But yes, if I were you I’d definitely cover Watchmen, Maus, and Persepolis. Simply for the great social commentary that they provide.

You may also want to take a look into the bigger issues of comics. Talk about the Kree/Skrull war in Marvel. The Deaths of both Super Man and Captain America, and how many characters who are killed of often come back.

It also be interesting to do a bit on the formation of the two main super hero teams, The Avengers and The Justice League.

Going over some of the main themes of comics would be good too, or talking about how comics have an effect all their own because they’re such a strong story telling medium.
References :

Anyway I don’t know much about American comics myself other than the big names (Batman. Superman. Avengers. That type of stuff)
But maybe something you could teach in your class is other countries forms of comics?
Like Japanese manga which is becoming increasingly popular in America and other countries in the world. It could be one of your lessons?

Just a suggestion. Good luck with your class :]
References :

- The Golden Age (How comic-books began, and the popularity of superheroes first came into existence)

- Seduction of the Innocent (Wertham’s stupid philosophy, book, the reaction, and how ironically he recently stated that he didn’t believe that comic books were ‘bad’ after all)

-The Creation of the CCA (The Comics-Code Authority, how they nearly murdered the comic-book market and it’s effect on the industry such as horror comics)

- The Coming of Marvel (How Marvel managed to join DC as one of the largest comic-book giants, and currently even beating DC to hold the largest share of the comic-book market)

- The Modern Age (Beginning from DKR and Watchmen, how comic-books were shown to be more than children’s stories and how there are some things that only the comic-book format can do)

- The Speculator Boom (I believe this was around the 90s, when variant covers were the craze, Image Comics recently came up, and every character either held giant cannons or had thousands of pockets dangling from their belts.

Of course, these are just major events in the history of the industry, but if you’re looking for fictitious events that were covered in the mainstream media you can read up about the Death of Superman, the Knightfall Batman arc, the wedding of Spider-Man, and the Death of Captain America, all of which received media attention.

If you want to show your class how much superhero comics have developed since the Golden Age, ShadowHawk by Jim Valentino is a good choice. His identity was not known to anyone, not even the reader and he was a black hero fighting a white supermacist. Not only that, but he was infected with AIDS and unlike most superhero comics, he eventually succumb to this disease and died, an event that received widespread media coverage.
References :

I think that’s what it’s called. Original superman comic.
References :

Sandman - Neil Gaiman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_(Vertigo)

Watchmen - Alan Moore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

Tank Girl - Jamie Hewlett.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Girl
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