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Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Book review: Marvel Comics in the 1970s: The World inside Your Head by Eliot Borenstein

 by CT Lim

Marvel Comics in the 1970s: The World inside Your Head. Eliot Borenstein. Cornell University Press, 2023. 267 pages, $23.95. https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501769368/marvel-comics-in-the-1970s/

Do we really need another book on Marvel Comics? Hot on the heels of Douglas Wolk's monumental All of the Marvels (2021) comes a book about lesser discussed Marvel comics of the 1970s - focusing on the literary efforts of Steve Englehart (Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Captain America, the Avengers), Doug Moench (Deathlok, Werewolf by Night, Master of Kung Fu), Marv Wolfman (Tomb of Dracula), Don McGregor (Killraven, Luke Cage, Black Panther) and Steve Gerber (Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, Howard the Duck). I am definitely more of a Marvel zombie than I thought, and I was intrigued enough to volunteer to review this book.

There are several questions to answer:

·         Why would Eliot Borenstein, a Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, write a book about Marvel comics in the 1970s and what is the connection between that and his own discipline of Russian and Slavic studies?

·         How does this book compare to or complement Wolk's All of the Marvels?

·         Is Borenstein convincing in his arguments?

First, Borenstein has been teaching an annual general education course on graphic novels at New York University since 2007. As he explained in his preface about his 'secret origins.' the 1970s was the decade he discovered comics. But more importantly, in Marvel comics, he found a reflection of the concerns that occupied his teenage mind. As he explained, "Marvel was filled with characters who narrated their experience, second-guessing themselves. They got me out of my head by getting into theirs, which in turn helped me explore my own head better." In that sense, Borenstein pointed out Dostoyevsky was inevitable. While the fate of Rodion Raskolnikov now matters to him as much as the fate of Jean Grey, Borenstein never stopped being a comic fan nor forgot about the inner worlds and turmoil of Shang-Chi, T'Challa and Howard the Duck. (Borenstein also acknowledged the model provided by Jose Alaniz, another Slavist and fellow comics scholar, who also blurbed the book.)

It took some decades to reconcile the two worlds of Pushkin and the Punisher and to avoid incursions of having two parallel universes colliding and destroying one of them (apologies to Jonathan Hickman). Borenstein managed to construct a Battleworld (more apologies to Jim Shooter) where his two worlds coexist in his serialized blog on Marvel comics in the 1970s. This book is an extension and expansion of that - it is like the Ant-Man entering the body of the Vision to save him in Avengers #93 (drawn by Neal Adams, cover date Nov. 1971) but presented in the deluxe over-sized artist's edition format. But unlike superheroes, when we go deep into inner worlds, it is not just to save others. It is to save ourselves.

As for the comparisons with All of the Marvels, Borenstein acknowledges it as a book with "many points in common" especially Wolk's deep dive into The Master of Kung Fu, but the two approaches are very different. Borenstein made it very clear that his book is firmly planted in a crucial yet understudied decade that marks a turning point in the artistic development of the comics medium. To me, both complement each other. After reading Wolk's take on the Black Panther, you can easily pick up the Penguin classics Marvel collection with its valuable foreword and introduction by Nnedi Okorafor and Qiana J. Whittted respectively. And then move into Borenstein's chapter on Don McGregor's tortured romantic individualism and suffering black bodies.

For my third question, I must say Borenstein, makes a compelling case of the world inside your head created by the above-mentioned Marvel writers. This underscores the intentionality of these writers in focusing on creating an internal world of subjectivity for their readers. The action and violence in these Marvel comics mirror the inner (conflicted? confused?) state of the heroes and villains. I would like to linger on Borenstein's choice of phrase, "your head." It could be "our heads" but he chose yours. But this “yours” is not just the readers, but the fictional characters of Captain America, Captain Marvel and the Man-Thing as well. As Borenstein said, "I felt more like myself when I was able to sink into the minds of others." Is it a form of escapism? Or a way to figure out ourselves when we see some of our internal selves mirrored in the inner worlds of a Marvel comic?

As for the chapters, I enjoyed the Introduction the most - where Borenstein made the case for a 1990s Vertigo title, Enigma as the best Marvel comic of the 1970s. I won't go into the details as it is quite delightful to follow Borenstein's arguments when he made his case. I would just add that writer Peter Milligan's explorations into "your heads" began much earlier in his 2000 AD days when he wrote a wonderful strip, Hewligan's Haircut, drawn by the mercurial Jamie Hewlett.

You may ask what's new about these 1970s writers' approach. Didn't Stan Lee in the 1960s put forth the "drama of the visible self?" Spider-Man will talk through his problems (via internal and external monologue) while fighting Doctor Octopus. Borenstein explained: "If Lee's plots provided the opportunity to learn about his characters' inner lives, the 1970s writers often came close to prioritizing interiority over plot itself."

This goes back my own first encounters with Marvel comics in the 1970s. Having read The Beano and The Dandy British weeklies, some DC, and also Chinese comics, one of the first Marvel comic I laid my hands on was, of all things, Man-Thing #22 (cover date Oct 1975). I can't remember how I got it, but it was the most bizarre thing I had read when it landed in my hands. It starts with writer Steve Gerber writing to editor Len Wein about why he cannot continue to write the Man-Thing anymore and it just becomes more metafictional and internal from there. My curiosity about Borenstein's book probably stems from this primary reading experience.

If there is a weak chapter, it is the coda of Chris Claremont’s rise in the popular Uncanny X-Men comics of the late 1970s and 1980s. After making his argument of the complex inner worlds created by writers like Steve Gerber, Borenstein's concluding line leaves much hanging: "Claremont, his collaborators, and his heirs found that presenting their heroes as superficially complex open books was a recipe for success." He argued that Claremont's X-Men invites readers into the heroes' minds while making the process of identification effortless. I feel more elaboration and examples are needed. What led to the 'decline' of writers like Steve Englehart (who went on to write a memorable Batman run at DC as well as the Justice League of America - how does that compare to his Avengers?) and the rise of Claremont, whose interiority was not that of Gerber or Moench or Wolfman? What happen to these writers when they left Marvel and the 1970s receded into the past? Did they leave interiority behind? For example, did Wolfman follow the success of the superficiality of Claremont for his Teen Titans series in the 1980s? For that, one would have to look for answers in recent books like The Other 1980s: Reframing Comics' Crucial Decade which has chapters on Moench and Gerber, and also Steve Gerber: Conversations. It is unfortunate the Kickstarter of Moench's Aztec Ace has gone off rails with money collected and the backers not receiving their copies. Some of these comics can be reprinted and reevaluated - Gerber's Phantom Zone stories for DC, Gerber's return to Howard the Duck in She-Hulk, and McGregor's Sabre.

