Superman

RESUMO: O presente artigo pretende expor e analisar algumas características dos modelos éticos e políticos de conduta dos super-heróis. Para tanto, procura oferecer um contraste entre eles e os heróis dos épicos homéricos. Após enfatizar a importância dessas figuras e da obra de Homero para a educação dos gregos antigos, realiza uma breve análise dos valores que regem as ações dos personagens mais notáveis dos épicos, tais como Aquiles, Odisseu e Heitor, a partir da qual podemos ressaltar, pela comparação, uma diferença e uma semelhança entre esses heróis e os super-heróis. Recorrendo à noção de justiça em Platão e, posteriormente, à teoria da ação de Hannah Arendt, o artigo procura articular a aparente contradição entre essas duas características-a busca da excelência e a rejeição à glória-analisando a primeira aparição do Superman e os filmes Batman-O Início e Batman: Cavaleiro das Trevas. Dessa análise conclui-se que a identidade secreta, expressão mais típica desses impulsos antagônicos, ao menos nesses casos tão paradigmáticos, resolve a contradição, ou ao menos a suspende, por meio da marginalização do super-herói. Ao final, o artigo sugere possíveis novas análises que caminhem em sentido semelhante. Palavras-chave: Modelos éticos, Homero, Arendt, Batman, Superman.

BETWEEN GOODNESS AND GLORY: SUPERHEROES AS AN ETHICAL AND POLITICAL MODEL

ABSTRACT: The present paper intends to expose and analyze some characteristics of the ethical and political role models of super-heroes. To this end, it seeks to offer a contrast between superheroes and the heroes of Homer's epics. After emphasizing the importance of these icons, and of Homer's work, for the education the ancient Greeks, the work carries out a brief analysis of the values that govern the actions of the epics' most notable characters, such as Achilles, Hector and Odysseus, with which we are able to stress, through comparison, one difference and one similarity between these heroes and superheroes. Having recourse to Plato's notion of justice and, subsequently, to Hannah Arendt's theory of action, the paper then attempts to articulate the apparent contradiction between these two characteristics-the drive towards excellence and the rejection of glory-by analyzing Superman's first appearance and the movies Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. From this analysis it is concluded that secret identities, the most typical manifestation of these antagonistic drives, solve, or at least suspend, said contradiction, by marginalizing the superhero. Finally, the paper suggests possible further research following similar paths.

In Superman #216 (1969), Superman intervened in the Vietnam War. Until this point, DC Comics had kept Superman away from any of America's wars in comic books. During the Second World War, Superman urged Americans to buy war bonds on the cover of comic books, but within the comics the closest he came to fighting was breaking up a spy network. DC had Superman go to Vietnam in part as a response to servicemen's letters requesting his presence and indeed used this as a plot point within the story, with servicemen writing to the Daily Planet asking why Superman was not helping. Superman's intervention occurred at a time when American public opinion had turned against the war, especially after the Tet Offensive in early 1968. The article discusses how DC handled these ethical and moral issues and the reaction of readers. The Vietnam War, the social upheaval of the 1960s and a shift in audience to slightly older readers which made the comic less of a children's medium forced DC to break out of the small moral world they had created for Superman in which stasis and charity defined his character.

Reviewed August 2014, updated October 2015
To commemorate his 75th year in 2013, this is the fascinating true story about the "birthplace" and "parents" of Superman. Not Krypton. Not Jor-el and Lara. Not even Jonathan and Martha. But the Depression-era team of writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster in the old Jewish village of Glenville in Cleveland, Ohio. Super-interesting, leading to my visit to their homes during my Summer 2014 vacation.

En este escrito se hace una breve reflexión sobre las poderosas imágenes sobre la transformación del espíritu humano que imaginó Nietzsche como un modo de encarar la crisis espiritual de su propia época, caracterizada por el declive del espíritu religioso y el triunfo del materialismo positivista. Nietzsche, igualmente receloso de ambos extremos en el conflicto entre fe religiosa y razón científica, proyectó sus propias convicciones morales y estéticas sobre la naturaleza humana en una visión poética  que ha servido de inspiración a otros pensadores y artistas desde entonces.

