I think part of the reason why the superhero genre often seems so schizophrenic is because so much of it was created by guys who were stealing indiscriminately from both historic melodrama and contemporary-setting penny-dreadful pulp novels. I mean, when you consider that Stan Lee was basically equal parts Shakespearan homages and Dashiell Hammett settings, fused together with sci-fantasy deus ex machinas, it's amazing that it's all held together as well as it has.