Things I Learned from Comic Books

 October 7, 2021

I haven’t looked at a comic book in over 20 years. The last time I got nostalgic and picked one up, I was perturbed at the violence and the sexualized costumes. (In the old comics, women’s costumes were form-fitting, but they covered everything.)

When I was growing up, comics actually taught me things. I learned that white dwarf stars are extremely dense and heavy. (I don’t remember why Superman grabbed 2 fistfuls of the dense matter, but I do remember that it was a tough slog for him.)

I learned about the Mona Lisa from a Batman comic.

When Lois Lane got framed for murder, I learned that lie detectors measure heart rate and respiration; so that when Superman hooked up a robot to the lie detector and the lie detector said that the robot was lying, Superman was able to prove that it was rigged.

From one Jimmy Olsen comic, I learned about the Egyptian god Anubis; that at the time of the Revolutionary War, shoes weren’t made for left feet and right feet—they were just made; and that legend had it that clocks were set at 8:20 to commemorate the time of Lincoln’s death. (The legend is bogus, by the way, but it stuck with me.)

There’s a lot more that I learned, but those are just a few examples.

(Had the internet been around in my childhood, I probably would have looked up a lot of those references and learned even more. Who knows what kids today might learn?)

 

I haven’t looked at a comic book lately; but I wonder if kids are learning anything from them. I wonder if they’re even suitable for kids.