Borenstein states that Claremont's approach was a much more commercially appealing formula that combined the prolixity of McGregor with the declarative tradition of Stan Lee. This deserves fuller exploration. I, for one, would like to understand the rise of Claremont studies, as seen in The Claremont Run on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ClaremontRun and now also collected as a book, The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men by J. Andrew Deman (University of Texas Press, 2023).

Nonetheless, this book is an excellent read for the Marvel fan and a worthy contribution to comics studies of serialized American superhero comic books of the 1970s. Long may the 70s run. 


Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Book Review: With Great Power: How Spider-Man Conquered Hollywood During the Golden Age of Comic Book Blockbusters.

 

Reviewed by Viola Burlew

Sean O’Connell. With Great Power: How Spider-Man Conquered Hollywood During the Golden Age of Comic Book Blockbusters. Essex, Connecticut: Applause Theater and Cinema Books, 2022. http://applausebooks.com/books/9781493066193

            There is perhaps no more iconic character in the Marvel universe than Spider-Man. Over the course of sixty years, various creative teams have depicted the web-slinger as an “everyday” superhero, from the first of his kind to his present-day status as a figurehead of the type. To examine the impact the character has had on superhero culture requires examining the intricacies of multiple versions of the character in print and digital media alike.

            Sean O’Connell’s With Great Power… achieves this feat and more. O’Connell’s work follows the growth of Spider-Man from a comic book fill-in feature to the big screen’s friendly neighborhood, billion-dollar-generating hero.

Decade by decade, he analyzes how different adaptations of Spider-Man have shaped both the character and the superhero film industry itself. He works his way from the 1960s to the 1990s in the book’s earliest chapters, demonstrating how repeated production failures adapting Spider-Man indicated a general apathy towards the comic book film genre. These early attempts to create an on-screen hero lacked a recognizable comic book feel, an element O’Connell argues is necessary to have a successful, and faithful, adaptation, in part due to technological limitations. Financial and licensing issues played their own part in delaying Spider-Man's appearance on the big screen, as O'Connell further details in his discussion of James Cameron's unproduced Spider-Man film of the 1990s. As a result, it is not until the 2000s that a Spider-Man appears with any kind of memorability on the big screen. 

It is from this moment forward, with the development of Sam Rami’s Spider-Man films, that O’Connell can truly delve into the complexities surrounding the on-screen character and subsequent adaptations. O’Connell’s close analyses of Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland’s depictions of the character, coupled with detailed accounts of Sony and Marvel’s bargaining over Spider-Man’s rights and marketability, reveal just how crucial Spider-Man was to the creation of the now-popular superhero universes. Strikingly, O’Connell does not pit these films against one another in his analysis. Instead, he traces their progression up to the present day, arguing that each Spider-Man product is a worthy successor to that which came before it. Though he clearly outlines certain missteps, his arc of Spider-Man media points to a consistent rise in quality, with each new film meaning something different to its creators and, crucially, its audience.

While the book is a chronological approach to Spider-Man’s development, O’Connell also offers readers a brief history of the superhero film market itself. He argues that Spider-Man has long been at the center of the genre’s development, with production companies seeing Spider-Man as the character that would launch a great wave of superhero films and sequels. In building these stories around a single character, O’Connell demonstrates that Spider-Man not only “conquered” the blockbuster golden age, but that the genre grew out of and around him.

With Great Power clearly demonstrates O’Connell’s passion for Spider-Man’s character and history. One of the text’s great strengths is O’Connell’s ability to tell these stories with a touch of personal flair—not a bias that privileges one adaptation over the other, but a fondness that seems to stem from genuine care for the character’s legacy. His interest in Spider-Man as a fan could be expanded upon; an occasional weakness of the text is the cursory nature of fan community responses, which undercuts O’Connell’s discussion of Spider-Man reboots and recasting. But this absence is largely secondary in examining the overall depth of O’Connell’s work and his apparent affection for Spider-Man.

This affection is precisely what makes for the most powerful portions of the text. O’Connell shares not only his own personal identification with Spider-Man, but others’ identification as well. He references Rami’s personal connections to Spider-Man, Garfield’s great love of the character, and Holland’s attachment to the role. These moments, in which creative teams find themselves reflecting on their personal relationship with the character, provide the evidence for O’Connell’s richest claim: that “Spider-Man belongs to everyone, and he belongs to no one.” (129) As much as Spider-Man legitimately belongs to the corporations who have battled over him, O’Connell emphasizes that Spider-Man also “belongs” to those that see themselves as embodying some element of his character. Their attachment to him gives them stake in his narratives, in the pieces of themselves they see reflected into him. When these are the individuals creating Spider-Man narratives, this fondness of him is what O’Connell sees as part of each adaptation’s success. While corporations create the need for constant creation and remakes, Spider-Man is at his best when he, even for a moment, “belongs” to someone who cares about his history and his legacy. 

This guiding ideology shapes With Great Power into a character study predominantly about the power of connection and personal truth in adaptation. These emotional moments of recognition, shared among Spider-Man’s many makers, are what make the character truly great. O’Connell reflects on this in his final discussions of the most recent Spider-Man adaptations, Into the Spider-Verse and No Way Home. These final films emphasize the hero’s place among a vast multiverse, where many Spider-people, and Spider-creators, can find themselves reflected in the character’s story. O’Connell concludes his analysis here, with two overarching takeaways: Spider-Man’s history is fascinating, and his legacy is powerful.

Overall, O’Connell weaves an intricate web through the superhero movie genre with Spider-Man constantly at its center. With Great Power deftly demonstrates not just the power of the superhero film, or the power of a classic character, but the potential for greatness still to come from a character that wields as much power in our universe as he does in his own.