Introduction / Richard J. Gray II and Betty Kaklamanidou -- Globalization. Exceptional Recognition: The U.S. Global Dilemma in The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and Avatar / Anthony Peter Spanakos -- "You Took My Advice About Theatricality a Bit -- Literally": Theatricality and Cybernetics of Good and Evil in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and X-Men / Johannes Schlegel and Frank Habermann -- Power, Choice, and September 11 in The Dark Knight / Christine Muller -- Gender. The Mythos of Patriarchy in the X-Men Films / Betty Kaklamanidou -- Vivacious Vixens and Scintillating Super-Hotties: Deconstructing the Superheroine / Richard J. Gray II -- Evolving Portrayals of Masculinity in Superhero Films: Hancock / Christina Adamou -- Genre. Genre and Super-Heroism: Batman in the New Millennium / Vincent M. Gaine -- Super-Intertextuality and 21st Century Individualized Social Advocacy in Spider-Man and Kick-Ass / Justin S. Schumaker -- The Watchmen, Neo-Noir and Pastiche / Phillip Dav...

Summer 2011 saw the release of the HBO documentary Superheroes, which filmed the exploits of fifty real-life, self-styled superheroes across North America. One such superhero, Thanatos, has patrolled Vancouver for four years, mostly handing out bottled water and blankets to the homeless, but, of course, always doing so while wearing his green skull mask to hide his true identity. Another, Benjamin Foder, a.k.a. Phoenix Jones, was recently forced to unmask after being arrested for using pepper spray to help break up a fight outside a Seattle nightclub.  What is clear from the documentary is while most, if not all, of these real-life superheroes have strong individual desires to promote public justice, they tend to see the political system, especially the police force, as broken, corrupt or compromised, and so, for the sake of moral integrity and symbolic purity, choose to work outside of it.  This, I shall argue, is the political legacy of their fictitious forefathers, the greatest superheroes of the DC and Marvel universes.

The full syllabus for a freshman\sophmore seminar taught at UC Berkeley during spring 2019. The seminar reflects on the connection between Jewish literature and the American comic books industry. It also explores main tensions of Jewish living, as it relates to race (where do white-passing Jews fall in the USA racial hierarchy), gender (what are Jewish masculinity and femininity), and God (how do Jews imagine the divine).

ABSTRACT
This article investigates how Gabriele D’Annunzio’s The Triumph of
Death brings together Nietzsche’s ideas and Wagner’s music and
interweaves them with the motifs of literary Decadence and the
author’s own particular sexual politics. The novel is an experimental
text striving to be a Gesemtkunstswerk, an integrated work that
incorporates music, painting, poetry, regional folklore, and private
thoughts about personal and national power. I discuss the novel’s
themes of violent sexuality and the anxiety of powerlessness and
explore their implications for the fascist political aesthetics in which
D’Annunzio played a pioneering role.

This book explores Andy Warhol’s creative engagement with social class. During the 1960s, as neoliberalism perpetuated the idea that fixed classes were a mirage and status an individual achievement, Warhol’s work appropriated images, techniques, and technologies that have long been described as generically “American” or “middle class.” Drawing on archival and theoretical research into Warhol’s contemporary cultural milieu, Grudin demonstrates that these features of Warhol’s work were in fact closely associated with the American working class. The emergent technologies which Warhol conspicuously employed to make his work—home projectors, tape recorders, film and still cameras—were advertised directly to the working class as new opportunities for cultural participation. What’s more, some of Warhol’s most iconic subjects—Campbell’s soup, Brillo pads, Coca-Cola—were similarly targeted, since working-class Americans, under threat from a variety of directions, were thought to desire the security and confidence offered by national brands.

Having propelled himself from an impoverished childhood in Pittsburgh to the heights of Madison Avenue, Warhol knew both sides of this equation: the intense appeal that popular culture held for working-class audiences and the ways in which the advertising industry hoped to harness this appeal in the face of growing middle-class skepticism regarding manipulative marketing. Warhol was fascinated by these promises of egalitarian individualism and mobility, which could be profound and deceptive, generative and paralyzing, charged with strange forms of desire. By tracing its intersections with various forms of popular culture, including film, music, and television, Grudin shows us how Warhol’s work disseminated these promises, while also providing us with a record of their intricate tensions and transformations.

