The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero

by Angela Ndalianis, Editor
Routledge, London & New York, 2008
314 pp. Trade, £65.00
ISBN: 978-0-415-99176-6.

Reviewed by Jan Baetens


Like all great books, this one knows its classics, in the first place Umberto Eco’s 1972 essay on the myth of Superman, which analyzed the incompatibility between the archetypal, i.e. non-temporal, status of the superhero (frozen in time, for belonging to the sphere of the “already said”) and the inherent temporality of the modernist novelistic hero (whose adventures are happening in time because his or her nature belongs to the domain of “what will happen”), and the 1991 collection on The Many Lives of the Batman, edited by Roberta E. Pearson and William Uricchio, which introduced an acute awareness of the transmedial dimension of the superhero myth, open to all kind of continuations and transformations beyond its initial comic playground. The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero demonstrates very clearly that the situation of the superhero genre has dramatically changed since Eco’s groundbreaking analysis of Superman, and it suggests that this modification has to do, among other things obviously, with the increasing transmedialization of the superhero, who is no longer a comic book character (various essays also make the very correct point that this has perhaps never been the case and that characters like Superman have to be read as transmedial adaptations of previous non-comic types). The transmedial explosion of the superhero myth has created a profusion of adventures, timelines, settings, characters, and so on, and the public has been developing a strong awareness of the temporality of the myth, which has proven strong enough to resist its confrontation with time and temporality (yes, Superman can marry Lois Lane now; yes, superheroes can die; yes, change is part of their genetic material, at least today). It is not just the increased presence of the superhero in all kinds of media that is an important change, but also the gradual shift from what Ndalianis qualifies in her conclusive analysis of Smallville as follows: “the telling of the myth has become as important as the myth that is told” (p. 286). As a result of the emphasis on telling, the readers are now involved in the making of the work, firstly because they are familiar with the already existing representations of each superhero myth, for contemporary authors have to take into account both that knowledge and the very complex reading horizons of these well-informed readers (Superman fans do not just read Superman, they know everything that has been done in the Superman branch since the beginning of the series in the late thirties), and secondly because this interaction between readers and writers transforms the production of each new adventure into a negotiation between the desire for innovation and the permanently present feelings of nostalgia. The essays by Henry Jenkins and Scott Bukatman provide us with many insightful ideas and hypotheses on the role of the reader and the complexity of the notion of ‘identity’.

However, the essays gathered by Angela Ndalianis, who managed to find a good balance between senior and junior contributors while also achieving a good editorial coherence of this volume, do not limit themselves to a critical discussion with Eco’s seminal text and an update of the insights first illustrated by the Batman collection. All of them enrich or innovate the current scholarship on the superhero genre, which makes this book as interesting for comic fans as for literary and media scholars interested in notions such as genre, fandom, intertextuality, and most of all the experience of time in contemporary culture. Very refreshing are the essays on gender issues, both at the level of the characters (Wonder Woman) and at that of the readers (for superheroes fans are not necessarily male pre-adolescents).

The book contains both general essays and close readings of specific works, heroes, and series, yet in most cases there is a sound and clever dialogue between theoretical reflection and in-depth analysis of concrete examples. Theory is never free-floating speculation, while the interest for often very detailed case studies never turns into fan fetishism. The two contributions by the editor, which open and end the book, are perfect illustrations of this mutual enhancement of theory and practice. In fact, almost all essays of the volume display this same eagerness to “ground” theory in the reality of the comics and their socio-cultural environment, also preventing –thanks to this theoretical twist– the typical fascination of superhero fans for the smallest details of their endless and never-ending “multiverses” (multiple universes) from degenerating into a kind of savage erudition.

One of the most surprising –and in my view most challenging– novelties of this collection is the blurring of the boundaries between the two domains of the superheroes comics on the one hand and the graphic novel on the other hand. Sociologically and institutionally speaking, the gap between both that has widened a lot recently, despite the importance superheroes comics have played in the emergence of the (American) graphic novel. Various authors (I am thinking here of the comics scholar Charles Hatfield, but I am also on the creative plea of a rediscovery and reappraisal of the ‘popular’ comics by Art Spiegelman in his book In the Shadow of No Towers) have drawn our attention to the danger of a complete split between the two fields. Yet until now the attempts to bridge the gap between both have usually been taken on the initiative of graphic novelist scholars or practitioners. Here, however, it is the comics field itself that is working towards a reintegration of both domains, and this is an excellent evolution.

I would like to end with a small technical criticism, for nobody is perfect: the index of the book is very disappointing, and the various bibliographies are not always up to date (articles that have been published last year yet are still listed as ‘forthcoming’). Apparently, the book has been kept on hold quite some time by the publisher, as happens frequently with academic publications, but that is only half an excuse for these small errors.