Description
Uncovering the darker kith and kin of the superhuman protectors that proliferate popular culture, Supehero Gothic considers what they expose about humanity and its possible futures.
Through an examination of the beyond-normal and abhuman bodies of a variety of dark superheroes from Batman to Watchmen, Shang Chi to Blade, this study reveals how their undead and undying status creates not only an inevitable and inescapable connection to the Gothic but one which is dependent upon the very distinct identity positions that they each embody. Bookended by a creative piece charting the birth and search for an identity of an undead superhero, Superhero Gothic explores characters from comics, film, television and video games, including Ghost Rider; the Batman & Dracula trilogy; Marvel Zombies; the Soulsbourne game genre; Moon Knight; The Umbrella Academy and Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.
Tracing the Gothic process through Supers' origin stories, the establishment of identity positions and their varying redemptive arcs, this collection makes the case that the monsterized Others of the late 20th- and early 21st-century are shown to be the last, best, hope of a human, and humane, future.
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Table of Contents
Undead Intervention 1# - Carve: Into the Dark
Leo Otherland, Author & Independent Researcher, USA.
1. Superheroes in the Service of Satan: Faust, Ghost Rider, and Spawn - Simon Bacon, Independent Scholar, Poland.
2. Vampire Batman - Dr. Murray Leeder, Manitoba University, Canada.
3. Marvel Zombies!: The Undead of the MCU and Heroics from Beyond the Grave - Dr. Rob Mclaughlin, Birmingham City University, UK.
Part II: Undead Identities
Undead Intervention 2# - Who is Carve?
Leo Otherland, Author & Independent Researcher, USA.
4. The Limits of Superheroism in Video Games: FromSoftware's Undead Protagonists - Carl Wilson, Independent Scholar, UK.
5. A Clandestine Knight and the Angst of His Identity: A Sociological Reading of MCU's Moon Knight - Dr. Debaditya Mukhopadhyay, Manikchak University, India.
6. Schrödinger's Watchmen: Heroic Duality and Responsibility for Utopia - Erin Isely, Milligan University, USA.
7. Four Chinese Superheroes: Emotionless, Cold Blood, Life Snatcher, and Iron Hands - Dr. Colette Balmain, Kingston University, UK.
Part III: Othering the Undead I: Queerness and Femininity
8. No More Poster Children for Diversity: Queering Inclusion and (In)visibility in Netflix's The Umbrella Academy - Rebecca Jean Murphy, Washington State University, USA.
9. The Death Crone Superheroine: Claire Voyant - Dr. Valerie Estelle Frankel, Author and Independent Scholar, USA.
10. 'You get what everyone gets... you get a lifetime': Death as Antihero in Neil Gaiman's Sandman Series - Cathleen Allyn Conway, Goldsmiths University, UK.
11. The Wicked Witch Who Was 'Erased from the Records of Time': Bayonetta's Use of Time to Reclaim Women's Sexuality - Dr. Marissa Mills, University of South Mississippi, USA.
Part IV: Othering the Undead II: Race and Representation
12. N'Kantu, Marvel's Living Mummy and Enduring Dark Superhero - Dr. Michele Brittany, Author and Independent Scholar, USA.
13. 'They call me...BLADE!': Subverting Whiteness and The Horrors of Passing in Marvel's Blade The Vampire Hunter - Dr. Justin Wingard and Nicole Huff, Michigan State University, USA.
14. 'It's not death if you refuse it': The Undead Eternal in S.P Somtow's The Crow: Temple of Night - Dr. Katarzyna Ancuta, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.
15. The Vampiric Social Commentary of WTF Supervillain the Hemo-Goblin - Prof. Leah Richards, LaGuardia Community College, USA.
Part VI: Ecologies and Undead Supers
16. Zombo: The New Necropolitics - Tom Shapiro, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.
17. EcoGothic Femme Fatale or Superhero Ecologist? The Various Guises of DC's Poison Ivy - Dr. Teresa Fitzpatrick, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
18. Undead Superhero in the Anthropocene: The Swamp Thing - Dr. Ildikó Limpár, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary.
Part V: Beyond Humanity
Undead Intervention 3# - Carve: In to the Future
Leo Otherland, Author & Independent Researcher, USA.
19. 'Take the World': Extraterrestriality, Xenology and the Ambivalence of Affect in Brightburn - Dr. Edmund Ankomah, Illinois State University
20. Populated by Horrors: Exploring Dr Manhattan's Posthuman Otherness in Watchmen (2009) - Prof. Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand.
21. Augmented Bodies: The Posthuman Undead Superheroes in Doom Patrol (2019-23) - Anisha Kaul, Jamia Millia Islamia University, India
Product details
| Published | 27 May 2027 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 9781350435544 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 15 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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