Article publié dans : Elie Yazbeck (dir.), Le Super-héros à l'écran, Paris, éditions Orizon, 2017. L'homme qui vole « Là-haut dans le ciel ! Regardez ! C'est un oiseau ! C'est un avion ! C'est Superman ! » C'est par cette fameuse tirade que commence chaque épisode de la première représentation audiovisuelle de Superman, une série de courts-métrages animés réalisés en 1941 par les célèbres Studios Fleischer. Superman est surtout un homme qui vole ! Bien que possédant plein d'autres superpouvoirs, allant de sa force extrême qui lui permet d'immobiliser un train lancé à pleine vitesse, à la capacité de faire fondre l'acier avec un rayon sorti de ses yeux, en passant par son souffle puissant et tellement frais qui lui permet de congeler un réacteur nucléaire arrivé à un point critique de surchauffement, c'est sans doute son pouvoir de voler -souligné par sa mythique cape qui flotte au vent même dans le vide interplanétaire -qui a le plus marqué les esprits. C'est aussi le superpouvoir sur lequel semblent le plus insister les différents créateurs qui ont participé, pendant un peu moins d'un siècle, à la mise en forme et au développement de ce personnage 1 . Par exemple, dans le premier film Superman, réalisé en 1978 par Richard Donner, voler est la première chose que Clark Kent fait lorsqu'il met pour la première fois le costume de Superman (Clark Kent étant l'alter ego et l'identité derrière laquelle se cache l'Homme d'acier

Writer/artist Dan Jurgens first entered the comic industry in 1982, penciling Warlord no. 63 for DC Comics. His first writing credit followed three years later on DC’s Sun Devils maxi-series (1985). Over the three decades since then he has produced a wide variety of creative work for a range of publishers. For DC Comics, in addition to creating popular new characters, including Booster Gold and Doomsday, his credits include The New 52: Futures End, Aquaman and the Others, Green Arrow, Superman, Justice League, Booster Gold, Firestorm, Time Masters: Vanishing Point, and many more – and for Marvel Comics The Mighty Thor as well as Captain America and The Sensational Spider-Man. In this comprehensive, career-spanning interview, he discusses his work and artistic process, the influence of new technologies on how comics are produced and solicited, ways in which the comic industry and reader expectations have changed over time, and what continues to inspire him about working in comics today.

Friedrich Nietzsche in his book of 1883: Thus Spoke Zarathustra discovers one of the most fascinating ideas in Philosophy, Übermensch (also known as Superman). Assuming that the human psychological evolution has not reached its peak yet, films like Moby Dick, Rope and Rebecca explores the moral borders and the structures of social conditioning. The characters in the given films challenge the 20th century understanding of morality by opposing logical and challenging oppositions. Übermensch characters are the most remembered and influential characters in their respective works.

The objective of this paper is to understand the film Batman vs Superman (2016) via elements of Gerard Genette's Transtextuality. A text does not exist in isolation. The atmosphere in terms of politics, other texts and, the general environment of the nation and the world affects the text in more than one way. The reason why Batman vs Superman (2016) becomes important is because the two protagonists have traditionally been separate from each other but fight for the same cause that is for the Good. Both the characters are superheroes who ideally existed in different time phase which never overlapped. So, Batman vs Superman then almost becomes a bricolage of various elements of the two superheroes' lives and characters. And that is the reason why elements of intertextuality in this film are both compelling and imperative for a better understanding.

Arturo Encinas Cantalapiedra 0. Intoducción En el año 1989 se estrenaba la última película dirigida por Tim Burton hasta el momento: Batman. La cinta mostró -cinematográficamente-que el superhéroe en el cine podía tener un recorrido digno, a pesar de antecedentes como los filmes de Superman dirigidos por Richard Lester, o la serie televisiva de Batman protagonizada por Adam West (entre otros productos).

