Superhero Genre Research Articles

Unintended Consequences: Spawn as “Superman Black”

ABSTRACT: While arguably the most popular and successful Black superhero in comic books, Spawn, the former CIA assassin Al Simmons turned agent of Hell, rarely exhibits his racial identity. The creator of Spawn and one of the founding members of Image Comics, Todd McFarlane, remarked that he wanted to make Spawn a super-hero “who happened to be black,” thus trying to transcend racial identity through the superhero genre. This attempt at transcendence, however, results in the suppression of Spawn’s racial identity, and ultimately an affi rmation of the superhero genre’s logic as a logic of whiteness. With the help of Frantz Fanon and numerous comic studies scholars, I will look at Spawn’s actual body, his super suit, and the rare moments of Black identity allowed him by McFarlane as a site of Spawn entering into the “bodily schema” of the superhero. After this analysis, I will use James Lamb’s idea of “Superman Black” to frame McFarlane’s wish to suppress and minimize Spawn’s Black identity and reveal how that suppression and erasure becomes integral to Spawn standing on his own as “Superman Black.”

Is Psylocke Asian? The Racial Fantasy and Ambiguity of an Uncanny Oriental

ABSTRACT: The X-Man Psylocke is often dismissed as a hopelessly problematic character: a white Englishwoman in the body of a Japanese ninja with a convoluted backstory and a sexualized costume. This essay reinterprets her as a seminal character in comics history who serves as a visual index for Asianness by revealing both America’s volatile racial politics and the enduring legacy of Orientalism in the superhero genre. Drawing on theories of racial ambiguity, Orientalist stereotyping, and interethnic transformation, I argue that Betsy Braddock’s perpetually evolving face and outfits showcase mass media’s vexed relationship with the Asian diaspora, including its obsession with Asian females, fear of miscegenation, and fascination with the martial arts. Following her original Asianification in the 1980s to her eventual return to whiteness in the 2010s, this study employs Psylocke as an illuminating figure for exploring histories of racialization, yellowface, biological essentialism, and colorblindness in mainstream comics.

Beyond the call of duty: Reimagining military service through hero narratives in the US Army’s ‘The Calling’ campaign

Abstract This study employs Erwin Panofsky’s iconographic analysis to decode the 2021 US Army recruiting campaign ‘The Calling’, situating it against the historical backdrop of military recruitment since the all-volunteer force’s inception. Panofsky’s framework allows for a dissection of the campaign’s layered narrative and its animated aesthetics, which notably diverge from prior campaign’s emphasis on the warrior archetype. The analysis progresses from a description of visual and narrative element’s (pre-iconography), to an investigation of symbolic meanings (iconography), culminating in an interpretation of underlying societal attitudes (iconology). ‘The Calling’ reimagines military enlistment as a heroic pursuit, echoing the superhero genre’s origin stories, and emerges as a response to waning interest in military careers. The campaign targets the zeitgeist of the young American population, offering a sense of heroism as compensation in a challenging recruitment climate marked by a robust economy and low unemployment. By presenting service as a ‘calling’, the Army navigates the complex terrain of contemporary cultural values, seeking to resonate with potential recruits on an ideological level, particularly within race and gender minority communities.

Blackening the Frame: Kerry James Marshall's Rythm Mastr

ABSTRACTThis essay argues Marshall is “blackening the frame” with his African‐centric comic series Rythm Mastr. The series is a corrective to the overwhelming whiteness of canonical comics and the silencing and erasure of Black people in American popular culture and fine art. Through the incorporation of Yoruba figures within the superhero genre, Marshall explores Black history and reframes American popular culture towards an African‐oriented future as part of a broader insurgence among Black comic creators.

The Vacillating Imagination of ‘Us' in Black Panther (2018)

This article analyzes the cultural politics of the vacillating imagination of “us” represented in Black Panther, released in 2018. This popular cultural text centralizes Blackness in that it refers to instances of Black oppression in the early 1990s. Amid the contradiction between the film's Black-centered content and the form of the Hollywood superhero genre, the imagination of “us” in the film expands and shrinks. Drawing on concepts developed by Fredric Jameson and Étienne Balibar, including imaginary resolution, utopian potential, ideological containment, and equaliberty, this article critically examines the ideologies in the text. When it comes to the expansion of “us,” the article explores the utopian potential in the representation of the radical villain. In terms of the shrinkage of “us,” it investigates the function of ideological containment in the Hollywood superhero movie by focusing on the representation of the hero, and the portrait of South Korea as a spectacular background.

