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Panthers, Hulks and Ironhearts
Marvel, Diversity and the 21st Century Superhero
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Jeffrey A. Brown
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2021
About this book
Marvel is one of the hottest media companies in the world right now, and its beloved superheroes are all over film, television and comic books. Yet rather than simply cashing in on the popularity of iconic white male characters like Peter Parker, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, Marvel has consciously diversified its lineup of superheroes, courting controversy in the process.
Panthers, Hulks, and Ironhearts offers the first comprehensive study of how Marvel has reimagined what a superhero might look like in the twenty-first century. It examines how they have revitalized older characters like Black Panther and Luke Cage, while creating new ones like Latina superhero Miss America. Furthermore, it considers the mixed fan responses to Marvel’s recasting of certain “legacy heroes,” including a Pakistani-American Ms. Marvel, a Korean-American Hulk, and a whole rainbow of multiverse Spidermen.
If the superhero comic is a quintessentially American creation, then how might the increasing diversification of Marvel’s superhero lineup reveal a fundamental shift in our understanding of American identity? This timely study answers those questions and considers what Marvel’s comics, TV series, and films might teach us about stereotyping, Orientalism, repatriation, whitewashing, and identification.
Panthers, Hulks, and Ironhearts offers the first comprehensive study of how Marvel has reimagined what a superhero might look like in the twenty-first century. It examines how they have revitalized older characters like Black Panther and Luke Cage, while creating new ones like Latina superhero Miss America. Furthermore, it considers the mixed fan responses to Marvel’s recasting of certain “legacy heroes,” including a Pakistani-American Ms. Marvel, a Korean-American Hulk, and a whole rainbow of multiverse Spidermen.
If the superhero comic is a quintessentially American creation, then how might the increasing diversification of Marvel’s superhero lineup reveal a fundamental shift in our understanding of American identity? This timely study answers those questions and considers what Marvel’s comics, TV series, and films might teach us about stereotyping, Orientalism, repatriation, whitewashing, and identification.
Author / Editor information
JEFFREY A. BROWN is a professor in the Department of Popular Culture and the School of Critical and Cultural Studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. His many books include Black Superheroes: Milestone Comics and Their Fans and Batman and the Multiplicity of Identity: The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero as Cultural Nexus.
Reviews
"Jeffrey Brown does it again! With his usual compelling style of writing, this time we are treated to a very timely analysis of Marvel’s contemporary multicultural superheroes and their complex entanglements. The significance of this text is its sophisticated way of unpacking the pop cultural panoply of ideology, history, and identity in which the superhero aesthetic is inextricably confined."
— Ronald L. Jackson II, co-author of the Comic-Con award winning book, Black Comics"Panthers, Hulks, and Ironhearts offers the first comprehensive study of how Marvel has reimagined what a superhero might look like in the twenty-first century. It examines how they have revitalized older characters like Black Panther and Luke Cage, while creating new ones like Latina superhero Miss America. Furthermore, it considers the mixed fan responses to Marvel’s recasting of certain 'legacy heroes,' including a Pakistani-American Ms. Marvel, a Korean-American Hulk, and a whole rainbow of multiverse Spidermen."
— Forces of GeekTopics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Introduction: Marvel and Modern America
1 -
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1. Spider-Analogues: Unmarking and Unmasking White Male Superheroism
17 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
2. The Replacements: Ethnicity, Gender, and Legacy Heroes in Marvel Comics
31 -
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3. Superdad: Luke Cage and Heroic Fatherhood in the Civil War Comic
47 -
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4. Black Panther: Aspiration, Identification, and Appropriation
61 -
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5. Iron Fist: Ethnicity, Appropriation, and Repatriation
74 -
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6. Totally Awesome Asian Heroes versus Stereotypes
89 -
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7. A New America: Marvelous Latinx Superheroes
108 -
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8. Ms. Marvel: A Thoroughly Relatable Muslim Superheroine
123 -
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Afterword: “Because the World Still Needs Heroes!”
143 -
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References
151 -
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Index
161
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
August 5, 2021
eBook ISBN:
9781978809253
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781978809253
Keywords for this book
Media company; Film; Television; Hulk; Iron Man; Heroes; Ms. Marvel; Diversity; Comics; Stereotypes; Spiderman; Latina; Media; Legacy; Whitewashing; Superheroes; Characters; Culture; Book culture; Identity; Black Panther; Miss America; America; Ethnic studies; Ethnicity; Assimilation; Colonialism; Discrimination; History; Immigration; Intersectionality; Multiculturalism; Prejudice
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
