Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgements vii
4. Prologue: The Heroes We Need Right Now?: Explaining ‘The Age of the Superhero’ 1
5. Introduction: Superheroes in the New Millennium and ‘The Example of America’ 14
6. PHASE ONE
7. 1. ‘That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it … and it’s worked out pretty well so far’: The Stark Doctrine in Iron Man and Iron Man 2 41
8. 2. Allegorical Narratives of Gods and Monsters: Thor and The Incredible Hulk 72
9. 3. State Fantasy and the Superhero: (Mis)Remembering World War II in Captain America: The First Avenger 97
10. 4. ‘Seeing … still working on believing!’: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Destruction in The Avengers 109
11. PHASE TWO
12. 5. ‘Nothing’s been the same since New York’: Ideological Continuity and Change in Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World 129
13. 6. ‘The world has changed and none of us can go back’: The Illusory Moral Ambiguities of the Post-9/11 Superhero in Captain America: The Winter Soldier 150
14. 7. Blurring the Boundaries of Genre and Gender in Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man 167
15. 8. ‘Isn’t that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?’: The Enduring American Monomyth in Avengers: Age of Ultron 186
16. THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE ON TELEVISION
17. 9. ‘What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for?’: The MCU on the Small Screen in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Agent Carter 207
18. 10. The Necessary Vigilantism of the Defenders: Daredevil Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist 223
19. Conclusion: ‘Whose side are you on?’: Superheroes Through the Prism of the ‘War on Terror’ in Captain America: Civil War 237
20. Epilogue: The Superhero as Transnational Icon 262
21. Filmography 269
22. Bibliography 273
23. Index 303