Full Description
While much of the scholarship on superhero narratives has focused on the heroes themselves, Batman's Villains and Villainesses: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Arkham's Souls takes into view the depiction of the villains and their lives, arguing that they often function as proxies for larger societal and philosophical themes. Approaching Gotham's villains from a number of disciplinary backgrounds, the essays in this collection highlight how the villains' multifaceted backgrounds, experiences, motivations, and behaviors allow for in-depth character analysis across varying levels of social life. Through investigating their cultural and scholarly relevance across the humanities and social sciences, the volume encourages both thoughtful reflection on the relationship between individuals and their social contexts and the use of villains (inside and outside of Gotham) as subjects of pedagogical and scholarly inquiry.
Contents
Introduction. Not Exactly a Cowardly Lot: Gotham's Villains
Marco Favaro and Justin F. Martin
Chapter 1. Death, Monk, and Strange: The Predecessors to the Supervillain in Detective Comics
John Darowski
Part I. Arkham City: The Asylum, the City and the Ones Who Rule Them
Chapter 2. "This Place Isn't a Prison": Institutions, Choice, and the Case of Arkham Asylum
Tony Spanakos and Damien K. Picariello
Chapter 3. "You Can't Fight City Hall!": The Villains Hidden in Gotham's Government
Ian J. Drake and Matthew B. Lloyd
Chapter 4. The Owls Nesting in the Bat's City: Secrecy, Gotham's Social Structures, and the Court of Owls
James C. Taylor
Part II. Confronting Batman: Outsiders, Doppelgängers and Parodies
Chapter 5. The Mutants, the Sons of Batman, and the Long Shadow of the Bat
Damien K. Picariello
Chapter 6. Bane: the Man Who "Doppelgängered" the Bat
Jesús Jiménez-Varea
Chapter 7. Outcasts and Oppressors: Killer Moth and Killer Croc
Jason D. DeHart
Part III Creating a Villainous Identity: Form
