Book Review: Analyzing the Marvel Universe. Critical Essays on the Comics and Film Adaptations

 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.

 

• Table of Contents

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

 

Graphic Novel Review: Wicked: The Graphic Novel Part I, by Scott Hampton

reviewed by Julian Lawrence

Wicked: The Graphic Novel Part I. Gregory Maguire, adapted and illustrated by Scott Hampton. New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2025. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/wicked-the-graphic-novel-part-i-gregory-maguirescott-hampton

 The publication of Eisner-winning veteran Scott Hampton’s wonderfully illustrated adaptation transports the transmedial Wicked phenomenon into comics. The strength of this property lies in the range of themes that underlie its overarching tale of transformation. Elphaba’s character transformation in Wicked portrays her as going “from being a misunderstood outcast to being a friend, a love interest, and a social movement activist” (Schrader, 2011: 49). Furthermore, “Elphaba's peers initially ostracize her for her physical difference, but we soon see that her real difference is political” (Wolf, 2008: 9).

 Wicked has impacted a variety of mediums including literature, theatre, film, and now comics. I discovered Wicked when I attended a live performance of the show in the summer of 2024, over twenty years after the Tony Award-winning musical premiered, and almost 30 years since the novel’s publication in 1995. I have not read author Gregory Maguire’s novel, but now that I have read the graphic novel, I have added the book to my 2025 summer reading list.

 Themes relevant to LGBTQ+, race, and disability are clearly presented in the stage, film and comic book adaptations of Wicked, yet the theme of speciesism jumped out at me the first time I saw the musical performed. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes speciesism as “the view that only humans should be morally considered” (Gruen and Monsó, 2024). The group of human animals with whom I attended the performance understood the show’s themes of identity and transformation, but they all overlooked the significance of speciesism in Wicked. This appears to be the case for most audiences with whom I discuss the topic; people downplay or ignore the catalyst that leads to Elphaba’s transformation, namely her advocacy for animals. Like the musical, animal oppression is important to the film, and this theme is explored in more detail in Hampton’s adaptation. Thus, in this review of the graphic novel, I will address the importance of Elphaba’s transformation into a vegan advocate for the animals, which ultimately leads to her vilification by Oz society.

 Like Elphaba, I have been an advocate for the animals since January 2000 and over the decades I have noticed a palpable anti-vegan bias in society that has compelled “scholars and legal bodies to recognise anti-veganism as a prejudice, resulting in the protection of ‘ethical veganism’ under the UK Equality Act 2010. Some evidence, reported by The Times, even suggests that vegan-related hate crimes may be on the rise in the UK” (Gregson, Piazza, and Boyd, 2022: 2). As such, the broad lack of media and critical focus on the vegan theme in Wicked is not surprising to me. For instance, it has been suggested that “the Animals stand in for the racialized Other, with strong associations with Jewishness in the musical” (Wolf, 2008: 10). However, a vegan reading of Wicked (musical/film/comic) aligns with critiques of unsustainable and inhumane practices that slaughter billions of land animals annually in factory farms. It can be said that Wicked is commenting on our contemporary animal holocaust rather than the Holocaust.

 Through a vegan lens, Wicked does not focus on racism or sexual orientation, but speciesism. As a woman, Elphaba brings an additional feminist layer because “both sexism and speciesism are not only positively correlated but are also underpinned by group-dominance motives, consistent with ecofeminist theorizing highlighting the role of patriarchal values of domination underlying attitudes towards both women and animals” (Salmen and Dhont, 2023: 5). Elphaba is vilified and hunted down by Oz society not because of her skin colour or the romantic relationship she has with Glinda; rather, Elphaba is perceived as “wicked” by Ozians because she is a woman fighting the Wizard’s patriarchal oppression of animals. Visually, Hampton creatively demonstrates the connection between speciesism and sexism on two pages: the large panel on page 59 portrays a white cockatoo in a cage (fig.1), and on the last panel of the next page, the male Munchkin Boq gazes lustily at two women in their white undergarments through a window whose frames simulate the bars of a bird cage (fig. 2).

