The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero [Paperback]

Over the last several decades, comic book superheroes have multiplied and, in the process, become more complicated. In this cutting edge anthology an international roster of contributors offer original research and writing on the contemporary comic book superhero, with occasional journeys into the film and television variation. As superheroes and their stories have grown with the audiences that consume them, their formulas, conventions, and narrative worlds have altered to follow suit, injecting new, unpredictable and more challenging characterizations that engage ravenous readers who increasingly demand more.

I Thats the Problem with You Readers, You Know All the Plots : Genre and Narration 1. Introduction: Men in Tights - Angela Ndalianis 2. Just Men in Tights: Rewriting Silver Age Comics in an Era of Multiplicity  Henry Jenkins 3. The Time of Heroes: Narrative, Progress and Eternity in Miracleman  Paul Atkinson 4. Worlds Within Worlds: The Role of Superheroes in the Marvel and DC Universes  Jason Bainbridge 5. Baroque Mutants in the 21st Century? Re-thinking Genre through the Superhero  Saige Walton II We act normal, mom! I want to be normal! : Superbodies, Identity and Meaning Production 6. Secret Identity Politics  Scott Bukatman 7. The Superhero as Labor: The Secret Corporate Identity  Greg M. Smith  8. The Mild-Mannered Reporter: How Clark Kent Surpassed Superman  Vanessa Russell  9. Recruiting an Amazon: The Collision of Old World Ideology and New World Identity  Clare Pitkethly 10. Oy Gevalt!: A Peek at the Development of Jewish Superheroines Jennifer Dowling III Im Just a Puppet Who Can See the Strings : Revisions, Auteurs and Anti-Superheroes 11. Entering the Green: Imaginal Space in Black Orchid  Sallye Sheppeard  12. Its a Jungle in Here: Animal Man, Continuity Issues and the Authorial Death Drive  Steven Zani  13. Morrisons Ml