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Superheroes and Excess, an Oxymoron: A Review Essay

 Superheroes and Excess, an Oxymoron: A Review Essay

 

Eric Berlatsky

 


Jamie Brassett and Richard Reynolds.
Superheroes and Excess:  A Philosophical Adventure. New York:  Routledge, 2022. 288 pp. ISBN:  978-1-1383-0453-6. US $160.00. https://www.routledge.com/Superheroes-and-Excess-A-Philosophical-Adventure/Brassett-Reynolds/p/book/9781138304536

 

Jamie Brassett and Richard Reynolds’ new book Superheroes and Excess (Routledge, 2022) has the significant benefit of bringing together two topics/discourses that have rarely, if ever, been previously wed. The concept of “excess” is, of course, a slippery but important one, particularly in philosophical circles, as the editor’s note in the introduction, invoking the names of Gilles Deleuze and Georges Bataille, among others, in order to define and clarify the term. Brassett, Reynolds, and other contributors assert confidently (and no doubt correctly) that “excess” is an integral element of the superhero genre--as superheroes inevitably have an “excess” of power, skill, size, strength, speed, and often morality, when compared to the “ordinary” human populace. It might likewise be said that superheroes “exceed” the law, as they frequently operate as vigilantes (breaking the law), even though they are typically understood to be in support of the “justice” that the law is purportedly meant to represent. Excess has also been used (perhaps paradigmatically by Bataille, but also through the Kristevan abject and the Freudian excremental) to that which exceeds the boundary of the body, or the unitary subject, or both. Science fiction’s collection of monsters and aliens (frequently oozing themselves or oozing out of someone else’s less gelatinous body) is representative of such excess, and insofar as the superhero genre grows out of SF, this abjected version of excess finds a home in the world of the superhero as well (particularly in the various heroes and villains whose bodies stretch, disappear, burst into flame, etc.). In addition, the economic sense of “excess” as that profit which is beyond need, or the expenditure of money far beyond the sensible, might easily be applied not only to billionaire superheroes themselves (Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark as the most paradigmatic examples) but also to the corporations/movie studios who spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make superhero films that bring in billions in excess profits.

All of the above iterations of the term “excess” (and others) are elaborated upon by the editors in the introduction and conclusion and are fruitful lines of inquiry for interrogating the figure of the superhero and the narratives that surround them in whatever media. Indeed, when the collection’s contributors clearly address the idea of excess (in any of its many iterations), the book succeeds in approaching the idea of the superhero from new perspectives and promises to push the field in fruitful directions. At the same time, there are disappointing moments in the collection when some contributors fail to clearly articulate the ways in which their chapters define excess and its relationship to superheroes. In these cases, the chapters fail to build upon the fascinating architecture articulated by the collection’s editors.

Fortunately, many of the chapters do fulfill the promise of the book’s concept, and it is only fair to discuss these first. The first chapter, by Anna Peppard, is one such, as it takes on both the physical excesses of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Silver Age Fantastic Four and their relationship to the Cold War, in particular the idea that communism was “exceeding” its national boundaries and needed to be “contained” through U.S. national policy and, in the comics, through the intervention of the FF. As Peppard discusses, the model of excess and containment itself “spilled over” from the realm of international politics into conceptions of gender and its relation to the monstrous. Peppard argues that monstrousness typically revolves around the conflict between the body and the mind (in Cartesian fashion) and the degree to which the body “exceeds” the control and the rationality of the mind. Likewise, the body’s unruly and chaotic nature (18) is typically associated with women and femininity (particularly through the premise of uncontrollable fluids as in menstruation and lactation), while the controlling rationality of the mind is (misogynistically) understood to be masculine. Peppard contrasts the unruly chaotic bodies of the Human Torch and the Thing (therefore in some way feminine, despite ostensibly being men) and the more contained and container-like (and therefore masculine) bodies of the Invisible Girl/Woman and Mr. Fantastic. Peppard is not blind or inattentive to the ironies within this characterization, noting the ways in which, despite her seemingly masculine powerset, Invisible Girl/Woman is nevertheless rendered subservient and feminine in a number of other ways. Peppard’s turn to a discussion of the villain, Sandman, an even more uncontainable and unruly body, allows for an even more fascinating discussion of the excesses of monstrous bodies and the role the FF play in the metaphorical “containment” both of communism and the feminization it brings with it.

Brassett’s chapter on the Marvel mutant Legion, is also fully engaged with the philosophical concept of excess, and productively so, borrowing liberally from Deleuze and from the concept of the musical “fugue” as discussed by Deleuze and frequent partner Felix Guattari. Legion, aka David Haller, the son of Professor Xavier, the leader of the X-Men, is excessive, as Brassett explains, because of the cornucopia of personalities (each with its own mutant power), contained within his body. Brassett explores how Haller’s lengthy project of organizing his disparate powers and personalities under “one” metapersonality, project, or banner embodies the struggle between the singular body and “self” that we all purportedly possess and the conflicting personalities, ideas, and perspectives within all of us that threaten to exceed it. Brassett discusses the ways in which the repeated return of personalities or “themes” in Haller’s personality can be linked to the metaphor of the fugue, and how the fugue, though frequently understood to be organized around variations from a primary melody, can also be understood very differently if a “repetition” is taken to be the “primary” or if no iteration is accepted as the “primary” just because of chronological precedent. Brassett applies this logic to Haller’s mind in order to elucidate the ways in which comics that focus on Legion can be said to re-evaluate the nature of the subject not as singular, but as many--and thus excessive (thinking of the self as the swarm of bees, rather than each bee itself as an individual) (43). Particularly, through a reading of Simon Spurrier’s X-Men:  Legacy, Brassett examines the idea that the attempt to bring our multiple selves under some kind of authoritarian order may be just as dangerous as allowing our “excess personalities” to anarchically run amuck and that leadership and control are far from synonymous.

