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Peter Coogan's 'Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre' unravels the evolution of superheroes. Discover the history, powers, and hero-villain dynamics in this concise, engaging read for comic fans and scholars.
"An exhaustive and entertaining study of the superhero genre, Superhero: the Secret Origin of a Genre traces the roots of the superhero in mythology, science fiction, and the pulps, and follows the superhero's development to its current renaissance in film, literature, and graphic novels."--BOOK JACKET.
Contributions by Apryl Alexander, Alisia Grace Chase, Brian Faucette, Laura E. Felschow, Lindsay Hallam, Rusty Hatchell, Dru Jeffries, Henry Jenkins, Jeffrey SJ Kirchoff, Curtis Marez, James Denis McGlynn, Brandy Monk-Payton, Chamara Moore, Drew Morton, Mark C. E. Peterson, Jayson Quearry, Zachary J. A. Rondinelli, Suzanne Scott, David Stanley, Sarah Pawlak Stanley, Tracy Vozar, and Chris Yogerst Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen fundamentally altered the perception of American comic books and remains one of the medium’s greatest hits. Launched in 1986—“the year that changed comics” for most scholars in comics studies—Watchmen quickly assisted in cementing the legacy that co...
This collection explores contemporary superhero narratives, including comic books and films, in a wider mythic context. Since the 1930s superheroes have come to dominate a variety of media formats. Why are audiences so fascinated with heroes, and what makes the idea of heroes so necessary in society?
It's easy to name a superhero--Superman, Batman, Thor, Spiderman, the Green Lantern, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rorschach, Wolverine--but it's not so easy to define what a superhero is. Buffy has superpowers, but she doesn't have a costume. Batman has a costume, but doesn't have superpowers. What is the role of power and superpower? And what are supervillains and why do we need them? In What is a Superhero?, psychologist Robin Rosenberg and comics scholar Peter Coogan explore this question from a variety of viewpoints, bringing together contributions from nineteen comic book experts--including both scholars in such fields as cultural studies, art, and psychology as well as leading comic book ...
In The Cancer Plot, Reginald Wiebe and Dorothy Woodman examine the striking presence of cancer in Marvel comics. Engaging comics studies, medical humanities, and graphic medicine, they explore this disease in four case studies: Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Thor, and Deadpool. Cancer, the authors argue, troubles the binaries of good and evil because it is the ultimate nemesis within a genre replete with magic, mutants, and multiverses. They draw from gender theory, disability studies, and cultural theory to demonstrate how cancer in comics enables an examination of power and responsibility, key terms in Marvel’s superhero universe. As the only full-length study on cancer in the Marvel universe, The Cancer Plot is an appealing and original work that will be of interest to scholars across the humanities, particularly those working in the health humanities, cultural theory, and literature, as well as avid comics readers.
Contributions by Thomas Andrae, Martin Barker, Bart Beaty, John Benson, David Carrier, Hillary Chute, Peter Coogan, Annalisa Di Liddo, Ariel Dorfman, Thierry Groensteen, Robert C. Harvey, Charles Hatfield, M. Thomas Inge, Gene Kannenberg Jr., David Kasakove, Adam L. Kern, David Kunzle, Pascal Lefèvre, John A. Lent, W. J. T. Mitchell, Amy Kiste Nyberg, Fusami Ogi, Robert S. Petersen, Anne Rubenstein, Roger Sabin, Gilbert Seldes, Art Spiegelman, Fredric Wertham, and Joseph Witek A Comics Studies Reader offers the best of the new comics scholarship in nearly thirty essays on a wide variety of such comics forms as gag cartoons, editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, manga, and graphic n...
This collection of new essays focuses on The CW network's hit television series Arrow--based on DC Comic's Green Arrow--and its spin-offs The Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl. Comic book adaptations have been big business for film studios since Superman (1978) and in recent years have dominated at the box office--five of the 11 highest grossing films of 2016 were adapted from comics. Superheroes have battled across the small screen for considerably longer, beginning with The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958), though with mixed results. The contributors explore the reasons behind Arrow's success, its representation of bodies, its portrayal of women, its shifting political ideologies, and audience reception and influence on storylines.
Superheroes have been an integral part of popular society for decades and have given rise to a collective mythology familiar in popular culture worldwide. Though scholars and fans have recognized and commented on this mythology, its structure has gone largely unexplored. This book provides a model and lexicon for identifying the superhero mythos. The author examines the myth in several narratives--including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Green Arrow and Beowulf--and discusses such diverse characters as Batman, Wolverine, Invincible and John Constantine.