Capitalist Superheroes

The blockbuster superhero movie: popular entertainment or capitalist propaganda? This book investigates the 21st-century superhero's underlying political agenda.

Throughout his films, Christopher Nolan champions the Anglo-American Neo-Liberal world order. Nestled within this order, his characters are free to undergo their ludic creation of little worlds of selfhood.

This fun and accessible guide offers super advice for business success. Top venture capitalist and self- proclaimed ?comic book geek? Sean Wise reveals how to create a winning business persona through valuable strategies from great comic book icons. In this engaging and insightful guide, Wise takes readers on a guided tour through the world of superheroes and their lessons, directly relating them to essential business tactics people need to master in order to succeed in today?s workplace. Featuring modern-day examples of business icons who best illustrate superhero strategies?as well as cautionary lessons from infamous supervillains?this is the book for anyone who dreams of donning a cape instead of a suit, taking an oath instead of swearing at the copier, and seeing the big picture instead of getting mired in the daily grind.

Beginning with Schuster and Seigel's adolescent creation of Superman in 1938, Grant Morrison charts the history of the superheroes to their modern, multiplex incarnations.

Conventional wisdom holds that comic books of the post-World War II era are poorly drawn and poorly written publications, notable only for the furor they raised. Contributors to this thoughtful collection, however, demonstrate that these comics constitute complex cultural documents that create a dialogue between mainstream values and alternative beliefs that question or complicate the grand narratives of the era. Close analysis of individual titles, including EC comics, Superman, romance comics, and other, more obscure works, reveals the ways Cold War culture--from atomic anxieties and the nuclear family to communist hysteria and social inequalities--manifests itself in the comic books of the era. By illuminating the complexities of mid-century graphic novels, this study demonstrates that postwar popular culture was far from monolithic in its representation of American values and beliefs.

Who you gonna call? One-Star Squadron! Meet DC’s superhero team where heroism meets capitalism. This ragtag group of heroes led by Red Tornado is here to provide service with a smile. All you must do is send a request via their on-demand hero app and they’ll answer any call. Whether it’s a children’s birthday party or an alien invasion, no job is too small or too big! Brought to you by Eisner nominee Mark Russell (The Flintstones, Wonder Twins, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles) and Eisner winner Steve Lieber (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen), you’ll want to invest early in this one-of-a-kind miniseries that promises a story filled with heart, heroism, and humor.

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen has been widely hailed as a landmark in the development of the graphic novel. It was not only aesthetically groundbreaking but also anticipated future developments in politics, literature, and intellectual property. Demonstrating a keen eye for historical detail, Considering Watchmen gives readers a new appreciation of just how radical Moore and Gibbons’s blend of gritty realism and formal experimentation was back in 1986. The book also considers Watchmen’s place in the history of the comics industry, reading the graphic novel’s playful critique of superhero marketing alongside Alan Moore’s public statements about the rights to the franchise. Andrew Hoberek examines how Moore and Gibbons engaged with the emerging discourses of neoconservatism and neoliberal capitalism, ideologies that have only become more prominent in subsequent years. Watchmen’s influences on the superhero comic and graphic novel are undeniable, but Hoberek reveals how it has also had profound effects on literature as a whole. He suggests that Watchmen not only proved that superhero comics could rise to the status of literature—it also helped to inspire a generation of writers who are redefining the boundaries of the literary, from Jonathan Lethem to Junot Díaz. Hoberek delivers insight and analysis worthy of satisfying serious readers of the genre while shedding new light on Watchmen as both an artistic accomplishment and a book of ideas.

This book analyzes the cinematic superhero as social practice. The study’s critical context brings together psychoanalysis and restorative and reflective nostalgia as a way of understanding the ideological function of superhero fantasy. It explores the origins of cinematic superhero fantasy from antecedents in myth and religion, to twentieth-century comic book, to the cinematic breakthrough with Superman (1978). The authors then focus on Spider-Man as reflective response to Superman’s restorative nostalgia, and read MCU’s overarching narrative from Iron Man to End Game in terms of the concurrent social, political, and environmental conditions as a world in crisis. Zornado and Reilly take up Wonder Woman and Black Panther as self-conscious attempts to reflect on gender and race in restorative superhero fantasy, and explore Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy as a meditation on the need for authoritarian fascism. The book concludes with Logan, Wonder Woman 1984, and Amazon Prime’s The Boys as distinctly reflective fantasy narratives critical of the superhero fantasy phenomenon.

Superman, Batman, Daredevil, and Wonder Woman are iconic cultural figures that embody values of order, fairness, justice, and retribution. Comic Book Crime digs deep into these and other celebrated characters, providing a comprehensive understanding of crime and justice in contemporary American comic books. This is a world where justice is delivered, where heroes save ordinary citizens from certain doom, where evil is easily identified and thwarted by powers far greater than mere mortals could possess. Nickie Phillips and Staci Strobl explore these representations and show that comic books, as a historically important American cultural medium, participate in both reflecting and shaping an American ideological identity that is often focused on ideas of the apocalypse, utopia, retribution, and nationalism. Through an analysis of approximately 200 comic books sold from 2002 to 2010, as well as several years of immersion in comic book fan culture, Phillips and Strobl reveal the kinds of themes and plots popular comics feature in a post-9/11 context. They discuss heroes’ calculations of “deathworthiness,” or who should be killed in meting out justice, and how these judgments have as much to do with the hero’s character as they do with the actions of the villains. This fascinating volume also analyzes how class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are used to construct difference for both the heroes and the villains in ways that are both conservative and progressive. Engaging, sharp, and insightful, Comic Book Crime is a fresh take on the very meaning of truth, justice, and the American way.

MAIN STREET, USA-Against incredible odds, jobless crusader UNEMPLOYED MAN and his sidekick PLAN B embark on a heroic search for work-and quickly find themselves waging an epic battle against The Just Us League, a dastardly group of supervillains including THE HUMAN RESOURCE, TOXIC DEBT BLOB, PINK SLIP and THE INVISIBLE HAND. Experience this action-packed story in THE ADVENTURES OF UNEMPLOYED MAN-a fearless, brilliant, and provocative book that ASTOUNDS with incisive wit and AMAZES with stunning insights into the desperate situation so many heroes find themselves in today. A new supergroup of down-but-not-out heroes has emerged from the economic crisis, including perpetual grad student MASTER OF DEGREES, fix-it-with-tape DUCTO, pain-shrinking therapist GOOD GRIEF, checkbook unbalancer ZILCH, shadow worker FANTASMA, and WONDER MOTHER, who built her invisible jet from pieces of the glass ceiling. These heroes have enlisted the help of Erich Origen and Gan Golan, the dynamic duo behind the New York Times bestseller GOODNIGHT BUSH. Together they tell the story of our intrepid heroes' climactic clash with the self-interested villains who dwell in the Hall of Just Us, devising sinister plots that threaten the entire world. This richly illustrated book is a parody of classic superhero comics from the Golden Age to the present day-and a brilliant dissection of our current economic meltdown. It features dazzling artwork by such comics legends as Ramona Fradon, Rick Veitch, Michael Netzer, Terry Beatty, Josef Rubenstein, Benton Jew, Thomas Yeates, Shawn Martinbrough, Clem Robins, Tom Orzechowski, Thomas Mauer and Lee Loughridge.