Word balloons
and pulp fiction

The United Nations is now so entrenched in pop culture that it’s become a shorthand for the centre of world politics.

In moving to this place of centrality, the idea of the United Nations, and what it can do and achieve, has become larger than life, and often frequently does not reflect what the United Nations actually does.

Nowhere is this better seen than in the depiction of the United Nations in futurist literature and comic books. Comics like UN Force present a fantastical picture of superheroes entrusted with helping the UN carry out its mandate for securing international peace and security.

Other comics see the UN as capable of restraining the most powerful superbeings – as in the comic where Batman puts Superman on trial in the General Assembly.