fig. 1

fig. 2

 The graphic novel adaptation includes the animal rights theme and utilizes it as the motivation that transforms Elphaba into the story’s Wicked heroine: she wants to be a voice for the increasingly silenced and voiceless animals. The wise goat, Dr. Dillamond, becomes her mentor as they work together to fight legislated animal oppression. On page 76, Elphaba says to Boq: “I admire the goat intensely. But the real interest of it to me is the political slant. How can the Wizard publish those bans on Animal mobility if Doctor Dillamond can prove, scientifically, that there isn't any inherent difference between humans and Animals?” (Maguire and Hampton, 2025: 90). As such, Elphaba “notes the unjust treatment of Animals, the questionable conduct of the Wizard, and the ways in which greater equality might be achieved” (Kruse and Prettyman, 2008). Most of us acknowledge equality as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion for humans. However, the theme of non-human animal equity lies at the foundation of Wicked’s narrative as Elphaba “flies on a broom at night in order to free captive Animals” (Schrader, 2011: 57). Fighting animal abuse is a noble cause, but the authorities in Oz vilify Elphaba for defying the Wizard’s legislated oppression of non-human animals.

fig. 3

 Hampton’s effective portrayal of the Wizard as a deformed, monstrous animal evokes the spirit of the late comic book horror artist Bernie Wrightson’s fearsome creatures of yore. In her meeting with the Wizard (fig. 3), Elphaba implores him to “reverse your recent judgements on the rights of animals…The hardship on the Animals is more than can be borne” (Maguire and Hampton, 2025: 126-127). Her pleading falls on deaf ears, and the meeting is fruitless; thus, Elphaba’s resistance and activism is born. Parallels between humans and non-human animals are affirmed later in the comic when Fiyero walks into the bedroom while Elphaba sleeps: “a smell of perfume still in the air, and the resiny, animal smell…” (143).

fig. 4

 The graphic novel is indeed beautifully illustrated, and Hampton is a master of quality comic art. His depiction of Dr Dillamond’s violent murder is respectfully illustrated, with the hint of a glazed-over goat eye peering out from underneath the shroud that covers his unfortunate corpse (fig 4). The caption above this sad illustration explains that “his throat was still knotted with congealed ropes of black blood, where it had been slit as thoroughly as if he had wandered into an abattoir” (90).

 I note, however, that despite the careful detail in the art, some of the text renders could be improved. For instance, captions are sometimes casually applied, unfortunately obscuring interesting portions of the art (fig. 5).

fig. 5

fig. 6

 In another couple of instances, speech bubble fonts randomly change (fig. 6). These are typographical and editorial issues that can be rectified in future printings; they do not impact the detailed watercolour art overall. It is, nonetheless, a very wordy comic, with lots of telling rather than showing. However, moments where Hampton shows, rather than tells, effectively and wordlessly capture tone and mood. Pages 146-47 present a particularly touching sequence that clarifies the impacts of the Wizard’s laws on the oppressed animals (fig. 7).

fig. 7

 The graphic novel opens with a Leo Tolstoy quote: “In historical events great men – so-called – are but the labels that serve to give a name to an event, and like labels, they have the last possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.” In contextualizing that quote with Wicked: The Graphic Novel, it can be said that greatness is achieved when individuals permit the moral progress of history to guide their actions. Elphaba’s advocacy for the animals presents a critical and ethical step forward for civilization, and that is Wicked’s underlying message.

 Tolstoy was a strict vegetarian, which inspired him to ask: “Who will deny that it is repugnant and harrowing to a man's feelings to torture or kill, not only a man, but also even a dog, a hen, or a calf? I have known men, living by agricultural labor, who have ceased entirely to eat meat only because they had to kill their own cattle” (Tolstoy, 1886: 16). Consider that quote before you bite into another’s flesh while eating a sandwich or a burger, because Dr Dillamond’s hypothesis is correct: there are no relevant scientific, biological, or theoretical differences between humans and non-human animals. We all want to defy gravity, including Elphaba flying on her broom, lambs gamboling in the fields, dogs running in a park, and caped children leaping from swings.

 References

Gregson, Rebecca, Jared Piazza and Ryan Boyd. 2022. ‘“Against the cult of veganism”: Unpacking the social psychology and ideology of anti-vegans’, Appetite, 178, pp. 106143–106143. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2022.106143.

 Gruen, Lori and Susana Monsó, "The Moral Status of Animals." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fall 2024 Edition. Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.). Available at <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/moral-animal/>. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 Kruse, Sharon and Sandra Spickard Prettyman. 2008. “Women, leadership, and power revisiting the Wicked Witch of the West.” Gender and education, 20(5), pp. 451–464. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250701805797. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 Salmen, Alina and Kristof Dhont. 2023. “Animalizing women and feminizing (vegan) men: The psychological intersections of sexism, speciesism, meat, and masculinity.” Social and personality psychology compass, 17(2). Available at https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12717. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 Schrader, Valerie Lynn. (2011) “Witch or Reformer?: Character Transformations Through the Use of Humor in the Musical Wicked.” Studies in American humor, 23(23), pp. 49–65. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/42573612. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 Tolstoy, Leo. 1886. What I Believe. New York: William S. Gottsberger.

