10 Comics That CHANGED History

Sure, the comics we’ve looked at so far have examined our more recent history, but that’s not enough for some people. What if we wanted to go way, way back? Back to long before superheroes even existed as an idea, let alone the comic books about them. It’s not a pleasant time to think about, which is why reading Marvel 1602 puts us at ease.

1602 presents a world in which superheroes have appeared about 400 years earlier than we’re used to, and honestly they couldn’t have come sooner. It may seem silly to have Spider-Man crawling around Elizabethan-era England, but once you’ve seen it, it will just seem silly that Elizabethan-era England never had Spider-Man in the first place.

If 1602 proves anything, it’s that adding superheroes to any time period only adds to the fun of learning about that time period, and does nothing to diminish it. If you happen to be a history teacher reading this, feel free to put that lesson in action. Having trouble getting your students interested in the school-taught history of British imperial colonialism? Just tell them that Daredevil was there, and he punched something! It may be a huge revisionist lie, but then again, isn’t most of the school-taught history of British imperial colonialism a huge revisionist lie? (Thank you very much, that’s a #HighBrowJoke for all the history teachers in the audience.)