In 2016 alone, Marvel Studios and DC Entertainment, as well as a multitude of other production companies, released six live-action films and more than ten television shows featuring superheroes. Over the past ten years, superheroes have gone from garnering a narrow audience of children and a few nostalgic adults to achieving worldwide acclaim as a wildly successful, multibillion-dollar enterprise with a level of popularity never seen before. While individual context for each superheroвЂ™s story continues to compel audiences in the same way that social and political factors have always boosted superheroesвЂ™ success, modern influences of CGI technology and increased franchising efforts have allowed superheroes to appeal to broader audiences within the United States and worldwide. From this research, I will argue that the 2000s and 2010s have provided fertile ground for the expansion of the superhero industry due to a combination of social, political, technological, and marketing factors. I analyzed these historical periods of superhero popularity, as well as the theories of scholars such as Marc DiPaolo, Laurence Maslon, and Andreas Rauscher, who attempt to explain this popularity. Specifically, I interrogated the reasons for increased popularity of superheroes during World War II, the early years of the Cold War, and the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s and вЂ70s. I researched the history of superhero popularity in America in order to better understand why the industry is experiencing such unprecedented success in our current moment. Comics and drawing larger audiences than ever. The industry of superhero films has ballooned over the past ten years or so, expanding into massive franchises under the leadership of longtime comic book producers Marvel and D.C.

The most unknown superhero