Remembering Doc Savage

This episode of Changesurfer Radio isn't new, but it's so good I've listened to it thrice.

Those Who Cannot Remember Doc Savage Are Condemned to Repeat Him

It's a speech by Jess Nevins about the changing attitudes toward bodybuilders.

The general population went from idealizing and imitating the marquee bodybuilders to feeling unable to live up to their models and from there to hostility. In popular fiction, this backlash manifested itself in regulation and control of the superhumans through plot: superhuman heroes inevitably either lost their powers, had them fade away, or retired, vowing never to use their abilities again.

It's like a short cultural history of the early superheroes.