Brassett’s Deleuzian focus on multiple subjectivities is mirrored later in the volume by Scott Jeffery’s discussion of superhero comics’ predilection for incessant repetition. Jeffery cites Deleuze in order to assert that while repetition might initially be understood merely as a reproduction of sameness, in fact repetition is precisely that which introduces difference:  “‘difference is not the difference between different forms, or the difference from some original model; difference is that power that over and over again produces new forms’” (144). As Jeffery asserts, even if a story is reprinted with precisely the same words and pictures, its introduction into a new context makes it, in some sense, new, giving it new meaning as it implicitly comments on its new surroundings. Even beyond this, however, Jeffery focuses on the frequent repetition of, for instance, superhero origin stories (discussing Spider-Man’s, in particular) (146) and how each retelling introduces new elements, characters, contexts, and perspectives. For Jeffery, as for Brassett, multiplicity and difference are values in themselves, opening up the world to “radical imagination” reflective of that world itself and which asserts “a kind of morality unique to the genre…one that speaks for…the potential of becoming…” (156). While, occasionally, Jeffery brings this assertion in proximity to questions of ethics, morality, and “diversity” in a more social and political sense (particularly through the brief discussion of Into the Spider-Verse) (156), these assertions are unfortunately tentative at best. In Jeffery’s chapter, convincing in many ways, the morality and ethics of “difference” seems to mean something more metaphysical than prosaic questions or racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender diversity, the most significant weakness in a compelling essay that builds on Brassett’s observations.

This weakness is countered by Lorraine Henry King’s very strong essay on Black Panther and its confrontation with a history of public discourse that defined Black men, and particularly Black male bodies as “excessive,” or beyond or outside of “civilized” white society. As King points out, superhero narratives have historically been built on male physical strength and powerful masculinity wedded to moral authority. In the racial and racist history of the United States, however, the physical strength of Black men has never been discursively attached to morality. Instead, powerful Black masculinity has been feared and defined as a threat to racial purity and particularly white femininity. As such, argues King, a film like Black Panther is not simply a shift of the overwhelmingly popular superhero archetype to include Black characters and Black actors, but is actually an attempt to intervene in the discursive construction of Black masculinity and to counter the definition of Black masculinity as itself “excessive.” Beyond this, King discusses Panther’s resistance to the frequently used filmic spectacle of dead Black male bodies, and its exploration of Black skin as a superhero costume. All in all, King’s essay’s roots in the social and political impact of media representations serves as a powerful reparative to those essays in Superheroes and Excess that tend toward more abstruse metaphysics.

Another very strong chapter is Tiffany Hong’s on Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s Vision miniseries (itself one of the influences on Marvel Studio’s television show, Wandavision). In the series, the synthezoid/android Vision builds a family for himself and moves them into a bourgeois suburb. Perhaps the most obvious pathway for analysis of the series is as a metaphor for race relations, as the Visions are not welcomed to the neighborhood, but Hong is almost completely uninterested in this interpretive possibility. This is unfortunate simply because her examination of the phenomenological and narratological elements of the story might well dovetail into valuable political or sociological insights if given the chance. Instead, Hong focuses on the ways in which the Visions’ perceptions exceed that of ordinary humans (through their capacity for infallible memory, physical manipulation of bodily density--including phasing through matter--and the ability to turn on, or shut off, their emotions) and the ways in which these excessive powers are reflected through the storytelling elements of the comic. This becomes a fascinating discussion of the interaction of form and content and the “multimodal treatment of android interiority” (103) though what insight it might give into human experience, whether social, political, or otherwise, is not always clear.

As in Peppard’s essay, Hong’s engagement with the idea of gender is perhaps most persuasive, as she (like Peppard) discusses the ways in which the Visions’ powers (especially as used by Vision’s wife, Virginia) comment productively and critically on stereotypical understandings of women as uncontrollable and chaotic bodies, and as an “overdetermined locus of interpenetrative possibility” (109). Nevertheless, it is not always clear if Hong sees the series’ depiction of Virginia “as a site of failed womanhood” (because of her inability to procreate) as itself a misogynist depiction--or if she sees the series as implicitly critiquing misogynist notions of femininity (or a little of both). That is, while Hong does an excellent job of teasing out some of the implications in the series, she is not always willing to draw more definitive conclusions about what these implications ultimately mean. Her discussion of the contradictory and incommensurate voices of the Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness as narrators suggests that there is room for an understanding of the series as Brechtian in its effort to make the readers question whatever “truths” its narrative offers, but Hong also implies that most readers may never interrogate those “truths” given the series’ “affective closure” (aka happy ending) (113).

Geoff Klock and Mitch Montgomery’s chapter on the final (?) Hugh Jackman/James Mangold Wolverine film, “Logan,” returns to familiar terrain for Klock (in particular his seminal book How to Read Superhero Comics and Why?). As in that book, Klock and Montgomery invoke Harold Bloom’s idea of “the anxiety of influence” and propose that “Logan” serves to “strongly misread” previous superhero films, X-Men films, dystopic films, Westerns, and select films from the directors’ and actors’ filmographies, in order to pioneer a “new” form of superhero film, rooted more in realism, relationships, and closure than in special effects, spectacle, and open endings that serve as advertisements for sequels. For Klock and Montgomery, the film opens itself up to the “excess of tradition” (128) in order to create something truly new. While I am skeptical of the idea that “Logan” is immune to the tyranny of the sequel and that it somehow delivers a message of acceptance and adaptability of which previous X-Men or superhero films were incapable, the argument is built upon compelling close readings that reveal elements of the film, and the genre, that are not immediately obvious. In this, the chapter does what good criticism should, making me wish to return to the film both for pleasure and for intellectual consideration.

Like Klock, Richard Reynolds’ essay follows an influential book Super Heroes:  A Modern Mythology, a very early contribution to the academic study of superheroes from 1994. “Superheroes at the Vanishing Point” is not as clearly a direct descendant of the earlier work as Klock’s chapter is, though Reynolds’ deep and wide knowledge of the superhero genre and his capacity for insightful close readings remain intact. In this chapter, Reynolds looks most searchingly at the MCU’s Infinity Saga films, particularly “Iron Man,” “Avengers:  Infinity War,” and “Avengers:  Endgame.” In these films, Reynolds traces the superhero genre’s tendency to locate new “planes of action,” pushing toward new frontiers and beyond typical viewpoints. He compares the superhero genre, then, to the Western, and to space travel films like “The Right Stuff.” Taking the Avengers both far into outer space and back and forth in time, argues Reynolds, is a new kind of “frontier” or Western film that restlessly seeks to push “beyond the vanishing point” of the genre. Likewise, Reynolds is keen to explore the superhero genre’s interest in contrasting scales, juxtaposing the secret identity (a “normal” person) with the abnormal alter ego, as well as prosaic settings (Starlord’s origins on 1970s/1980s Earth and the mixtape that it engenders) with the outrĂ© and bizarre (the outer space and distant planets that Starlord explores with the Guardians of the Galaxy). Reynolds acknowledges that time travel and space flight are more typically seen as part of the science fiction genre and that superheroes might be understood as an offshoot of science fiction, but this does not prevent their particular power to gesture beyond the limitations of the present and “deliver their audience from a collective anxiety about their future…” (242).

