The Myth of the Superhero

The Myth of the Superhero PDF Author: Marco Arnaudo
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421409534
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Translated for the first time into English, The Myth of the Superhero looks beyond the cape, the mask, and the superpowers, presenting a serious study of the genre and its place in a broader cultural context.

The Myth of the Superhero

The Myth of the Superhero PDF Author: Marco Arnaudo
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421409534
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Get Book Here

Book Description
Translated for the first time into English, The Myth of the Superhero looks beyond the cape, the mask, and the superpowers, presenting a serious study of the genre and its place in a broader cultural context.

The Myth of the American Superhero

The Myth of the American Superhero PDF Author: John Shelton Lawrence
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802825737
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
As the nation seems to yearn for redemption from the evils that threaten its tranquility, the authors maintain that Joseph Campbell's monomythic hero is alive and well, but significantly displaced, in American popular culture.

The Mythology of the Superhero

The Mythology of the Superhero PDF Author: Andrew R. Bahlmann
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476662487
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Superheroes have been an integral part of popular society for decades and have given rise to a collective mythology familiar in popular culture worldwide. Though scholars and fans have recognized and commented on this mythology, its structure has gone largely unexplored. This book provides a model and lexicon for identifying the superhero mythos. The author examines the myth in several narratives--including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Green Arrow and Beowulf--and discusses such diverse characters as Batman, Wolverine, Invincible and John Constantine.

Super Heroes

Super Heroes PDF Author: Richard Reynolds
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 9780878056941
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
A study of one of popular culture's superstars whose enchanting mystique pervades the modern world

The Gospel According to Superheroes

The Gospel According to Superheroes PDF Author: B. J. Oropeza
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820474229
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
And 1970s, and the dark and violent creatures who embody the pre- and post-millennial crises of faith. Lavishly illustrated, the articles come to startling conclusions about what we have really been reading under the covers with flashlights for generations. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Marvelous Myths

Marvelous Myths PDF Author: Russell W Dalton
Publisher: Chalice Press
ISBN: 0827223609
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
What makes someone a hero? In the early 1960's, the image of a superhero was someone with a square jaw, a muscular build, and a quick smile whose biggest personal problem was trying to keep their girlfriends from guessing their secret identities. Then writer Stan Lee and artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko created a group of superheroes who revolutionized comics. These heroes, including The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-man, The X-men, Iron Man, Captain America and others, were not perfect heroes living in a perfect world, but fallible people with physical ailments and personal problems like our own. While the authors and artists who created them did not intend to write explicitly religious stories, their tales of imperfect heroes who try to do the right thing despite the many challenges they face, provide us with the opportunity to reflect on our own faith journeys as we strive to live heroic lives in the real world. Each chapter reflects on the heroes' most famous adventures and discusses the ways in which we are called to overcome many of the same obstacles they face as we strive to carry out the ministries to which God calls us. Each chapter ends with questions for reflection or group study.

Superman on the Couch

Superman on the Couch PDF Author: Danny Fingeroth
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826415394
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Why are so many of the superhero myths tied up with loss, often violent, of parents or parental figures? What is the significance of the dual identity? What makes some superhuman figures "good" and others "evil"? Why are so many of the prime superheroes white and male? How has the superhero evolved over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries? And how might the myths be changing? Why is it that the key superhero archetypes - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the X-Men - touch primal needs and experiences in everyone? Why has the superhero moved beyond the pages of comics into other media? All these topics, and more, are covered in this lively and original exploration of the reasons why the superhero - in comic books, films, and TV - is such a potent myth for our times and culture.>

Superheroes: An Analysis of Popular Culture's Modern Myths

Superheroes: An Analysis of Popular Culture's Modern Myths PDF Author: David Reynolds
Publisher: Problematic Press
ISBN: 0986902705
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
A semiotic and cultural anthropological interrogation of popular North American superhero narratives, such as those of Superman, Spider-Man, and Batman, provides insight into how media’s messages influence the culture’s ethical values. Since emerging in the late 1930s, the superhero has become a pervasive figure in North American popular culture. As an extension of ideas presented by Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Campbell, and Umberto Eco, this dissertation argues that superhero tales must be regarded as modern mythology. It follows that people observe and learn social norms of justice from such narratives, since these ideals are intrinsic to the tales. In investigating the superhero’s role as a contemporary figure of myth, this project focuses primarily on three areas: an account of the history of the superhero from 1938 to present; an examination of the cultural functions of contemporary superhero narratives; and, an interrogation of vigilantism, responsibility, and justice in these narratives and how those concerns further relate to ideologies and practices in North American culture.

On the Origin of Superheroes

On the Origin of Superheroes PDF Author: Chris Gavaler
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1609383818
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Most readers think that superheroes began with Superman’s appearance in Action Comics No. 1, but that Kryptonian rocket didn’t just drop out of the sky. By the time Superman’s creators were born, the superhero’s most defining elements—secret identities, aliases, disguises, signature symbols, traumatic origin stories, extraordinary powers, self-sacrificing altruism—were already well-rehearsed standards. Superheroes have a sprawling, action-packed history that predates the Man of Steel by decades and even centuries. On the Origin of Superheroes is a quirky, personal tour of the mythology, literature, philosophy, history, and grand swirl of ideas that have permeated western culture in the centuries leading up to the first appearance of superheroes (as we know them today) in 1938. From the creation of the universe, through mythological heroes and gods, to folklore, ancient philosophy, revolutionary manifestos, discarded scientific theories, and gothic monsters, the sweep and scale of the superhero’s origin story is truly epic. We will travel from Jane Austen’s Bath to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars to Owen Wister’s Wyoming, with some surprising stops along the way. We’ll meet mad scientists, Napoleonic dictators, costumed murderers, diabolical madmen, blackmailers, pirates, Wild West outlaws, eugenicists, the KKK, Victorian do-gooders, detectives, aliens, vampires, and pulp vigilantes (to name just a few). Chris Gavaler is your tour guide through this fascinating, sometimes dark, often funny, but always surprising prehistory of the most popular figure in pop culture today. In a way, superheroes have always been with us: they are a fossil record of our greatest aspirations and our worst fears and failings.

Heroes Masked and Mythic

Heroes Masked and Mythic PDF Author: Christopher Wood
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476683158
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Epic battles, hideous monsters and a host of petty gods--the world of Classical mythology continues to fascinate and inspire. Heroes like Herakles, Achilles and Perseus have influenced Western art and literature for centuries, and today are reinvented in the modern superhero. What does Iron Man have to do with the Homeric hero Odysseus? How does the African warrior Memnon compare with Marvel's Black Panther? Do DC's Wonder Woman and Xena the Warrior Princess reflect the tradition of Amazon women such as Penthesileia? How does the modern superhero's journey echo that of the epic warrior? With fresh insight into ancient Greek texts and historical art, this book examines modern superhero archetypes and iconography in comics and film as the crystallization of the hero's journey in the modern imagination.