Logan (2017) and the lost object of masculinity, or the trouble with Shane

James film, Logan, offers up a future world in which the X-Men are no more. All that remains are a few old and ravaged mutants, including Logan and Xavier whose worsening dementia is having a catastrophic impact on his psychic abilities that is becoming increasingly dangerous for others. Both of these former X-Men become roped into assisting a group of synthetic mutant children as they run from those who attempt to subdue and destroy them. Principal among these children is X-23, Laura, who has been created from Logan’s DNA. By staging this potential daughter along with a suggested queerness of the other mutant children the film seemingly offers up a critique of patriarchal ideologies often at the heart of the superhero genre. However, this article is concerned with the way the film intertextually references the 1953 Western film Shane, which creates an ambivalence in Logan’s meaning. The presence of Shane, the article argues, disturbs the surface gender critical storyline offering up instead the sense of a redemptive heroic masculinity that wrangles patriarchal ideology in through the backdoor.

Superheroes and Nazis: Re-examining the legacy of the Second World War in Eric Kripke’s The Boys

The television adaptation of The Boys, originally a comic book series written by Garth Ennis, has garnered attention for its graphic violence and satirical treatment of the superhero genre. The Boys engages with a number of critiques of the superhero genre and its tropes, one of which is the recurring presence of a Nazi supervillain. This article links The Boys to previous examples of comic books and screen adaptations which feature Nazis or similar fascist organizations, such as Captain America, Superman and X-Men. In particular, it argues that The Boys’s status as a subversive superhero narrative impacts the portrayal of Nazism in new ways, further troubling the distinction between superhero and supervillain and providing insight into contemporary cultural concerns. Through its representation of the superhero origin story and the Nazi character Stormfront, The Boys draws upon the memories of the Second World War in order to condemn the rise of fascism in the twenty-first century. Despite this ostensibly worthy goal, it is also important to consider criticisms of this type of representation of the historically specific atrocities of the Second World War, the role of exploitation and its resulting reception by viewers.

Politicizing the superhero genre: The case of Watchmen (HBO, 2019)

The HBO limited television series Watchmen (2019) represents a politically engaged superhero television show, marking a shift in recent efforts to render the genre more inclusive in terms of gender and race. Specifically, in mixing fictional and real events surrounding racial violence, such as the 1921 Tulsa massacre, Watchmen inscribes the potential of the superhero genre to tackle prescient political issues and social anxieties, that became even more poignant in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests. The present paper explores Watchmen’s deep resonances with contemporary social and political issues, not only at the level of representations, but also at the series’ production context, and argues that the show marks a key moment in the politicization of the superhero genre.

Crime, Hooded Crusaders, and (Private) Justice: Arrow and the Exoneration of Vigilantism in Contemporary Popular Media

As a form of extralegal crimefighting, vigilantism involves relevant questions about crime, justice, and law enforcement, and it is a staple of popular media. In the 1980s, several popular culture products took a critical approach to vigilantism as a part of the deconstruction of the superhero genre, which included a critical reflection on the psychological and political implications of the motivations behind private justice enforcers’ behavior. In this context, this paper focuses on the representation of vigilantism within the popular television show Arrow, and analyzes how it depicts, rationalizes, and ultimately exonerates vigilantism as a response to criminal activity. The empirical analysis focuses on the various rhetorical strategies used by Arrow to justify vigilantism, such as the representation of legal and governmental institutions as corrupt and inefficient, the multiple rationales whereby vigilantism is practiced, and the sanctioning of private crimefighting by institutions. The analysis indicates that the show delivers an apology for the vigilante ethos: Arrow mirrors superheroes’ dark turn in the 1980s and their reflection of societal fears about crime. However, in the show’s worldview, these fears can only be appeased by private vigilantes. By portraying the state as inefficient and/or corrupt, the show boosts ideologies of individualism and anti-government neoliberalism.

Two Worlds Combined: How Cleverman (2016-2017) Reimagines Indigenous Storytelling

This article discusses the Australian television drama, Cleverman, a show that blends together science fiction, conventions of the superhero genre, and influences from Indigenous storytelling to yield an honest critique of modern Australian politics. Tackling Australia’s documented history of Indigenous maltreatment while weaving in elements of the Dreaming, the article dissects how Cleverman depicts the legacy of intercultural and intergenerational trauma inflicted upon Indigenous populations, provoking a discourse on how government initiatives continue to have serious, negative repercussions on marginalized communities.

