reviewed by Cecilia Garrison, Teaching/Research Assistant, California Institute of Integral Studies
Douglas Brode, ed. Analyzing the Marvel Universe. Critical Essays on the Comics and Film Adaptations. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2024. 245 pp. US $49.95 (Paperback). ISBN: 978-1-4766-9066-7. https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/analyzing-the-marvel-universe/
Douglas Brode’s Analyzing the Marvel Universe instructs us, from the prologue, to “[s]how me a nation’s mythology...and I will tell you all you would ever want to know about its people” (11). Brode’s contribution to the work of popular culture is extensive, and, as with this text, offers insight into the far-reaching impacts of something so simple as a comic, a television show, or a movie. He has collected, in this book of diverse essays, writings from medievalists, scholars of popular culture and English literature, sociologists, artists, novelists, and more. This winding text takes us through an array of the ways Marvel Comics lexicon has become increasingly multi-textual, increasingly a space of American mythos creation, and increasingly an exercise in what stumbling through slow and inconsistent progress towards modernity may look like.
The text combines the works of several authors, including Brode himself, covering topics that range from the astounding failure of the Broadway musical, “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” to development of G.I. Joe from an action figure we must never refer to as a doll into a fully-fledged IP with comic books and a TV show, to the clumsy attempts Marvel has made over the years into intersectional and diversified narrative creation. The chapters include detailed histories of various Marvel IPs, critiques of mishandlings of characters and identities, and the importance of growth for the characters, Marvel itself, and the industry at large, in order to keep up with their ever-growing and evolving fan base.
The text’s initial essay is Lauer’s thorough assessment of why “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” failed so spectacularly, and it is with this opening essay that the reader receives what could almost be a warning, an instruction, a plea from fans both old and new: “For an adaptation to have a chance at success, adaptors need to care about their source material, understand and work with their own medium specificity, and, ideally, have a new point to make by bringing the original’s concept to a new medium” (21-22). It is, with this understanding of what Marvel fans are looking for, their transmedia adaptations that the text takes off, acknowledging Marvel’s success, while pressing the media giant for more, for better. Anke Marie Bock’s critique of the characterization of Sue Storm as condescending and vilifying of feminine sexuality recognizes that while this stereotypical representation of women may have been what audiences in the 1970s were comfortable with, it none-the-less perpetuates uncomfortable stereotypes of women’s inferiority to men. In an essay on the four-issue anthology, Fearless, Christina M. Knopf argues that “[d]espite Marvel’s assertions that its books are not political, simply telling stories about the ‘world outside your window,’ such works cannot help but carry sociopolitical messages,” (107) and lays claim that the highlighting of female talent and female stories is what makes the anthology as remarkable as it is. Karl E. Martin argues that despite its diversion from the comics and the real critiques of the film adaptation, “Black Panther,” and its messaging, the film “engages African discourse in remarkable ways, exposing millions of viewers worldwide to a decades-old conversation” (217) around Pan-Africanism and the work of W.E.B. DeBois. The editor’s own treatise on the ways in which Black Mamba serves as a mirror to the changing perception of American female activists by broader society, ponders the origins of a villainess who is sometimes heroic and takes the identity of “a complex, ambiguous female deity that threatened the patriarchy of Western civilization” (74). These essays speak to the growing number of vocal comic and comic-adjacent property consumers who seek a more thorough and nuanced representation of the full array of spectrum-spanning identities in their superhero content.
Several of the essays within the text contend with the relationship between representation, responsibility, and engaging storytelling. Hafsa Alkhudairi, in her essay on Kamala Kahn, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, explains that the responsibility for an entire identity’s representation, at this time in the Marvel lexicon, often falls onto the shoulders of one or maybe a few characters of that identity group, and protests this. She claims, at the close, that both Marvel and the audience “need more stories of people from different genders, races, and religions, all thoroughly nuanced to relieve the pressure on those who do exist” (98). This essay, and others like it, including Jaclyn Kliman’s critique of the Black Widow’s film presence as indicative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s problem of being “stuck in the supposed obstacle of writing a complex, leading superheroine,” (79), laud Marvel and the MCU for their progress towards a more inclusive and diverse character array. However, they are also pointing out what many fans may see as obvious. Marvel’s attempts are often clumsy, falling short of, or missing the mark entirely. From the call to acknowledge where current and past X-Men comics (and films) have been lacking in terms of a genuine critique of structural oppression and systemic racism, by Quincy Thomas, to the analysis of the ways in which even our ideas of what a villain or a bad guy looks like to modern audiences according to J.S. Starkweather, to Susan Aronstein and Tammy L. Mielke’s assessment of the value of high-quality, consistent character development and the importance of modernizing male characters such as Tony Stark--Analyzing the Marvel Universe, argues that Marvel fans and scholars are looking for better from their comics and film studios.
