Heroes and the Princesses They Would Save

Is there any point to the old archetype masculine hero in modernity? Is this something comics should even consider anymore?

The formula seems pretty simple on the surface: Strapping male, charges off to save the princess from the clutches of dastardly fiends. This was pretty prominent all the way up through "Sorry Mario, the princess is in another castle" and for some time after. Men were compelled to overcome fear and embrace their masculinity in order to rise to challenges so that they could save her from a horrors which terminally scar. How did women respond when men couldn't deny this deeply held feeling of wanting to overcome odds, to become more, so that a women could be loved and protected? "HOW DARE YOU!"

I will not go into a long rant about feminism or weakling men. However, after reading some really enjoyable Tarzan and Robert E. Howard, then immediately picking up a recent title with the "modern man" I have been smacked in the face with the feeling that storytelling itself has been destroyed by the ridiculous mythology of western political idealism. We have become ghosts, our women worthless (someone no one would fight for) and our men utterly without that which makes men who they are (The solar perfected and, inevitably, driven hard back to into sway with the lunar).

Can comic books survive "white-knighting" and degraded masculinity? What is there to save in women now that they have been "liberated"?

All the superpowers in the world only seem to highlight what is missing. The balance. Can anyone else feel this, or are we all just taking our generational turns in a grand degradation of everything that was once natural?

Edited January 13Jan 13 by deelysium