 Wolf, Stacy. (2008) “‘Defying Gravity’: Queer Conventions in the Musical “Wicked.’” Theatre journal (Washington, D.C.), 60(1), pp. 1–21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2008.0075. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 

Julian Lawrence is a senior lecturer in comics and graphic novels at Teesside University, specializing in storytelling, graphic memoir, and comics pedagogy. As a cartoonist, researcher, and teacher, his work bridges creative practice and academic research, exploring comics as a medium for education, reflection, and social change. http://www.julianlawrence.net/

A version of this review will appear in print in IJOCA 27:1

Graphic Novel Review: Madame Choi and the Monsters: A True Story

 reviewed by Cord A. Scott, UMGC-Okinawa

Patrick Spät and Sherce Domingo; translated by Michael Waaler. Madame Choi and the Monsters: A True Story. London: Self-Made Hero Publications, 2024. ISBN 978-1-914224-22-5. $22.99. https://www.selfmadehero.com/books/madame-choi-and-the-monsters-a-true-story

Sometimes true historical stories seem so outrageous that they can feel like a fictional script. When visuals such as comic art are added, the stories become even more engaging. Madame Choi and the Monsters is one of those stories -- so engaging that it seems that it must be fake. Here is the book’s advertising blurb:

The incredible-yet-true story of celebrated South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee, abducted in 1978 by North Korean secret agents on the orders of their film-crazed future leader Kim Jong-il. Six months later, filmmaker Shin Sang-ok, Choi Eun-hee’s ex-husband, is abducted in turn. Choi and Shin remain unaware of each other’s fates until they meet again at a dinner hosted by Kim Jong-il in 1983. Kim forces Choi and Shin to make films, including the infamous kaiju cult classic Pulgasari (1985), all while convincing the world that they serve North Korea willingly. Choi and Shin’s love rekindles slowly in this reunited captivity. Only at the 1986 Vienna Film Festival do they escape, fleeing in a daring car chase to the American embassy.

The script of Madame Choi was written by Patrick Spät. He took the approach of weaving in the script of Pulgasari, as well as biographies of Choi and Shin, as an effective way to give readers exposure to each creator as well as their most famous movie. Some additional liberties were taken with the storyline, particularly the spirit within the Pulgasari arc that allows for a conscience and narrator device. Both Spät and Domingo are based in Berlin, and this book is translated from German.

Spät’s script also allows readers to understand the other quirks within the North Korea (DPRK) regime of the 1970s. Kim Jong-il was so obsessed with movies that he had amassed a reported 20,000 film library, and the first part of the graphic novel shows that obsession as Kim sent infiltrators into the South to steal movies and bring them back. Eventually, Kim decides to take the next logical step of making his own films, but with South Korean (ROK) creators.

While Choi Eun-hee was well known as an actress, she was also from a conservative country. Soouth Korea had traditional expectations for people, and when Choi divorced her abusive first husband, she felt repercussions. She met Shin, a director, and they fell in love and married. While unable to have their own children (another stigma in South Korea) they adopted two children and continued to produced films that were both popular as well as critically acclaimed. They produced 60 films throughout the 1960s and 1970s. (48) However, the South Korea of the 1970s was a military dictatorship, and not the free democracy of today. They fell afoul of government censors, and this led to strain on the two, both professionally and personally. (63) This constant tension of creativity and morals is one that now seems oxymoronic compared to North Korea and its repression, and while the censored events in the films may seem quaint by today’s standards, within South Korea at that time they were serious.

Purportedly, the strain in the marriage from censorship caused Shin to engage in an affair with another actress. This is critical to the story as it set in motion their divorce, their problems with each other’s careers, and the lure by which Kim brought the two at different times to Hong Kong, when they were then kidnapped and brought to the DPRK to make films for him. They re-met in North Korea in October 1983. (127-129) As Shin noted, he had the ability to do things like blow up an actual train on film (140-141), but at the same time, he suffered far more degradation than Choi did, although both were held in North Korea for years.

The story of Pulgasari is a folk legend in Korea, and the film is a monster movie made with both Japan and China. The film itself also had themes of the corruption of power, the need of a supreme (and ultimately ineffective) weapon to defeat monsters, and the idea that enemy forces would be defeated on the strength of traditional values. In the end, it was this movie, made with some of the crew who worked on the Toho Studio-era Godzilla films, that served as the basis for their escape. The film was sent to the Vienna film festival, and Choi and Shin carefully planned their escape from the hotel where they were staying. After a high-speed chase through the streets, the two ended up at the US Embassy.

