Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud may or may not have said. Sometimes a cigar isn't just a cigar, though. Sometimes it represents a penis, or your repressed desire to put things in your mouth, or the bullet that killed your parents and pushed towards the path to becoming a vigilante who got revenge on criminals whilst dressed as a bat. It could mean many, many things. Freudian analysis has been widely discredited by both psychologists and kids who get told that peeling the labels off soda bottles means they're sexually frustrated, but there's still something to be said by looking for the symbolism and hidden meanings in all walks of life. Not just in yourself, but also in the culture that you consume, and especially comic books. Superheroes had been influenced by and reflected the times and places they were created in since the beginning, and they've been around long enough for readers to have imbued their own meanings into what, to the untrained eye, look like simple, fun stories. On the surface Spider-Man's just a relatable teen hero, but his burgeoning (and sticky) powers could also be an allegory for the changes of puberty. Superman is the ground zero for superheroes, but even he was inspired - and to a degree, still carries the message of - Nietzsche's Ubermensch. It can go even deeper than that, though, with comic books serving as metaphors for any number of hidden messages and meanings that might have totally passed you by. Here are just a handful of the alternate takes on classic superhero stories and characters, looking beneath the surface and figuring out what all these tales of biff, pow, zap and zoom are really about. Or at least, some of the strangest theories some nutters have come up with when it comes to simple yarns of people in times punching each other really hard.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
