Marvel, like other media "universes," is a collection of highly profitable and audience-satisfying products that exist not only as individual items of popular culture but coalesce to form a unique and all-encompassing identity. Within media studies, elements of popular culture once dismissed as low-brow entertainment are now studied with the seriousness that has always been afforded classics like Shakespeare's plays and ancient myth. Indeed, DC and Marvel might be thought of as competing myth systems.
This book is a collection of diverse essays covering all aspects of the Marvel Universe, from in-print graphic novels to film and television variations. Contributors present in-depth, original and inclusive interpretations of numerous individual elements of Marvel, including analysis of key characters, themes and aesthetic elements. They also offer a vision of the essential "meaning" of Marvel, including aspects that set it apart from the DC Universe and other media. Individual readings apply feminist, ethnic, and queer theory, among others, and deal with the lesser known aspects of Marvel's offerings in order to provide the definitive collection on this subject. Beginning with an introduction by the editor that provides a complete overview of the Marvel canon, this book offers the broadest and most in-depth collection on the subject to date.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Table of Contents
Introduction: Prelude to a Pop-Culture Phenomenon
Douglas Brode
With Great Power Ballads, There Must Also Come-Great Responsibility! A Re-Assessment of the Spider-Man Legacy
Emily Lauer
"I am. . .": Tony Stark's Evolving Masculinity from Comic to Endgame
Susan Aronstein and Tammy L. Mielke
Armored Warriors Full of Arrows: From Obscure Crusader and Arabic Texts to Marvel's Wolverine
Scott Manning
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
Doctor Doom: Marvel's Transmedia Supervillain
Mark Hibbett
Beyond Good and Evil: DC's Catwoman, Marvel's Black Mamba, and the Tradition of the Dark, Dangerous Woman
Douglas Brode
"You are mind-blowingly duplicitous": Black Widow and the Male Gaze
Jaclyn Kliman
Finally, a Muslim Teenage Female Superhero: The Intersectionality of Feminism and Islam in Ms. Marvel
Hafsa Alkhudairi
The True Meaning of Fearless: Feminism in Fearless and the Marvel Universe
Christina M. Knopf
Sexuality as the Devil's Tool: Namor and His Never-Ending Love for Invisible Girl
Anke Marie Bock
"We are Groot": Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Guardians of the Galaxy
Jerold Abrams and Katherine Reed
"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
"Foul of form and barren of mind": Disability in the Comics of Steve Gerber
Dennin Ellis and Melissa Guadró n
A Kree by Any Other Name: The Nameless and the Problems of History, Forgetting, and the Pain of Memory
Jeffrey Mccambridge
A Secret Empire Among Us: Or, "When Is There a Good Time to Discuss Fascism?"
Ora C. McWilliams and Joshua Richardson
"They do things differently there": Not Brand Echh, 1967-1969
Cyrus R. K. Patell
Children of a Lesser Atom: The Dearth of Difference in Marvel's X-Men
Quincy Thomas
Black Panther: From W. E. B. Du Bois to Wakanda
Karl E. Martin
The Spreadable Media Model of Mass Communication: Tracing the Corporate Continuity of Disney-Marvel and the
Garret L. Castleberry
About the Contributors
Index