All of the above is to indicate that the collection has many insightful and useful essays that more than make up for the weaker ones, which I will try (and perhaps fail!) to cover in less detail. John McGuire’s essay on the ways in which 1980s Captain America comics challenge and critique the excesses of the Reagan Era does not live up to its promise both because its close readings of that era fail to account for many elements of their critique (for instance, J. M. DeMatteis’ introduction of a childhood best friend of Steve Rogers’, Arnie Roth, is ignored in the chapter, despite the obvious relevance in critiquing Reagan-era AIDS policies), and because of its seeming ignorance of important history of the character. McGuire discusses the anti-U.S. government elements of the 1980s Cap comics as if the critique of U.S. presidents and their policies had not been part of the series for some time. The introduction of Richard Nixon as the “surprising” head of the Secret Empire in Captain America #175 (released in May 1974) and Captain America’s subsequent decision to disassociate himself from his country by dropping his superhero identity in favor of another (Nomad, the Man Without a Country!) is ignored here, despite its role as obvious precedent to and influence on the 1980s stories McGuire analyzes. McGuire’s argument that 1980s Cap comics make an effort to present an alternative patriotism to that based on capitalistic excess and neoliberal “free markets,” seems accurate, but his implication that this was something new to Reagan-era Cap, his substantively incomplete discussion of the comics’ engagement with Reagan’s policies, and his unwillingness to engage with the recent history of Cap, leaves the chapter somewhat disappointing.

Also disappointing is Lillian CĂ©spedes GonzĂ¡lez’s chapter on Image Comics, which relies on a survey of 55 seemingly random people (a substantial percentage of whom knew nothing at all about said comics) to define what “excess” means and whether or not 1990s Image successes like Spawn and Witchblade fit the definition as proposed. The premise of this chapter eluded me almost completely, as if one wanted a truly representative view of Image’s excesses from the “people on the street,” surely one would need to survey more than 55 people, and have some kind of scientific way of determining if those people are representative of anything in particular. Likewise, if one wanted a comics reader’s or connoisseur’s understanding of the importance of Image (a definitively important publisher for creator’s rights), why would 20 percent of the people surveyed be all but ignorant of the publisher, the genre, or the industry? Thus, the methodology of this chapter, as well as its conclusions (understandably tentative at best given the methodology), never coalesce into a convincing argument about the comics or the company.

Equally frustrating is Derek Hales’s essay “Design Fictions from Beyond:  A Pataphysics of Objectile Excess,” the title of which is indicative of the dense jargon to be found within. Hales’s goal in the chapter seems to be to simply list or identify a number of objects in superhero stories that qualify as “pataphysical”--parodically beyond or outside of normal physics (if I understand correctly), or “sublime” (beyond description), particularly through the prism of Lovecraftian heuristics in which creatures and objects are too horrible, large, monstrous, indistinct, multidimensional, or etc. to beggar description. It certainly makes sense to bring a discussion of such objects and creatures into a book about superheroes and excess, but what point Hales is making about them other than to point them out is beyond my capacity to determine. There does seem to be some hint at the idea that such fictional designs or creatures serve the purpose of “futuristic design” and to perhaps inform the design of objects in the present, but while my eyes were alert to this claim and any insights derived from it, I was continually stymied by the convoluted syntax, impenetrable jargon, and opaque argument of the chapter. Perhaps the chapter itself was meant to be understood as pataphysical, in which case it succeeds admirably, but it does not succeed in more conventional ways.

Joan Ormrod’s chapter on Wonder Woman (“Too Many Wonder Womans”) has the great benefit of being much more readable, though it too is disappointing in some ways. Ormrod discusses the fact that Wonder Woman (like most superhero IP’s) is a character with many different versions, not just the comics, film, and television “versions”--but the many different versions within each of these media and others (video games, prose fiction, etc. etc.). Ormrod is particularly interested in how the character appears in the “Super Hero Girls” DC animated television franchise, which has had, to date, two distinct iterations. The first placed several of DC’s superpowered women, both heroes and villains, in a high school setting, in which the characters were “aged down” and took on many of the trappings of stereotypical femininity. The reboot made the heroes and villains antagonists once more, rather than classmates, and re-introduced elements of the more violent and stereotypically masculine superheroics of more recent comics and films. Ormrod discusses the details of these series, as well as the fan response, in order to make the point that neither of these “versions” can be (or should be) considered “original” or “primary” and that one’s relationship to the narrative is largely dependent upon one’s own wishes and expectations, as well as which version the audience member watches first and is therefore “original” to them. While this is true as far as it goes, and although Ormrod does engage with the gendered implications of each version of “Super Hero Girls,” she does not discuss the “value” of each series in any context other than “what the audience wants” and “what the audience likes.” This is frustrating given the relatively obvious feminist critique some other critics have made (and which Ormrod references briefly). That is, it is worthwhile considering the political, social, or ideological messages of these shows apart from their relative and supposed “authenticity.” Surely Ormrod is right that there is no way to judge one or the other of these shows as “better” simply because they are closer to the “true Wonder Woman” (the idea of which seems like a chimera), but one can surely judge them “better” or “worse” by other criteria, an idea studiously ignored here.

In addition, it seems odd that Ormrod ignores the one version of the character that might have some claim to authenticity, the 1940s comics version of the character as written by creator William Moulton Marston and drawn by H. G. Peter. The Marston/Peter comics have received much critical attention for their strange and daring combination of BDSM, lesbianism, polyamory, mythology, and Nazi-punching, all in the context of a comic book meant for children! While Ormrod is far from obligated to revisit this terrain at any length, if there is a Wonder Woman that could be defined as both “authentic” and “excessive,” it is the original version, an idea that should at least be engaged in any discussion of the later versions. Excess, as a concept, is indeed lost, for the most part, in this essay, and is confined to the initial notion that perhaps there are “too many” versions of Wonder Woman. In fact, however, Ormrod takes the opposite position, that there is nothing excessive here at all. Rather, for Ormrod, the presence of multiple Wonder Women is neither a problem nor a concern, as we should simply take each as we find her. Given the degree to which this asks us to avert our critical eyes, Ormrod’s essay stops short of providing real insight, although her fundamental notion that multiplicity is itself a good (or at least not bad) factor is not far from the claims of Brassett and Jeffery, as discussed above.

