The Smithsonian and EdX are offering a free MOOC called The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact on Pop Culture co-taught by Stan Lee and Michael Uslan. It begins on May 5th and run for 5 weeks. Go here to learn more and register!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpPBs3M-4Rs]

From Superman® and Spiderman®, to The Avengers® and The Hulk® and beyond, who are these heroes? And, how have they evolved from folklore and myth, across all cultures and religions?

Learn from Smithsonian and industry experts including:

Stan Lee, who created the modern superhero template. His early comics featuring Spiderman, Iron Man®, The Hulk, Thor®, and The Avengers led Marvel to success. He continues to reinvent himself to create modern global superheroes and appear in cameos in superhero films and TV, such as Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Michael Uslan, executive producer of top grossing, award winning movies, including The Dark Knight series, Lego® Movie, the animated Batman films and Batman® VS Superman.

In this course, we explore the following questions:

• Why did superheroes first arise in 1938 and experience what we refer to as their “Golden Age” during World War II?
• Why did the superhero genre ebb and flow in popularity over the decades?
• How have comic books, published weekly since the mid-1930’s, mirrored a changing American society, reflecting our mores, slang, fads, biases and prejudices?
• Why was the comic book industry nearly shut down in the McCarthy Era of the 1950’s?
• How did our superheroes become super-villains in the eyes of the government, clergy, educators, and parents of the mid-20th Century?
• When and how did comic books become acceptable again, and eventually become valid teaching tools in universities and schools?
• When and how did comic book artwork become accepted as a true American art form as indigenous to this country as jazz?
• Finally, when and how did comic books become “cool” and the basis for blockbuster movies, hit TV series, top-selling video games, and acclaimed animation, while also impacting fashion and style- and even the moral and ethical codes of children- around the globe?

via The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture | edX.