"It Was as Much Ours …": Reader Contributions to Teen Humor Fashion Comics

Studies of participatory culture in comics frequently focus on the superhero genre and the participatory fandom communities and networks engaged with the superhero genre. This study focuses instead on participatory culture in the fashion subgenre of teen humor comics published from the 1940s through the early 1970s and again in the 1980s. I survey the many types of reader-contributed content in Archie Comics' Katy Keene comics and Marvel Comic's teen humor fashion comics such as Patsy Walker and Millie the Model. I examine the fan-led revivals of Katy Keene and Millie the Model in the 1980s. Finally, with the aid of an archival collection of reader submissions, I investigate the reader contributions to Marvel's six-issue Misty comic created by Trina Robbins. These explorations seek to recover a vibrant participatory community of comic book readers, consisting primarily of young women and girls, actively engaged in producing the comics they are reading.

“It’s Our Job as People to Make Others Feel Valued”: Children Imagining More Caring and Just Worlds through Superhero Stories

This study explores the potential of fifth-grade children to take up, mold, and complicate the superhero genre to engage issues of social justice and equity in critical and dynamic ways. Using critical discourse and visual analysis, I explore the ideological and political work in the comics four students of color created as part of this study. I argue that, when given the opportunity to embody their full selves in the creation process to fight against issues of injustice that matter to them, children are more likely to imagine beyond conceptions of the child (e.g., being apolitical) and take on activist stances. Moreover, teachers have the power to encourage children to see themselves and their voices as important tools in the fight for social justice. This study pushes us to consider that we, as adults, can either help to expand the possibilities available to children or continue to perpetuate the inequities that children experience on a daily basis due to misconceptions of what it means to be a child and what children are capable of.

THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMAN IN SUPERHERO MOVIE ENTITLED “BIRDS OF PREY” BY CATHY YAN

This study aims to analyze the representation of woman in "Birds of Prey" movie. The problem in this study is how is woman represented in the superhero movie entitled “Birds of Prey”. The research method is the qualitative method. Power Feminism Theory from Naomi Wolf’s is used to analyze the data. This research analized therepresentation of woman in Birds of Prey movie by Cathy Yan. The data was collected through watching the movie, screenshotting, classifying, and previewing. This study found that women named Harley Quinn as the main character in the Birds of Prey movie is represented as a superpower Women. The characterization of a superpower can be denoted through; (1) emancipating herself from the domination of man, (2) enhancing her femininity as outstanding, (3) women as super heroin, (4) being free from Joker’s shadow. It is suggested that Birds of Prey tried to replace the man role as the dominant figure in the superhero genre films.

Seriality and millennial fandom in the Indian superhero comic Nagraj

ABSTRACT From the 1980s to the early 2000s, Raj Comics went from selling 3 lakh copies a year to adorning railway bookstalls in Central India. Despite being absent from the multimedia convergence moment enjoyed by comic book characters worldwide in the first two decades of the 21st Century. Nagraj, their most successful superhero character boasts a dedicated fanbase that continues to engage with the rapidly vanishing superhero Nagraj. This paper focuses on ‘Khajana’, the Nagraj mini-series, to study the technique of serialisation and its contribution to the creation and endurance of such a fanbase online. The paper examines ‘Khajana’ by locating it at the intersection of the commercial superhero genre in India and the interactive felicity of millennial Nagraj fans. Such an intersection conceives serialisation and interactive felicity as the conditions of possibility for a fandom around an absent commercial entity.

HBO’s Watchmen and Generic Revision in a Genre of Adaptation

As the screen superhero genre enters the revisionist phase of its evolution, its status as a genre overwhelmingly dependent on the adaptation of preexisting material provides a challenge to established models of generic revision. The faithful adaptation of a revisionist comic does not in itself constitute a revisionist film or series. HBO’s miniseries adaptation of Watchmen serves as an example of how, through a series of adaptational strategies, an adapted genre text can retain a reverence to its source material while also serving a revisionist function in its new medium.

Performing Darna: The Role of Entertainment Press in Spectacularizing Darna Actresses

This paper looks at the actresses who portrayed Darna and how they are presented as spectacles in the entertainment articles that promote the film and television adaptations. This frame of inquiry comes from the notion that the visual aesthetics of Darna in komiks is largely informed by the superhero genre’s dependence on spectacle as shown in the superhero’s feats of greatness and in her actions and movements which are all larger than life and extraordinary. If this is the case for Darna in print, then how about the actresses tasked with performing her in the movies and television series? How are their bodies being turned into a spectacle in promotional materials in order to conform to the needs of the capital (entertainment industry)? In using the spectacle of the body as framework, the paper also draws on the star system and the role of producers of text in the creation of Darna as we know her today. The aim is to reveal how female bodies were made part of the construction of Darna’s image outside of its fictional universe which results in a discourse that highlights the body of the celebrities rather than Darna’s continuing relevance as a Filipino icon. This sets aside her representational power to embody the struggle and demand of Filipinos for justice and a better life as audience’s attention is diverted towards how these actresses prepared their bodies to perform Darna.

