The popular culture lost an unsung hero this week with the passing of Jules Schwartz. Not exactly a household name was Schwartz, but he had a tremendous impact on the culture through two different careers. First, in the 1930s as a young agent for science-fiction authors, he helped usher in the ?Golden Age of Science Fiction? that produced many of the great names in the business ? Asimov, Bester, Clarke, Heinlein, Bradbury (yes, I am aware of his work). Then in the mid-1950s, as an editor at what became DC Comics, Schwartz almost single-handedly fostered the rebirth of the superhero-comic genre by authorizing a new story on The Flash that reconceptualized the character.
Superhero comics had undergone its own ?Golden Age? at roughly the same time as sci fi generally, from the late 1930s until after World War II. But then the form shrank substantially, partly for creative reasons, partly because of political pressure and some odd sexual allegations about Batman & Robin (bogus) and Wonder Woman (where the story is more complicated). Basically, though, the form was too juvenile for the changing demands of the marketplace. Schwartz changed that with the Flash to some degree, paving the way for it to be changed much more in the early 1960s by rival Marvel Comics with characters such as the Fantasic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, and the Avengers. The resulting Silver Age created characters that are still influential in our culture today, and even (some might say) in our politics.
Schwartz chose his own epitaph: ?He met his last deadline.? R.I.P.