This paper is an interpretive history and analysis of why the idea of the first Superman was popular in the United States in the first few decades of the turn of the twentieth century. It was well known at the time the idea of Superman came from the German Philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche. The central question to be addressed is why the first Superman flourished and was a success. There is very little contemporary historiography on this topic. However, a large body of primary sources exist. There is also a large body of secondary sources that were close to the period. By examination of these sources, the first Superman can be explained within its historical context: Modernity, popular culture, and the eugenic movement. These three factors help explain why the first Superman flourished in America – and why the idea could not have succeeded at any other period in United States history.

This thesis seeks to provide insight into how superheroes are based
upon the old heroes of mythology. Superheroes we are most familiar with are
typically American, i.e. Western invention. We shall delve into the way the classical
heroes are used as a matrix for the creation of superheroes via comparative analysis
of mythical heroes such as Hercules and Odysseus and their superhero counterparts:
Superman and Batman. Wonder Woman is to illustrate how the concept of a
mythical character is adapted to the modern era, creating the superhero of modern
times. We shall try to determine how and why it came to re—mythologization in
the modern-day America and how its history is mirrored in the superhero narratives.
The aforementioned context raises the issue as to what extent their stories criticize,
that is to say uphold societal status quo.

La relación entre el poder y las relaciones internacionales, imaginarios y estereotipos entre los Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética.

Trabajo de la asignatura, Europa y EE.UU. en el sistema internacional contemporáneo, del Grado de Historia en la UAM.

Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Superman se convertiría en algo más que un mero entretenimiento. En este periodo pasaría a ser un combatiente más en el conflicto cuya función no solo sería infligir derrotas simbólicas a las Potencias del Eje, sino también ayudar a transmitir todo el aparato ideológico de los tiempos te guerra. El presente trabajo trata cuales eran estos mensajes y cómo era el modo en que se trasmitían, tomando como caso de estudio las dos cabeceras protagonizadas por el Hombre de Acero: Action Comics y Superman.
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Superman became much more than a mere entertainment during World War II. In this period, he turned into another combatant in the conflict which function was more than symbolically defeating the Axis Powers. Superman helped to transmit the ideological apparatus of the wartime. This paper address to understand which were this messages and how they communicated, using as case study the two magazines starring the Man of Steel: Action Comics and Superman.

Este trabalho tem por pretensão ler um potencial espaço político e respectivo diâmetro, sob as noções políticas de Rancière e Sloterdijk, no personagem dos quadrinhos e cinema, Superman. Procurando identificar, assim, a fulguração de um messianismo latente e os caminhos de sua super-ação na política atual.

One of the most famous philosophers of the modern era is Nietzsche’s whose works have been very influential in the political atmosphere of the 20th century. Nietzsche’s introduction of Superman has affected Western world entirely. One of the followers of Nietzsche’s idea of a superman who can bring happiness to humans is George Bernard Shaw. This article seeks to represent how Bernard Shaw reverberates Nietzsche’s idea of Superman in his Man and Superman. He introduces a new term which can help humanity to nurture and bring about a new Superman who can redeem humanity. He relies on Darwin theory of natural selection to propose that in order to create a superman, social natural selection must be applied and this must be the only criteria for people to choose mate and partners.

This book addresses what a superhero body can do by developing several “x-rays” of the superbody’s sensoria, anatomic structures, internal systems, cellular organizations, and orthotic, chemical, or technological enhancements. In short, these x-rays offer what we might describe as a metamorpho-physiological approach to the superheroes in feature films, theatrical cartoon shorts, and Netflix television series. This approach examines the ways in which the “substance” of superheroes, which includes their masks, costumes, chevrons, weapons, and auras, extends into the diegetic environment of the film, transgressing it, transforming it, and corporealizing it, making it emblematic of the shape, dimensions, contours, and organismic workings of one or more of our major organs, members, orifices, fluids, or cell clusters. Thus the superhero film, as this study claims, works to make us more aware of the mutability, adaptability, modifiability, and virtual capabilities of our own flesh.

El final de la década de los ochenta representa un cambio histórico para las historias de superhéroes, y la concepción que se tenía de ellos; nos encontramos con que eran violentas, maduras, serias, para adultos y complejas.