Confrontations and exchanges of virtue ethics: a study of dialectical friendship between superman and batman in comic books

ABSTRACT In the superhero genre, there has arguably not been any heroic partnership that is more oxymoronic than that of Superman and Batman, for both characters simultaneously are ‘enemies’ with opposing ethics and ‘best friends’ who trust each other with their lives. As such, this study applied a mixed methodology based on the Dialectical Theory of Friendship (DTF) and Critical Narrative Analysis (CNA) to analyse communications, images, and implications of Superman-Batman relationship and identify it as a reflection of friendship and ethical exchanges between American men. Purposive samples of 96 (74.21%) comic books from a total of 128 issues of Superman/Batman and Batman/Superman were analysed. The quantitative results show that the protagonists exhibited ‘expressiveness’, ‘judgment’, ‘affection’, and ‘freedom to be dependent’ patterns in communication, thereby revealing openness and directness in friendship. The qualitative results highlight that the protagonists used these patterns to create an intimate bond instead of destroying it. This study expands upon literature in the superhero genre. It argues that the Superman-Batman dichotomy embodies the image of postmodern heroes who seek mutual relationship despite ethical differences; the belief that may solve or lessen socio-political issues and polarisation in real life.

Superheroes of the Electromagnetic Spectrum: A Non-Traditional Way of Teaching Ionising Radiation

Radiation is ever-present around us, yet there is still a lack of knowledge about radiation among the general population, especially when it comes to students. For this study, we measured the effectiveness of a lesson plan on radiation concepts that focused on ionising radiation and was supported by references and examples from the superhero genre. The lesson was delivered to student groups in Vienna-based high schools in Austria where all students (n=141) were in Grade 9 to 11. Prior to the lesson, students completed a pre-test to collect data on their knowledge base in relation to radiation and superheroes. During the lesson students were required to complete ID cards on both the electromagnetic spectrum and superhero characters. They were also invited to create and draw their own radiation-based superhero. After the lesson, students completed a post-test. We note that student knowledge on radiation concepts improved after the lesson. For example, students more accurately ordered radiation types according to energy and provided more correct answers to open-ended questions with correct explanation on the interaction of radiation with different medium. Most students welcomed the inclusion of superheroes in the classroom and were not distracted by their use in the classroom.

Societal References by Superhero Films in the 21st Century

A wide variety of studies has identified a significant correlation between the income of a film and its genre. Unveiling that with newer genres and new audiences, certain movies experience more success than others. Here the researcher institutes a content analysis in which 12 live-action ‘superhero’ films are viewed and evaluated based on a sophisticated code. The films are viewed multiple times and other ‘outside’ codes are also recorded by the researcher. The research results in a found correlation between economic success and the superhero genre is identified along with a greater understanding of the impact that the films have on audiences. Not only is the impact revealed, but also some methods are evaluated along with their effectiveness on the amount of income generated.

Representation and Agency of Aging Superheroes in Popular Culture and Contemporary Society

The figure of the superhero has always been regarded as an iconic representative of American society. Since the birth of the first superhero, it has been shaped by the most important historical, political, and social events, which were echoed in different comic issues. In principle, in the superhero genre, there has never been a place for aging superheroes, for they stand as a symbol of power and protection for the nation. Indeed, their mythical portrayal of young and strong broad-chested men with superpowers cannot be shattered showing them fragile or disabled. The aim of this article is to delve into the complex paradigm of the passage of time in comics and to analyze one of the most famous superheroes of all times, Superman, in terms of his archetypical representation across time. From the perspective of cultural and literary gerontology, the different issues of Action Comics will be examined, as well as an alternative graphic novel Kingdom Come (2008) by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, where Superman appears as an aged man. Although it breaks the standards of the genre, in the end it does not succeed to challenge the many stereotypes embedded in society in regard to aging, associated with physical, cognitive, and emotional decline. Furthermore, this article will show how a symbolic use of the monomythical representation of a superhero may penetrate into other cultural expressions to instill a more positive and realistic portrayal of aging.