans craving a hero who can be a bit scary.

We’re worried about capitalism without a conscience, and we’re worried what our hubris might have been sown abroad.

It’s easier somehow, and still useful to keep these moral scuffles in thought bubbles and rock ’em, sock ’em action sequences shot on IMAX film. It feels more like child’s play when we dress up our fears in capes and tights.

“The costumes are a uniform, and it borrows from the circus,” Treat said. “The true identities of the superheroes are cultural critiques. They allow us to deal with issues we haven’t confronted yet.”

Treat will probably dodge some barbs about making too much of a teenage boy’s pastime.

But movie houses and comic book dealers will keep up the fantastic fights, and lead the lone wolf saviors into the disasters pulsing on the set or on the page.

The world is full of risk and riddled with conflict. Americans will go on needing their Man of Steel.

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com.