Full Description
This Companion explores the evolution, representation, and meaning of superheroes within the broader popular media and culture landscape, as connected to both contemporary and historical frameworks. The volume proposes itself as a comprehensive resource in the interdisciplinary field of 'Superhero Studies', acknowledging it as its own area of scholarly and cultural interest. Superhero Studies brings together perspectives from a number of intersecting disciplines, such as comics studies, film studies, television studies, fandom studies, game studies, and beyond. In answer to the evolutionary portrayals of superheroes in our cultures, histories, and narratives, The Routledge Companion of Superhero Studies addresses the development, transformation, and meaning of these iconic figures, by taking a transnational, multimedia and interdisciplinary approach to assessing their importance in our evolving representational contexts.
Contents
Introduction: Approaching Superhero Studies as a Field PART I Creating and Selling the Superhero 1. Creators and the Creative Processes Behind Comics 2. The Flash and the Ages of Superheroes: Racing Through History 3. The Creation of Superheroes and Supervillains Through Alchemy, Science Accidents, and Violent Scientific Delights 4. Experimentation and Containment: The Metafictional Superhero 5. What The Kids Want: Superheroes and Shared Universes 6. Out of the Multiversal Closet: Alternate Realities, Reboots, and Transmedia Coming Outs 7. Punch-Ups on Parade: Celebrating and Marketing Queerness in Marvel and DC's Pride Month Anthologies 8. Super Powers and Secret Wars: The Cultural Value of Superhero Action Figures 9. From Zero to the Hero's Journey: The Masters of the Universe Franchise across Audiovisual Transmedia 10. How Externally Licensed Intellectual Property Dictated Changes in Marvel UK's Publishing Output of the 1970s-1990s PART II Adapting the Superhero 11. Batman and the Body on Screen 12. The Umbrella Academy: Re-imagining the Subversive Superhero Family, from Panel Scenes to Netflix Screens 13. Princesses vs Power: The Animated Depictions of Original and Rebooted She-Ra 14. The Divided Fourth Phase of Marvel Licensed Video Games (2013-) 15. Financial Kryptonite: The Foiled Attempts to Bring Superheroes to the Stage 16. Life and Death in Gotham City: Batman: The Audio Adventures' Aural History of the Superhero Genre 17. Rehearing the Superhero in the 21st century: Superman, Wonder Woman, and Music 18. Cosplay Capers: The Twinned Genealogies, Cultural Imaginaries, and Affects of Superhero Cosplay 19. Renegotiating Canonicity: Fanboy, Parody, and Mark Garvey's Union Jack (2019) 20. Winter Soldiers: National Identity and Responsibility in Captain America Fanfiction PART III National Superheroes and Translations 21. Flying British Superheroes of World War II and Beyond: The Historical Turn in Britain's Aviation War in Popular Culture 22. Canadian Superheroes and the Struggle for National Representation 23. Modern Czech Superheroes: Miracle and the Spring Man as the Defenders of the Nation 24. Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a Plane. No, it's Super-French! 25. Rat-Man: An Italian Superhero Parody 26. Superhero Toys, Nostalgia, and the Assassination of Abe Shinzo 27. The Tokusatsu Heroes and Magical Girls of Senki Zesshō Symphogear 28. Chinese Translations of American Superhero Films and Television Series PART IV Superhero Identities 29. With Great Power, Comes an Armored Corset: Clothing as Empowerment for Female Superheroes 30. What it Means to be Free: Disability, Neurodivergence, and the Super 'Freak' 31. The Legal Aspects of the Ownership of a Superhero Identity 32. Companions, Apprentices, Enemies: The Many Roles of the Sidekick 33. Morality and Familial Relationships in the Marvel Cinematic Universe 34. When the Gods Walk Among Us: Superheroes as Dangerous Divinities 35. Not Like the Others: Catwoman as Transgressive Hero 36. Supervillains are the Real Heroes 37. The Cult of Marvel's Loki(s), and their (Queer) Redemption 38. The Power in Seeing Yourself in Another: X-Men, Audiences, and Queer Rights through X-Men '97 PART V Evolving Superhero Debates and Concerns 39. Swamp Thing: EcoGothic Monster or Environmental Champion? 40. Animal Man: The Countercultural Superhero of the Anthropocene 41. Wakanda and Technology in the Anthropocene: Black Panther's Lesson on What a Sustainable Coexistence Looks Like 42. Green Lantern, Structural Racism, and N.K. Jemisin's Far Sector 43. The Shield or the Skull: The Civil-Military Gap, the Militarized Superhero, and Veteran Stereotypes in American Myth and Memory 44. Trauma in Superhero Films: The Case of Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) 45. The Phoenix and Dark Phoenix Sagas: Moral Ambiguity, Disagreement, and the Superhero Mission 46. The Unbelievable Gwenpool and the Limits of Empathy 47. Legacy, Memory, and Fatherhood in All-Star Superman (2005)