Historicity plays a significant role across the essays in the text. Cyrus R. K. Patell urges comics readers and scholars to approach comics reading with a cosmopolitan reading practice, using comics as a way to explore the “interplay of sameness and difference, of comfort and discomfort in texts we encounter” (181). In this cosmopolitan reading practice, the non-realistic fiction of comics of yore provide a unique perspective into what those at the time of writing may have understood about the world, with what authors believed would resonate with their readers. In Edward Salo’s exploration of G.I. Joe, from toys to comics to television and beyond, he seems to unknowingly put Patell’s urging to work, providing a unique analysis of the impact of historical context on the changing scope of a character aimed at depicting the ideal American soldier and role model for young boys. Scott Manning’s unique take on Marvel’s recurring visual trope depicting Wolverine punctured with arrows situates Wolverine as both indestructible in the Marvel cosmos, but also as in reference to a distinctly medieval mythos, drawing connection from history’s storytelling and our own. When seeking an ideal example of the changing landscape of comics into transmedia universes, Mark Hibbett holds Doctor Doom up as the shining beacon for others to follow, pointing to his remarkable consistency through his appearances in comics, movies, video games, and television shows, even when his components become stretched or altered. Perhaps among the most notable for our current time is Ora C. McWilliams and Joshua Richardson’s essay on Secret Empire and the conversation it forced readers and Marvel writers and executives alike to have about the histories of comics characters and the comics industry broadly, about bigotry both in the industry and the fan base, about fascism, about cultural divides, and about fan response to the way characters are used and for what messages. To move forward into each new era, Marvel and their fans must acknowledge the history of both their comics and characters, and of what context has brought them into creation.
With certain essayists, a close reading allows for Marvel’s limited expression of difference to shine in new light. Dennin Ellis and Melissa Guadrón urge readers to look past the Thing as a stand-in for disabled people everywhere, and acknowledge that he has qualities that characters, such as Man-Thing, the Zombie, and Omega the Unknown, inherently lack: “a healthy support system in his family and friends, and the ability to determine his own destiny” (151); they urge readers, and Marvel more broadly, to consider how some powers may come at a cost of explicit disability and what loving those characters could look like for fans. In Jerold Abrams and Katherine Reed’s essay on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” they argue these wisecracking, explosion-laden films provide viewers with the opportunity to investigate the relationship between subjectivity and intersubjectivity through the characters of Rocket Racoon and Groot, exploring the nature of language and of self-consciousness. Jeffrey McCambridge posits the Nameless as a means of looking to the unique language of trauma, memory, and pain. He describes their haunted, apathetic existence as indicative of the nihilism inherent in Marvel’s cosmos and their lexicon, forever doomed to repeat itself in an effort to balance the cosmic scales of justice and tell their stories again and again.
Brode’s text closes with an essay which brings each of the other essays together in a seamless, comprehensive conclusion. Without Garret L. Castleberry’s essay on “The Spreadable Media Model of Mass Communication,” there is a real chance this text could have come across as unfinished and even disparate. However, Castleberry takes the reader through Marvel’s growth from a mom-and-pop comic shop with extraordinary name value somehow still teetering on the edge of total bankruptcy, to an incredibly and increasingly powerful arm in what may well be the strongest mass media conglomerate in the world, providing Disney with necessary broad appeal and cultural investment even among the most vehemently critical. He details the conflict between what he labels “fantagonists”--the aggravated, “mostly male, mostly anonymous” (226) fans whose demographics make-up is that of historic majority of comics readers who set out to derail stories, such as Black Panther or Captain Marvel, because these stories did not represent them; and incredible value-add that “inclusive storytelling and character diversification” (227) had, not only to movie-goer’s experiences and superhero movies’ showings at high-culture awards shows, but also Marvel executives’ bankroll. At the close of the text, Castleberry’s succinct contextualization and analysis of the way that Marvel, their cinematic universe, and their acquisition by Disney informed, and was informed by, a changing landscape of fan interaction styles, media consumption modalities, and the power of intergenerational and cross-cultural consumer branding.