While the graphic novel ends with the destruction of Pulgasari, and the real-world result of the guards being shot for allowing Shin and Choi to escape, there is a timeline which gives the further movements of the film-making family, from their reuniting with their adopted children in Virginia, their time in Hollywood, and their eventual return to South Korea, which was also a time of clarifying the stories about their time in the North. Both have since passed away, without gaining any residual rights or money from Pulgasari, which is now considered a cult classic.

In all, the book is a quick overview of geopolitics and monster movie making, that also gives insight into a closed society, one that is led by dictators obsessed with the very culture they deride. It gives one pause to think about what other stories might be out there to tell.

Book Review: Superheroes Smash the Box Office: A Cinema History from the Serials to 21st Century Blockbusters by Shawn Conner

 reviewed by Edward Whatley, Georgia College & State University

Shawn Conner. Superheroes Smash the Box Office: A Cinema History from the Serials to 21^st Century Blockbusters. McFarland & Company, 2023. 238 pages, $39.95 (Paperback), ISBN 9781476676661. https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/superheroes-smash-the-box-office/

In contemporary cinema, superhero films have become a monolithic genre, capturing audiences and box office revenues with unprecedented fervor; however, when superheroes first made the leap from their native comic books onto the big screen, their early appearances were not in feature films but in Saturday serials.  In hindsight, the transition seems logical given the similarities between comic books and serials.  Both formats were aimed at younger audiences.  Both featured episodic storytelling and cliffhanger endings.  In Superheroes Smash the Box Office, author Shawn Conner provides a rather breezy 238-page journey along the long and winding path from cheaply produced 1940s Saturday afternoon superhero serials to the 21^st century blockbuster superhero feature films.

Covering almost nine decades of cinema history is an ambitious undertaking, and Conner explains in his introduction that he found it necessary to restrict the book’s scope to “live-action American movies.” (2)  Chapter one begins in 1941 with the first superhero to appear in a live-action production: Captain Marvel (Shazam to later readers), soon followed by Batman and Captain America. This chapter is easily one of the most interesting in the entire book, as it covers territory that will be unfamiliar to many readers.

Moving on from the serials, Conner expands the scope of the book by spending the next two chapters discussing superhero television shows, namely: Superman starring George Reeves, Batman starring Adam West and Burt Ward, and Wonder Woman starring Lynda Carter. He also covers the 1970s Marvel television shows and movies featuring the Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America, and Doctor Strange.

With chapter 4, Conner returns his focus to the big screen to discuss the 1978 film Superman starring Christopher Reeve.   From this point on, the book sticks with feature films through its concluding discussion of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Conner explores how each adaptation—be it a serial, television show, or feature film—contributed to the evolution of superhero cinema. The discussion includes the influence of specific characters and storylines on the genre's development, as well as the impact of technological advancements on special effects and storytelling techniques. Fans of the original comics will also enjoy his discussions of how the screen adaptations adhered to or diverged from the comics source material. 

How successful Conner is in his telling will depend largely on the expectations of the reader.  His writing style is engaging and entertaining.  His deadpan plot synopses are often laugh-out-loud funny. But readers should not expect a very deep dive into any specific films. As I stated earlier, this is a rather breezy reading experience despite the enormity of the topic.  While early chapters offer more (relatively) extensive discussions of their subjects, the pace seems to quicken and the amount of space devoted to specific films seems to dwindle as the number of films grows in more recent years. As the narrative progresses, it feels like Conner is increasingly rushing toward the finish line.

And the finish line approaches rather abruptly. In his two-page epilogue (written in the summer of 2023), Conner mentions eleven recent films that had been released by that time but are not discussed elsewhere in the book.  He cites most of the films’ mixed reviews and lower than expected box office performance as evidence that the superhero film is “at a crossroads, or perhaps at a portal.” (189) Making such a claim but offering so little elaboration on what possibly lies beyond the crossroads/portal makes for a frankly less than satisfying conclusion.

Conner cobbled his narrative together “through books, articles, editorials, audio commentaries, podcasts, reviews and the movies and comics themselves.” (2)  And his bibliography is indeed impressive, although some original interviews might have added to the book’s value. While the book may lack depth, it succeeds in condensing almost a century of film and television history into an engaging and humorous narrative that should appeal to both longtime fans of the genre and general audiences.