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book: Make Ours Marvel
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Make Ours Marvel

Media Convergence and a Comics Universe
  • Edited by:
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2017

About this book

The creation of the Fantastic Four effectively launched the Marvel Comics brand in 1961. Within ten years, the introduction (or reintroduction) of characters such as Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and the X-Men catapulted Marvel past its primary rival, DC Comics, for domination of the comic book market. Since the 2000s, the company’s iconic characters have leaped from page to screens with the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which includes everything from live-action film franchises of Iron Man and the Avengers to television and streaming media, including the critically acclaimed Netflix series Daredevil and Jessica Jones. Marvel, now owned by Disney, has clearly found the key to transmedia success.

Make Ours Marvel traces the rise of the Marvel brand and its transformation into a transmedia empire over the past fifty years. A dozen original essays range across topics such as how Marvel expanded the notion of an all-star team book with The Avengers, which provided a roadmap for the later films, to the company’s attempts to create lasting female characters and readerships, to its regular endeavors to reinvigorate its brand while still maintaining the stability that fans crave. Demonstrating that the secret to Marvel’s success comes from adeptly crossing media boundaries while inviting its audience to participate in creating Marvel’s narrative universe, this book shows why the company and its characters will continue to influence storytelling and transmedia empire building for the foreseeable future.

Author / Editor information

Matt Yockey is an associate professor of film and media studies at the University of Toledo. He is the author of Batman, a volume in the TV Milestones Series.

Reviews

Well-written. . . .[A]nd packed with information about the workings of the Marvel Universe. There is much to ponder and learn here.
— Choice

Make Ours Marvel is a well-timed anthology that fairly and critically examines Marvel’s long history as one of the great myth-makers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
— Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Literature

The contributors [to Make Ours Marvel]...lay the groundwork for the future study of Marvel Entertainment, a great achievement unto itself. The audience for this book may be wide considering the popularity of the subject matter, but more specifically it is highly recommended to those scholars invested in studying Marvel Entertainment. This strong collection of essays on transmedia study is undoubtedly made for those studying Marvel Entertainment across its permutations in comics, film, TV, and more.
— Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

In an age of Marvel dominance in popular culture, there are almost no academic books about the comics brand. This book is a significant, and needed, contribution to the field, in locating Marvel—and its tumultuous universe and corporate history—at the center of global popular culture. To the book’s strength, it is not a ‘film studies’ or ‘comics studies’ anthology, but both, and much more.
— Derek Kompare, Southern Methodist University, editor of Making Media Work: Cultures of Management in the Entertainment Industries and author of Rerun Nation: How Repeats Invented American Television

Topics

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    v
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    Acknowledgments

    vii
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    Introduction. Excelsior! Or, Everything Th at Rises Must Converge

    1
    Matt Yockey
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    Chapter 1. Reforming the “Justice” System. Marvel’s Avengers and the Transformation of the All-Star Team Book

    39
    Mark Minett and Bradley Schauer
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    Chapter 2. Man Without Fear. David Mack, Daredevil, and the “Bounds of Diff erence” in Superhero Comics

    66
    Henry Jenkins
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    Chapter 3. “This Female Fights Back!” A Feminist History of Marvel Comics

    105
    Anna F. Peppard
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    Chapter 4. “Share Your Universe”. Generation, Gender, and the Future of Marvel Publishing

    138
    Derek Johnson
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    Chapter 5. Breaking Brand 164 From NuMarvel to MarvelNOW! Marvel Comics in the Age of Media Convergence

    164
    Deron Overpeck
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    Chapter 6. Marvel and the Form of Motion Comics

    187
    Darren Wershler and Kalervo A. Sinervo
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    Chapter 7. Transmedia Storytelling in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” and the Logics of Convergence-Era Popular Seriality

    207
    Felix Brinker
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    Chapter 8. The Marvel One-Shots and Transmedia Storytelling

    234
    Michael Graves
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    Chapter 9. Spinning Webs Constructing Authors, Genre, and Fans in the Spider-Man Film Franchise

    248
    James N. Gilmore
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    Chapter 10. Playing Peter Parker Spider-Man and Superhero Film Performance

    268
    Aaron Taylor
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    Chapter 11. Spotting Stan 297 Th e Fun and Function of Stan Lee’s Cameos in the Marvel Universe(s)

    297
    Dru Jeffries
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    chapter 12. Schrödinger’s Cape The Quantum Seriality of the Marvel Multiverse

    319
    William Proctor
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    Notes on Contributors

    347
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    Index

    351
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
October 1, 2021
eBook ISBN:
9781477312513
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.7560/312490
eBook ISBN: 9781477312513
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
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