Superhero Origins: What Makes Superheroes Tick and Why We Care

Superhero origin stories show us how the character becomes both super as well as a hero, and ultimately highlight the character’s humanity, even those superheroes that aren’t human. In Superhero Origins: What Makes Superheroes Tick and Why We Care, Dr. Rosenberg explores the importance of origin stories in what they tell us about the characters, and about real people. She reveals the origins stories of seven superheroes, how those stories have evolved over time, and what they can tell us about ourselves. With a foreword by comic book writer and editor Tom DeFalco. “Dr. Rosenberg explores the lives of our favorite superheroes through a psychological lens, and reveals aspects of their origins that even their creators hadn't always understood.” –Paul Levitz, comic book writer and former Publisher and President of DC Comics. “In Superhero Origins: What Makes Superheroes Tick and Why We Care, Dr. Robin Rosenberg incisively gets to the emotional heart of why we relate so strongly to superheroes. By explaining the deeper psychological meanings of the origin-determined motivations of characters such as Batman, Spider-Man, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rosenberg shows how and why these pop icons resonate with their fans across decades and cultures.” —Danny Fingeroth, author of Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society “In Superhero Origins Rosenberg does something remarkable: She gets under the cowl of the superhero and reveals how superheroes help us understand ourselves. Informed by theory and research, Superhero Origins both analyzes the superhero and gives us the tools to analyze our own origin stories.” –Peter Coogan, author of Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre. Robin S. Rosenberg is a clinical psychologist; she writes about superheroes and other popular culture figures and the psychological phenomena their stories reveal. She is author of What’s the Matter With Batman? An Unauthorized Clinical Look Under the Mask of the Caped Crusader as well as college-level psychology textbooks. She is editor of: Psychology of Superheroes; Psychology of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; Our Superheroes, Ourselves; What Is a Superhero?. She is also series editor of the Superhero series by Oxford University Press. She has been featured in various media including the Wall Street Journal, Slate, Esquire, the New York Times, NPR, Pacific Standard, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and the Superheroes documentary.