Why do superheroes tend to be orphans?

There is a subtle, smirking condemnation of the audience going on here. The inspiration for the superhero mythology didn't come from just the simple desire to tell a fun story. There was something else at work. read more

3.6k Views · View Upvoters Khalil Siddeeq, I know more than the average Joe bear about superheroes. read more

Surprisingly, Marvel doesn’t rely on orphans as much as many other media and traditional stories do. This comes from Stan Lee’s desire to make characters much more realistic and relateable. And even challenging the status quo by making purposefully unlikeable chracters. read more

(Superman, Batman, Spiderman – think about it.) This is, I would argue, fundamental to their mythical function within the American psyche: in a land of immigrants they personify the individual who is estranged from (or abandoned by) his race, his family, his emotional homeland. read more