collapse of the old society

Wow, incredibly fitting analysis. :)

I've also observed that comic book heroes aren't exactly revolutionary stuff. To change things, you need a mandate, and creating a story about how a person got a mandate to use superpowers to change the world, or delegates their superpower to others, bypassing the need for mandate... that would require talk of philosophical concepts like power (and the right to use it).

Crafting stories where power gets used in a purely defensive way against violent change, allows for simplicity. No censor will find the stories politically offensive, nobody is too dense to understand... lowest common denominator -> maximum circulation -> great profit. :)