Analyzing the Marvel Universe
Critical Essays on the Comics and Film Adaptations
$49.95
In stock
About the Book
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.
About the Author(s)
Bibliographic Details
Edited by Douglas Brode
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 245
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2024
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9066-7
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5464-5
Imprint: McFarland
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
