Although the birth of the \u2018Modern Heroes\u2019 generally coincides with the appearance of Superman in 1938, the pages of early 1930s comic books were teeming with brave and reckless men, who used technology and magic to maintain the peace; benevolent masked shadows with amazing devices who battled and prevailed over criminals and mad scientists bent on world conquest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These characters who became legends were not yet known as superheroes but \u201cMystery Men\u201d, a term that evoked all the glamour and exoticism of men who wore brightly coloured tights and used ray guns with an improbable design. Also called Proto-Superheroes, they were space travellers like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, rulers of pristine jungles like Tarzan and The Phantom, wizards in livery like Mandrake and ancient knights of Camelot like Prince Valiant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sons of a time when female heroism was not yet contemplated, they made an entire generation of children dream, and today their comics are considered to be works of art identifying a fundamental period in the construction of the superhero legend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From 1938 to the present day, the history of modern mythology is linked and intertwined with that of the common man: the major world events are compared in the Timeline here with the great moments in the history of Superheroes comics, which travel in parallel in a path of creativity that transcends the boundaries of time and space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This section is dedicated to the memory of Piero Prasso, a great italian comics collector and generous donor of the works on display.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"