Analyzing the Marvel Universe leaves the reader hopeful for a time where Marvel, and their media parent, Disney, are able to acknowledge the gaps they have left in their history, and, in fact, the places where they have done harm, and move towards a new superheroic future. The research is clear, based on this text, that comics and superhero fans are not going anywhere, but, in fact, the number of people invested in the content is ever-growing, and the faces of those fans are ever-changing. The writers here are clear in their messaging: fans are intrigued by the history, wanting to understand where their beloved characters are coming from both in the Marvel canon and within historical context, but fans also want to see characters that move forward into a world of increasing diversity, acceptance, and affection, for that which is different. Brode attests that Stan Lee, the proverbial father of Marvel Comics, insisted his characters be as three-dimensional as possible and dared to dream of a superhero team in Fantastic Four that included not just men, but even a woman with powers and a position of her own, stereotyped and strained though it may have been. This, according to the essayists included in this text, is all the modern Marvel fan wants: to expand the full realm of individuals “of valor who, despite their strength and courage, revealed deep psychological problems when alone and lonely” (10). At the end of the day, Marvel is growing, media are changing, and the fans are responding in kind.
Introduction: Prelude to a Pop-Culture Phenomenon
Douglas Brode 1
With Great Power Ballads, There Must Also Come—Great Responsibility! A Re-Assessment of the Spider-Man Legacy
Emily Lauer 15
“I am…”: Tony Stark’s Evolving Masculinity from Comic to Endgame
Susan Aronstein and Tammy L. Mielke 24
Armored Warriors Full of Arrows: From Obscure Crusader and Arabic Texts to Marvel’s Wolverine
Scott Manning 38
Not a Giant, But a “Real” American Hero: Reinventing the American Military Man in G.I. Joe, a Real American Hero Comic Book (1982–1994)
Edward Salo 50
Doctor Doom: Marvel’s Transmedia Supervillain
Mark Hibbett 59
Beyond Good and Evil: DC’s Catwoman, Marvel’s Black Mamba, and the Tradition of the Dark, Dangerous Woman
Douglas Brode 69
“You are mind-blowingly duplicitous”: Black Widow and the Male Gaze
Jaclyn Kliman 79
Finally, a Muslim Teenage Female Superhero: The Intersectionality of Feminism and Islam in Ms. Marvel
Hafsa Alkhudairi 90
The True Meaning of Fearless: Feminism in Fearless and the Marvel Universe
Christina M. Knopf 100
Sexuality as the Devil’s Tool: Namor and His Never-Ending Love for Invisible Girl
Anke Marie Bock 109
“We are Groot”: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Guardians of the Galaxy
Jerold Abrams and Katherine Reed 119
“I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness”: Tracking Thor and Loki’s Codependency Across the Nine Realms and Beyond
J.S. Starkweather 130
“Foul of form and barren of mind”: Disability in the Comics of Steve Gerber
Dennin Ellis and Melissa Guadrón 150
A Kree by Any Other Name: The Nameless and the Problems of History, Forgetting, and the Pain of Memory
Jeffrey Mccambridge 160
A Secret Empire Among Us: Or, “When Is There a Good Time to Discuss Fascism?”
Ora C. McWilliams and Joshua Richardson 168
“They do things differently there”: Not Brand Echh, 1967–1969
Cyrus R.K. Patell 179
Children of a Lesser Atom: The Dearth of Difference in Marvel’s X-Men
Quincy Thomas 191
Black Panther: From W.E.B. Du Bois to Wakanda
Karl E. Martin 210
The Spreadable Media Model of Mass Communication: Tracing the Corporate Continuity of Disney-Marvel and the MCU
Garret L. Castleberry 219
About the Contributors 239
Index 243
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