ABSTRACT
Superheroes emerged towards the end of the Great Depression. Action Comics #1, featuring Superman on its cover, marks the first appearance of a character everyone would recognise as clearly superheroic, and America really needed a superhero at this point. In 1939, National Comics began publishing stories about a rather different character that provided a different approach to the contemporary world: Batman. Published approximately a year before US troops were involved in the Second World War, the first issue of Captain America Comics also pre-empted peacetime selective service, representing in its pages something that would not happen until October 29, 1941. Wonder Woman's involvement with the Second World War is bound up with her origin story. Superhero engagement with the Second World War, on the rise throughout 1942, would peak in 1943. This can be seen as down to the fact that until 1943, the Axis forces were doing rather well.
