Anjos e demônios modernos

Abstract

It studies three well-known comic book superheroes: Silver Surfer, Daredevil (both from Marvel Comics) and Batman (from DC Comics). The goal is to show the universality of some of the characteristics of these superheroes with the daily human dramas and the mythical narratives. It uses the narrative analysis of the characters to describe them and compare them with entities of traditional mythologies. It is concluded that the heroes ‘Silver Surfer’ and ‘Daredevil’ correspond to archaic mythic structures of different forms of representation of their own identity. In this view, there are superheroes (Daredevil, Spider-Man and Batman) who live hopelessly trapped in the immanent world and represent the Ego-Id relationship; and other superheroes (Silver Surfer, Thor, Wonder Woman and Superman) who have ‘fallen’ from a transcendent universe and correspond to the Ego-Self relationship.