Superman

Monomyth (Joseph Campbell)
1. Hero ventures away from the everyday world into one of supernatural wonder.
2. Hero successfully struggles against fabulous forces.
3. Hero returns to the everyday world to bestow benefits on the people.

American Monomyth
1. A community in harmonious paradise is threatened by evil.
2. Normal institutions fail to contend with the threat.
3. A selfless superhero emerges to renounce temptation and redeem self and community.
4. His decisive victory restores the community to its harmonious state.
5. The superhero recedes into obscurity.

Zorro
Tarzan
Doc Savage
The Shadow
Dick Tracy
The Phantom

Jerry Siegel
Joel Schuster
Action Comics #1 1938

Detective Comics (DC)
Marvel Comics

Superman's first era: Hero as lone redeemer
Puritan captivity myth
Vigilante justice (Westerns, Batman)
Superman's second era: Hero as defender of institutions
World War II
Cold War
Supermans's third era: Hero as modern, sexualized figure
Vietnam
Gets married, loses powers, dies