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So this is the book I was talking about today, The Psychology of Superheroes. It's pretty decent, not what I thought it was though. I got into this mini genre when I saw a show on history channel psycholanazlyzing batman and other superheroes and it had real psychologists givings explanations on why superheroes act they way they do. This book talks about weird stuff like how superheroes would cope with stress of their jobs and stuff like that. But anyway, this was the book where real PhD psychologists use wikipedia repeatedly for their references (not exclusively mind you they have a shit ton of other references, but still)

I actually thought you were talking about this guy, which I have heard quite good things about.


I've never heard of the book you speak of, so I can't judge. Probably, though, there are more interesting insights to be had from reading off-beat comic books that involve superheroes without being mainstream stuff like Batman or X-Men. For example, The Boys and Supreme Power are both realistic takes on the idea of superheroes, with a lot on their motivations. And, of course, Watchmen is all about getting inside the head of a superhero, and is probably the most interesting comic on the subject.

So to be fair I finished reading this book (the highest kudos I will give it will be to say it was a good bathroom book, although I read everybook in the bathroom so this might not hold as much weight for me) ANYWAY, I felt like I needed to clarify since I was talking shit about these guys quoting wikipedia for sources it turns out (thank god) they only quoted wikipedia when it came to story themes, archs, or characters involved in super hero comic books. So it's not too bad, better just to use wikipedia than to spent 8 hours looking through so you could quote (superman Vol. 3 #121)

Nope, that's still lame. If you're going to psychologize superheroes, you should probably be able to cite the exact issue where the incidents that you are talking about occur. Especially because, I can say from personal experience, Wikipedia does not cite the comic issues. Sometimes they talk about very specific things, but there's no mention of what issue--or sometimes even what book--it occurs in.

So fuck those guys. Cite your sources!