By Charles Russo

Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ash ... and forgot.

Neil Gaiman, The Sandman

MORE THAN FOUR decades since he was first conceived by Stan Lee, the great green Goliath known as the Incredible Hulk is still rampaging through American culture. Even after he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone some 32 years ago, and a quarter-decade after Lou Ferrigno first appeared on CBS as the same not-so-jolly green giant, the Hulk's popularity is set to return with all the might of ... a raging juggernaut.

For all of the muscle and speed, secret powers, and uncanny abilities, the most remarkable trait of the comic book superhero is its resilience. True, many cultural heroes of the past wallow in obscurity. Buck Rogers continues to fade from popular memory, while the Green Lantern still patrols the galaxies in his monthly comic. The Lone Ranger has all but ceased to have meaning to anyone under 20, even as Batman remains immensely popular some 60 years after his creation. With Spider-Man, Daredevil, and X2: X-Men United before it, Ang Lee's Hulk is now the fourth major superhero-based film in this year alone.

Exceptionally adept at moving from comic books to cartoons, television to movies, superheroes have been a constant presence in American culture for much of the past century. In the past 25 years alone, Superman has manifested himself in four feature films, a multitude of cartoons, several different comic book titles, and two popular television series.

In 2002 the greater majority of the moviegoing public proved more than willing to get tangled in Sony's film adaptation of Spider-Man. As a result, Peter Parker easily captured the year's top receipts and even outranked the latest installment of George Lucas's highly profitable and ever popular Star Wars saga by nearly $100 million. In the year since, both Daredevil and X2 have put in hefty showings, setting the stage for the Hulk to finish off 2003 as the year of the super cinema-hero.

Of course, the success of these films is unsurprising when considering that Tim Burton's Batman was the top-grossing film of its time, and in light of the ensuing Batmania of the summer of 1989, the real question is why it took Hollywood executives a full 13 years to realize that their "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" would be an equally profitable – if not popular – venture.

As a result, the American movie audience is – for better or worse – currently in the midst of a comic book superhero-to-cinema trend that will ensure at least two such movies for the next few summers. Film versions of The Fantastic Four, The Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Hellboy all have tentative release dates in the next two years, while other comic-based projects in their early stages include the Green Lantern, Iron Man, the Silver Surfer, and Dr. Strange. Hollywood has been looking to the comic industry as a creative wellspring for a good decade now. Recent nonsuperhero films such as From Hell and Ghost World were adapted from original comics. Movie studios have also done fairly well with fledgling comic book characters such as Spawn, the Crow, Blade, and the Mask. And Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (due in theaters later this summer) is among the most innovative of the bunch, a comic book adaptation that gives the superhero treatment to several well-known characters of modern mythology.

Supersize it

Superheroes as modern American folklore began in 1938 when Action Comics premiered Superman, the same Man of Steel that had been frequently rejected by dozens of editors for five years prior. Within two years Superman was selling well over a million copies a month, and scores of new superheroes were donning their tights.

Though Americans, particularly soldiers, devoured comic books throughout WWII (Captain America's first issue depicted its hero just beating down Hitler), they soon grew weary of superheroism in the years to follow. The comic book industry had become a booming business by the start of the 1950s, only to soon be crippled by a fierce censorship campaign.

The content of the highly popular horror comics had become far too graphic for the times, a trend that would eventually result in Senate hearings, book burnings, and a temporary boycott of American comic books by Great Britain. Subsequently, the newly coined phrase juvenile delinquent became synonymous with comic books, and publishers were soon subjected to a rigid set of guidelines. By the end of the decade, the industry seemed as if it had been ravaged by Lex Luthor himself.

In assessing the years to follow, it's fair to say that superheroes may have perished if it hadn't been for a brilliant writer named Stan Lee. Yes, Lee was to comics what Homer was to Greek mythology. Not only did he create fresh and exciting new characters, but he also made them relevant for the times. As the assassination of President Kennedy poised the nation on the precipice of disillusionment, Lee put forth the flawed superhero. The Incredible Hulk, the Uncanny X-Men, even the Spectacular Spider-Man were all characters whose powers were as much a curse as they were a blessing. Sure, Peter Parker could swing from rooftops and cling to walls, but he also suffered from unfavorable press, a frustrated love life, and a tremendous amount of self-doubt (not to mention bad sinuses).

Lee's publishers no longer marketed comic books to children, but instead to adolescents. This shift accentuated a reigning paradox of the genre in which superheroes would forever teeter between an inherently childish concept (characters in tights) and increasingly adult themes (the responsibility of power). Although Lee had urged the genre toward maturity, adulthood was still a full two decades away.

Dark Knight's day

As the '70s went by, comic books and their heroes wavered between a few innovative titles (such as The Uncanny X-Men) and many more out-of-touch efforts that relied on the same childish formulas year after year. However, the industry finally achieved maturity in 1986 with the arrival of Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Grim, gritty, and about as far from the campy '60s television series as possible, The Dark Knight Returns was an ambitious and thrilling postmodern exploration of a possible future of Batman.

Much in the way that Lee had made his characters relevant to the times, The Dark Knight Returns painted a haunting picture of modern urban America. Miller seized on the media furor surrounding New York City's Bernard Goetz vigilante controversy and explored the cold war paranoia of nuclear Armageddon. His Batman was an overly righteous, nearly suicidal, and entirely unapologetic force of justice who defied the law and fiercely divided public opinion.

Though some readers cried foul, Miller's story in fact received a considerable amount of critical press from the fields of literature and art, both of which had long been condescending to the comic book medium as a whole. In addition, the DC publishing company marketed the book as a "graphic novel," a trade paperback series that not only departed from the dime-store tradition but also sought to abandon the childish nickname – comic books – that had always plagued the genre. Most important, Miller's tale marked a turning point for superheroes, and comic book stories became noticeably dark and edgy in the period following the success of The Dark Knight Returns.

In fact, it was no small irony that at about the same time that musicians were testifying on Capitol Hill against the Parents' Music Resource Center's "explicit content" stickers, comic companies were voluntarily printing "For Mature Readers Only" on some of their titles in an effort to build on a more adult image.

As these tales are increasingly translated to celluloid, both the problems and possibilities of superhero comics translate with them. Michael Keaton's Batman was obviously a long way from Adam West's campy manifestation of the same character, a contrast that further exemplified the perennial paradox of the genre: should the content of these stories remain lighthearted or instead move toward adult themes?

Although it's a relief that Warner Bros. scrapped its plans for a new Superman film starring Nicolas Cage (perhaps the casting agent thought they were filling the role for Bizarro Superman), it's a disappointment that Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky has also been derailed from his efforts in adapting Frank Miller's Batman: Year One. The prospect of Miller's edgy retelling of the caped crusader's first year had promised to be a fascinating spectacle (both on-screen and in the press) when shot through the visceral lens of Aronofsky.