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Comics & Graphic Novels |
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Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology (Studies in Popular Culture)
written by Richard Reynolds
Studio : University Press of Mississippi
by University Press of Mississippi
Publisher : University Press of Mississippi
Released : 1994-04-01
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours and eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780878056941
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 2 reviews)
List Price : $25.00
Our Price : $22.50
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Product Description |
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The super hero has been the staple of the modern comic book since the late 1930s. The phenomenally successful movies "Superman" and "Batman" have made these two comic book super heroes as familiar worldwide as any characters ever created. Yet to relatively few aficionados are they known at first hand from their appearances in comic books. Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology explores the origins of the super hero by documenting how heroes emerged from the comic book genre and are defined both by its history and by audience expectations. To show some of the most influential and paradigmatic figures, this study focuses on the texts of three comic books in the genre--The X-Men, The Dark Knight Returns, and Watchman. It examines ways in which the comics mythologize both the role of the hero and the nature of consensus, authority, and moral choice. Blending academic scholarship with specialized knowledge of the comic book medium, Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology will have appeal for several audiences. Since most of the academic scholarship published on comic books has focused on history rather than on cultural analysis, this book will be of great value to scholars of popular culture. |
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Highly Insightful and Well-Written |
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In Superheroes: A Modern Mythology, Richard Reynolds does an excellent job of dissecting some of the origins of the superhero genre. Beginning in the 1930s and 1940s, he lays bare some of the prevailing ideas and iconography and puts superheroes in context. Reynolds also does an able job of analyzing The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore's Watchmen, as well as certain superhero origin stories. This book's only disappointment comes from the fact that his analyzes of superheroes' mythic origins don't go far enough - those looking for explicit comparisons to assorted mythic pantheons or full-throated examinations of how superheroes fall into legendary templates (except those of the Joseph Campbell variety) will be disappointed. However, an excellent and important read for anyone interested in comic books. |
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Great. |
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This book forever changed the way that I read superhero comics. Reynolds discusses the factors that are present in virtually every superhero comic since Superman was created. Some are apparent (devotion to justice, secret identitities), and some are subtle (lost parents, accountability only to one's own conscience). Virtually all factors are recapitulations of the developmental struggles of the primary audience of these comics: adolescent males. Reynolds continues by illuminating the grand, mythical nature of the comic-book universes, all stories blending into one vast "canonical" story, each comic becoming part of a larger continuity. This continuity shares several features of classical mythologies, which Reynolds explores in depth, citing the X-Men, the Watchmen, and the Dark Knight Returns series (among others) as evidence. Read this, it's great. |
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