As with most edited collections, then, this one can only be judged by the strengths and weaknesses of its individual essays. In this case, there are more strong essays than weaker ones, and most of the weaker ones nevertheless contain something of value. More than anything, the book opens up the superhero genre to fresh critical terrain and many vectors to follow, as its conclusion indicates. I am hopeful that these vectors will be followed by these and other scholars and yield additional insights.

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Book Review: Authorizing Superhero Comics: On the Evolution of a Popular Serial Genre by Daniel Stein

 Daniel Stein. Authorizing Superhero Comics:  On the Evolution of a Popular Serial Genre. Columbus:  The Ohio State University Press, 2021. 306 pp. ISBN:  978-0-8142-1476-3. US $35 or $99.95. https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814214763.html

 reviewed by Eric Berlatsky

Daniel Stein’s new book, Authorizing Superhero Comics operates in a context known, in literary circles, as the “history of the book” approach. Stein’s overarching claim is that superhero comics are not “authored” in a conventional sense simply by creative human beings, but rather such creators (writers, artists, editors, etc.) collaborate with a variety of other elements, organic and non-, in order to fashion the genre and (perhaps more often) to be fashioned by it. Such elements include readers/fans, the material circumstances of production, the physical objects themselves (comic books, graphic novels, digital comics), fanzines, parodies, “musealizing” texts, other media, adaptations, and more.

That is, while some critics take part in “auteur” theorizing about superhero comics and/or “great man” (typically gendered as such) theories of superhero comics, revolving around the idea that specific creators make crucial breakthroughs in the genre and shift the field in important ways, Stein argues that such an account insufficiently allows for the importance of non-human actors and historical context. The “great men” of such criticism are typically men like Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, William Moulton Marston, Bob Kane, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Neal Adams, Grant Morrison, Brian Michael Bendis, and the like. Many of these figures make appearances in Stein’s book, but in order to illustrate the ways in which they are as much the creation of the genre as they are its creators. Stein, then, theorizes superhero comics through the lens of Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory which, according to Stein “distinguishes between a notion of a society as a tangible entity that is always already there and can be taken as context for, and a force behind, human activities, and a more fleeting unstable sense of a collective as something that emerges from the interlocking actions of human and nonhuman actors and has no existence beyond those actions” (6-7). Stein proposes to apply this notion to superhero comics in order to “complicate overly person-centered histories and stories of heroic individuals and can help us account for the many twists and turns that mark the genre’s evolution” (7). Stein, then, is less interested in talking about authors, their choices and achievements, than he is a variety of “authorizing functions” that exist in the orbit of superhero comics (both the comics themselves and the discourse, or metaverse, that surround them) that participate in “authorizing, allowing, affording, encouraging, permitting, suggesting, influencing, blocking, [and] rendering possible…” (20) the genre’s continuing existence and development. The book is divided into four lengthy chapters that explore different elements of these “interlocking human and nonhuman actors” to illustrate what role they play in “authorizing” superhero comics, often through case studies of the two largest comics’ companies most popular characters, Batman (DC) and Spider-Man (Marvel).

The first chapter reviews and interrogates superhero comics’ paratextual apparatus, including author bios, letters pages, and fanzines, focusing largely, though not exclusively, on Batman. In this chapter, Stein looks closely at DC’s changing attitude toward the writers and artists of early superhero comics. Early on in the publication of both Superman comics and Batman comics, the comics themselves and surrounding publicity would highlight the creativity and talents of creators like Siegel, Shuster, and Kane. Profiles of creators were often included in comics, with the creators shown at their drawing desks and often interacting with their creations, muddling the creator/created divide. As the genre developed, however, despite the continuing reference to Batman’s creator, Kane, in each Batman story, letters column and fanzine debates about the authorship of each story, led to DC’s admission that Kane was no longer solely at the helm, and fan commentary and suggestions began to help steer the direction of Batman’s adventures from “linear to multilinear” development and towards crediting the other contributors rather than leaving such credits to the guesswork in letters columns and fanzines. Stein’s chapter traces, in particular, the influence and impact of the Batmania fanzine, fans and letter writers like Biljo White and Irene Vartanoff, and how the fanzine form itself contributed to the “extension of the superhero discourse, the broadening of the spectrum of authorization practices, the emerging of new author figurations, and the genre’s embrace of longer storylines, sprawling character constellations, complex narrative universes, and interacting trajectories…” (67). That is, rather than conceive of shifts in Batman’s narrative trajectory, and the types of Batman stories told, as the result of creator choice alone, Stein skillfully illustrates how interaction with fans and readers in letters columns and fanzines, substantially influenced the characters and stories themselves.

Chapter two applies the same logic to the “metaverse,” a concept that is somewhat defined and a little more fluid than the “fanzines + letters columns” of chapter one, but which refers to the entirety of a superhero comics’ character’s “storyworld” combined with the imagined world of the comics creators’ personalities, locations, and society, which, in turn, particularly in the “Marvel Age” of the 1960s, frequently intersected with those storyworlds. In this chapter, Stein investigates the mix of tongue-in-cheek self-mockery and blustery promotion that characterized the Marvel comics of this period (typically associated with Stan Lee, but also with Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and other supposed “bullpen” members). Stein particularly uses Spider-Man as a case study, recounting the way in which the character was promoted, how the creators were depicted in comics form, and how the comics themselves contained miniature advertisements and self-promotion on the covers and within the stories themselves. In addition, Stein looks closely at self-promoting books like Origins of Marvel Comics, the use of creator signatures, the Bullpen Bulletins column, the “Secrets of Spider-Man” feature in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, Marvel’s self-produced fan magazine FOOM, the introduction of the Merry Marvel Marching Society fan club, and related ephemera. Through all of these elements, Stein proposes that the superhero develops both as a “conservative figure suffering from the tyranny of the serial and as a fluxible [sic] figure of the radical imagination,” (153) due to the wide variety of inputs, influences, and “authors” that comprise their story. Likewise, Stein recounts how these elements contributed to the development of Marvel fandom as a type of secular religion populated by “true believers” that would, on occasion, allow them to ascend into the role of “official” creators, though, in a way, they unofficially occupied that position as part of Marvel’s Latourian “actor-network.” One result of this was, of course, the creation of a sense of the existence of a privileged “in-group” of fans as opposed to an insufficiently feverish “out-group” which facilitated the notion, if not the actuality, that said fans were part of Marvel itself, its corporate structure, and its storyworld.

