How to Read Superhero Comics and Why

by Klock, Geoff

• ISBN13: 9780826414199
• ISBN10: 0826414192
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-09-06
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Superhero comic books are traditionally thought to have two distinct periods, two major waves of creativity: the Golden Age and the Silver Age. In simple terms, the Golden Age was the birth of the superhero proper out of the pulp novel characters of the early 1930s, and was primarily associated with the DC Comics Group. Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman are the most famous creations of this period. In the early 1960s, Marvel Comics launched a completely new line of heroes, the primary figures of the Silver Age: the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, the Avengers, Iron Man, and Daredevil.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Melancholy and the Infinite Earths: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, and JLA: Earth-2

The Bat and the Watchmen: Introducing the Revisionary Superhero Narrative - Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Batman: The Killing Joke, and Watchmen

"It is with considerable difficulty ..." The Revisionary Superhero Narrative, Phase Two - Marvels, Astro City, and Kingdom Come

America's Best Comics: Tracing the (Re)visionary Company - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong, Promethea, Top Ten, and Tomorrow

Pumping Up the Volume: The Revisionary Superhero Narrative Approaches the New Age - Grant Morrison's Justice League of America, and Warren Ellis's Stormwatch, The Authority, and the WildC.A.T.s/Aliens crossover

The Superhero as Critic: The Birth of the Modern Age - Planetary, Mark Millar and Frank Quitely's Authority, and Joe Casey and Sean Phillips's Wildcats

Epilogue: Pop Comics, Harold Bloom at Harvard, and the Oedipus Fallacy: Marvel Boy, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's New X-Men, and Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's X-Force

A Frequently Asked Question: Unbreakable

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.