I think many comic writers are influenced by the deep mythic strains running through human life - the things Joseph Campbell wrote about in 'Hero With A Thousand Faces'... Superman/Lex Luthor, Batman/The Joker - it's all that Light Twin/Dark Twin, the Holly King & the Oak King, striving eternally against one another.

I'm only a surface-scratching comic reader/fan. I like the cartoons they're coming out with more recently better because the writers can get away with so much more - and there's a lot less of the wartime patriotism mixed in.