Chapter three turns to a discussion of the ways in which superhero parodies contributed to the consolidation and development of the genre, both by acknowledging superhero comics’ standard tropes and allowing for the deflation and re-examination of those tropes. Stein first discusses MAD parodies of Batman (both comics and other media), Superman, and Wonder Woman and notes how though these parodies mock the “original” comics and their typical tropes, they also help to define those tropes as such and provide inspiration for self-reflexive, self-mocking parodies-from-within. Stein then discusses how parodies also played an important role in fanzines, like Roy Thomas’s Alter Ego (1961). Finally, as the genre came to more confidently define itself, Marvel and DC began to publish their own parodies in the late 1960s:  DC’s Inferior Five and Marvel’s Not Brand Ecch. Stein argues effectively that such self-parodies serve not only to deflate and mock the genre, but to authorize and more firmly define it. In regard to Not Brand Ecch, Stein writes that “…this self-parody rarely undermines the integrity of the characters but pursues a strategy of self-affirmation through pre-emptive self-deflation” (189). Indeed, Stein shows that future Marvel storylines are played out, or even tested, in the pages of these parodies. Perhaps most convincingly, Stein notes that the use of parody and self-parody presumes the exact kind of in-group that Marvel was trying to create through intricate continuity, Bullpen Bulletins and the Merry Marvel Marching Society, given that the humor in these parodies relies upon the kind of cult-like encyclopedic knowledge that DC and Marvel were cultivating more seriously elsewhere. In this context, Stein’s point that self-parodies serve less to critique a genre, or company, than to provide another avenue of promotion, authorization, and community-building, seems spot-on.

At the same time, Stein’s close reading of Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch, et al.’s 1963 (1993) from Image Comics, as a more biting critique of Lee/Kirby-era Marvel is undercut by his own arguments about parody in general. Certainly, Moore’s parodic criticism of creator exploitation and naked hucksterism is meant to be taken a bit more seriously than Marvel’s Not Brand Ecch, but it is also true that 1963 depends upon knowledge of and affection for Silver Age Marvel, and, in fact, 1963 was ultimately meant to function as a critique of Image-style 1990s comics through a revival of Silver Age aesthetics. Thus, 1963’s parody functions as much as a reauthorization of the Marvel Age as it does as a critique of it. Stein’s claim that 1963 sets out to “shatter the nostalgic lens” (207) through which many 1990s fans viewed the Silver Age does not ring true, especially considering Moore’s subsequent work (Supreme, Tom Strong), which doubles down on Silver Age nostalgia, if with a bit more skepticism than some peers.

In the final chapter, Stein discusses the general practice of collecting superhero comics, not just reading them, and the more recent publication of “museum-in-a-box” books like Batman Collected (1996), and the 21st Century’s The Marvel Vault, The DC Vault, The Batman Vault, The Spider-Man Vault, and others. Stein notes how with the digitization of comics and the easy accessibility of back issues in digital form, a fetishization of physical objects as collector’s items with Benjaminian “auras,” has increasingly defined superhero comics fandom and the industry itself. Stein notes how the boxes/books mentioned above attempt to “musealize” mass-produced objects by simulating age and authenticity, working to give purchasers and collectors the haptic feeling of owning and holding the “extinct” (Golden or Silver Age comics, “original” artwork, business documents from comics companies’ histories) despite their knowledge that they are not actually doing so. Relying heavily on Aleida Assman’s (and others’) theorization of the archive, Stein emphasizes the ways in which these books create meaning, authority, and history, rather than recover it, promoting certain elements of characters’ and companies’ histories over others, obscuring (for instance) a lengthy history of misogyny and racial exclusion in favor of the rosy glow of nostalgia and cultural capital.  As Stein notes, a fetishization of old, mint condition, floppies, combined with a “musealization” of reprints and ephemera in expensive hardcover books and a recycling of old stories on the silver screen, lends gravitas and/or “authority” to a genre and medium once considered laughable. Likewise, archiving, as Stein asserts “shape[s] a system of enunciability by determining what can be authoritatively known and thus legitimately said” (270). That is, it functions as an assertion of how comics’ companies (and their parent companies) wish to be defined and understood, though (as Stein also acknowledges) because of the open-ended and serial nature of the medium, such an “enunciation” can never be complete.

Ultimately, Stein’s account of “actor-network” authorship and authority in superhero comics is compelling and convincing. If there is a critique to be made, it is that Stein’s account does not assert much that is not generally known and understood. Will Brooker’s 2001 book Batman Unmasked covers much of this territory, if at an earlier stage of development and in a narrower orbit, as does the slightly earlier Comic Book Culture by Matthew Pustz. Beyond that, fans, critics, and theorists of the medium know well the influence of letters columns, fanzines, and fans, and the somewhat porous relationship between creator and reader, production and consumption, within superhero comics. While Stein does an excellent job in consolidating and extending that understanding into the present day, as well as providing useful theorization of this process via Latour, Assman, and others, the book functions more as confirmation of conventional understandings of the medium than surprising revelation or insight. If anything, Stein’s premise that most critics/theorists understand superhero comics through the lens of the “great man” theory of comics is questionable. Certainly, there are books, articles, and collections devoted to specific creators, but there is also a general acknowledgment and understanding that superhero comics are collaborative, both in simple ways (most individual superhero comics involve more than a handful of creators) and in more complex ones (the collaboration between creators and fans, past and present, seriality and completion, humans and non-human actors, etc.). Likewise, to my mind, Stein insufficiently acknowledges the influence and power some few individual creators (some named above) actually do assert over an entire creative field. Obviously, these individual creators are also a product of their influences, both human and non-human, but Stein’s approach tends to devalue and de-emphasize the ways in which some individuals can bend the genre in new and exciting (or troubling) directions by creatively re-reading their influences and influencing others to do the same. No individual creator is an island, to be sure, but Stein’s deployment of actor-network theory tends to downplay the agency of individual creators, which, in some cases, have an outsized importance Stein tends not to acknowledge.

