The idea of masked heroes who can lift trains and fly through the night sky while wearing primary-colored tights sounds nothing like the world we live in today. But that may be exactly what makes them so appealing.

Natural disasters, war, and economic recession are leading the headlines. For students, the added pressures of tests and part-time jobs can leave them longing for a diversion from reality.

For Chris Sarno, 19, a sophomore at Stony Brook University, comic book movies provide that distraction. ‘I believe people are always looking for some way out of their actual life, and I believe comic book movies are the perfect escape for people,’ Sarno said. ‘I personally enjoy them cause I feel they reflect society in a number of ways, and I like to see where we are.’

What makes these movies so entertaining for David Giacofei, 21, is getting a glimpse of the unimaginable. ‘I think it’s really cool to be able to go out and see something like that,’ Giacofei said. ‘It just gets your mind off things.’

Thomas Viveritl, 38, has worked at Golden Memories comic shop since 1991. He said that comic books used to be just for little kids. But with the country at war on two fronts and a recession looming over the imaginable future, Vivertil thinks that the little kid may be coming out in all of us. ‘Now, people just want to get away,’ he said.

Comic books first rose to popularity during the Great Depression, as economic catastrophe and the threat of a double-edged war in Europe and Asia weighed heavily on Americans’ minds. Joe Simon, 95, lived through that period and contributed to it by co-creating the popular comic book hero, Captain America, in 1940.

Simon called comic books a true American art form, but admitted that he wasn’t trying to create an icon. ‘At the time we [he and co-creator Jack Kirby] were, professionally speaking, at the bottom of the totem pole,’ Simon said. ‘We were just trying to stay in business.’

But an icon is exactly what Simon’s character would become. ‘I always thought he would stand for hope, ‘ Simon said. ‘But did I think we’d have him punching Adolf Hitler in the face on the cover of the first issue like we did? No.’

Now, Simon says that it seems as if the entire culture is being taken from comics. ‘I think that comics in print are just around to help support the films,’ Simon said. ‘Now they rule the box office.’

In six of the past seven years, the highest grossing live action film at the box office has been a movie franchise that has also been distributed as a comic book. During this time, our country has dealt with the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and struggled to survive an economic hurricane.

A former high school social studies teacher and now a doctoral candidate in historical archeology, Jason Ladick, 27, does not see this as a coincidence. ‘During times of crisis and mental distress, people want to identify with something good, something that can help them, something that can inspire hope,’ Ladick said.

Ladick also said he doesn’t feel as if it takes major crises for people to look for an escape from their lives. ‘I think a lot of times we subconsciously are looking for distraction[s], not just from a crisis in the country, but personal crisis, things that go on in our life that horrify us and devastate us,’ he said. ‘All of a sudden, if we look for someone idealistic like a hero, the world doesn’t look so bad. It can inspire us. Now we’re excited; we’re happy.’

People may not be able to walk around with the comfort of knowing that Spider-Man will swing to their rescue or that Superman is out trying to solve world hunger. But going home and reading about it in a book or going to the movies to watch it on screen can be a pleasurable sidestep from those realities.

Last summer’s blockbuster film ‘The Dark Knight’ took on a darker and more realistic tone than most comic book films. Ladick sees this as a positive addition to the genre. ‘When you see good overcome evil within that realistic construct, that does inspire hope,’ Ladick said. ‘I think people like that balance, when these characters are something you can relate to and still use as an escape.’