Despite these critiques, Stein’s book is a compelling read, perhaps most so for those relatively new to superhero comics and their criticism. For those less familiar with the material history, including letters columns, fanzines, parodies, etc., the book will no doubt shed new light on superhero stories. For those familiar with this history, Stein provides useful background, contextualization and theorization in a clear and readable context. It is a book well worth reading.


Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Book Review: Mixed-Race Superheroes, edited by Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins and Eric L. Berlatsky

 Mixed-Race Superheroes. Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins and Eric L. Berlatsky, editors. Rutgers University Press, 2021. https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/mixed-race-superheroes/9781978814592

 reviewed by James Willetts

Dagbovie-Mullins and Berlatsky’s ambitious anthology is a wide-ranging addition to the emerging literature covering race in comic books, which explores examples of what it means to for characters to be mixed-race in comic book universes filled with superheroic aliens, demi-Gods, and cyborgs. Contributors cover superheroes from within the pages of comic books; characters adapted to animation, live-action film, and television; and those who emerged first on screen. This adds up to a tumult of mediums, sources, and ideas, and ultimately proves both the book’s greatest asset and weakness.

            Mixed-Race Superheroes divides its twelve essays into three sections - “Superheroes in Black and White,” “Metaphors of/and Mixedness,” and “Multiethnic Mixedness (or Mixed-Race Intersections).” Per the book’s theme, each division addresses aspects of racial mixing, whether by examining characters who are textually described as mixed, or those who can be viewed through this lens. These sections are intended to serve as a way of demonstrating different methodologies and angles for contributors to explore the topic.

The book’s first third – the four essays in “Superheroes in Black and White” – concentrates primarily on ways in which originally white characters can be given mixed-race characterization, either through adaptational casting of actors (as with Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok, or Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, both of whom identify as mixed race), or by ‘rebooting’ characters (as with DC’s Rebirth’s Flash, Wallace West). While there is significant overlap between some of the essays contained within this part, others – the introduction of African American poet Gary Jackson’s DC Comics-inspired poetry -- appear deliberately detached from any over-arching thematic commentary.

The second section is “devoted to the ways in which superhero narratives treat the idea of racial mixing metaphorically,” before the final third returns to addressing “more specific categories of racial mixing” (p. 17).  This means that the book deliberately breaks up the first and third sections, which are positioned as exploring similar themes, with the more distinct approach of “Metaphors of/and Mixedness.” This division is confusingly structured and appears largely arbitrary. There is little clear rationale for the reader behind the distinctions being drawn here. Although the introduction recognizes that the first and third parts are interlinked, the book separates them, distinguishing between these sections without explanation. Even when separate essays examine the same character across two mediums, differences in presentation between each goes largely unremarked upon, to the detriment of the subject matter.

            The overlap and divergence between the different subject matter and mediums examined can create genuinely fascinating interplays, as competing interpretations of mixedness surface. Yet too often, these connections go uncommented on. Beyond a fascinating introduction which serves both to set out the contents of the essays and foreground larger issues of representation and imagery within comic-book movies, the hands of the editors are often too light. Perhaps more vigorous scaffolding would have rewarded the reader, particularly in setting out an argument about the ways in which different mediums and stories deal with broader issues of race and racial identity. Had Dagbovie-Mullins and Berlatsky provided commentary between the essays, for instance, they could have established a more cohesive argument about who, or what, they view as mixed-race, and how different approaches and methodologies can address different presentations of mixed characters. Miles Morales, for example, is the subject of a pair of essays, one focusing on his initial appearance in the comic book Ultimate Spider-Man, and another on his character’s adaptation in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse animated movie, and yet neither of the essays address one another, or is linked through methodology or approach. Likewise, Venom is discussed in the context of the 2018 film, and in a wider examination of Peter Parker’s black suit phase. An editorial intervention might have helped to helped to expand on the idea that the very nature of the symbiote means that Eddie Brock and Peter Parker develop a liminal state of mixedness when they bond with an alien being, which introduces a further complication to defining who counts as mixed race.

By widening the criteria of mixedness, from characters who are specifically written as mixed-race (such as Miles Morales) to those who meet any symbolic or metaphorical standard of being mixed, Mixed-Race Superheroes expands the concept of mixedness and examine characters from a wide range of backgrounds. This is in line with Dagbovie-Mullins and Berlatsky’s stated aim, to showcase and increase mixed-race representation.

The collected essays, and book as whole, fails to clarify exactly what racial mixedness is, however. Dagbovie-Mullins’s essay on the MCU’s Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man’s alien costume saga ties together 1980’s comic-book lore with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s treatment of its mixed-race characters, M.J. and Liz (both transformed from white characters introduced in the 1960s comic book). These show Peter Parker as an interlocutor in textual conversation around race, interacting with mixedness from the outside. Kwasu David Tembo addresses Superman, and his essay poses important questions about who counts as mixed-race in universes where many characters have origins in two-worlds but are written as white. Here, Tembo follows the book’s overall lead in largely approaching race and species as interchangeable terms. As a Kryptonian raised on Earth, Superman has a position of liminality similar to mixed-race characters. Is Superman a mixed-race character, or is he simply being examined through the lens of Mixed-Race studies? Nowhere is this made clear.

Other essays cover topics and characters as diverse as Jason Momoa’s Maori-inspired cinematic turn as the half-Atlantean Aquaman, Marjoie Liu and Sana Takeda’s Monstress, and DC’s post-Arab Spring reimagining of Dr. Fate. Corinne E. Collins and Jasmine Mitchell’s introduce a degree of intersectionality by examining concepts of gender mixedness via queer-coded non-white characters such as the Crystal Gems of Cartoon’s Network’s tv series, Steven Universe, and Thor: Ragnarok’s Valkyrie. These introduce larger conversations about the ways in which mixed-race characters are distinguished, defined and used.

Despite the individual quality of each of these pieces, Mixed-Race Superheroes can sometimes end up feeling less than the sum of its parts. While each essay is well-argued and presents a fascinating angle for approaching the issue of mixed-race superheroes, at no point do these cohere into a whole with a larger narrative to tell, other than that now superheroes come in more shades than the four colors of classical comic books.

 A version of this review will appear in print in a future issue of IJOCA.