Este trabajo es una reflexión analítica de cinco arcos argumentales fundamentales para entender la manera en que este cambio se estaba gestando: Daredevil: Born Again (Frank Miller, 1986), Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt (J.M DeMatteis, 1987), Superman: Man of Steel (John Byrne, 1986), Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals (George Pérez, 1987) y Batman: Year One (Frank Miller, 1988).

The porn industry is following Hollywood’s lead by taking superheroes more seriously than either had in decades past. Contemporary superhero porn parodies, particularly those directed by Axel Braun, eschew the goofy puns and tacked-on themes that had previously defined the pornographic parody genre. These films present a unique point of intersection between Hollywood, the porn industry, and fandom. While female-oriented fandoms often devote considerable intellectual and creative energies to transforming patriarchal genres into shapes that better appeal to their interests and desires, male fandom seems much more inclined to keep the story the way it is. Braun’s parodies appropriate transformative textual practices usually associated with female fan productivity in order to seduce male fans, while also exploiting the industrial limitations of the mainstream superhero genre, and capitalizing on the legal freedoms afforded by their parody status. Often antagonistic to their mainstream counterparts, these hardcore films appeal to fans by confirming the value of an ‘original’ text by critiquing the shortcomings of official adaptations. If porn and the superhero genre usually speak to and express male power fantasies already, Braun’s porn parodies merely take current trends in superhero film aesthetics and fanboys’ fetish for fidelity to the next level.

Also available for review at https://tinyurl.com/StrangeVisitor.

We recognize myths for what they indicate about the values and beliefs of the cultures who were the authors and audiences of those myths; many of the earliest communicators of myth were telling stories about subjects they counted as people (somewhat) like themselves. Yet, despite our modern sophistication, today’s consumers of narrative still often treat fictions as though they are real, thinking and feeling people.  We are introduced to Superman, for instance, as a fiction, but circumstance often leads consumers to discursively treat that invented hero as a human subject.  Now, though, we verge on a technological future in which just such sympathies might become functionally useful. In our modern science fiction like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Westworld, we have already begun to imagine how we will come to treat our narrative inventions of tomorrow. Strange Visitor: Subjectivity, Simulation, and the Future of the First Superhero begins to ask what our actual responsibilities will become when fictions can be rendered with volition.  In its opening chapters, the text studies how we humanize a figure like Superman in our own perceptions, and how that treatment--along with his continuing narrative development--makes him a prime candidate for an experiment in complex, highly verisimilitudinous simulation.  Superman is a central point of consideration here simply because there is so much of him to consider. He may be the most content-dense fiction ever created, but the innumerable opportunities consumers have had to get to know the character mean that he is also eminently familiar.  Superman has maintained his presence in our media and discourses, across the decades, as consumer populations have continued to grow and our communications structures have commensurately evolved and expanded. Superman is the subject of this study not because he has become so popular, but because he has managed to stay that way at a particularly sharp inflection point in the history of human communications. 

But, the Man of Steel is often generalized as infallible and, therefore, rather dull.  The first part of this work--an expansive psychological assessment--troubles such a presumption, though, by examining the complex mind that has accrued within decades of narrative, across media, and which must be carefully navigated in any exhaustive analysis.  This first section also considers Superman’s relationship with his media consumers: from how we use him to form childhood bonds with one another, to how we respond to his continuing humanization.  For, Superman is powerfully determined by how audiences actually treat any given instance of the figure as Superman.  Today, we find that we can engage with particularly realistic media, encouraging us even more urgently to invest in the verisimilitude and humanity of the characters and places being presented, and doing so often makes a narrative more appealing.  Accordingly, Superman’s relationship with his own media is particularly convenient to an examination of the intersection between fictional narrative, high technology, and identity negotiation.  To understand Superman's potent humanization, the first half of this text presents an assessment of his identity from multiple essential perspectives, including those of his content creators and consumers, as well as the complex judgments of himself and his fictional society as they have been presented in his narratives. Diegetic evidence is considered in historical and psychological capacities in order to assess how Superman’s media has been constructed--practically from the beginning--to encourage consumers to invest themselves in the figure’s humanity and relatability.

In its second part, Strange Visitor moves from relevant questions of identity into a more practical application of those insights to current and emerging technologies.  We already enjoy vastly interactive ways of engaging with our fictions, and we can anticipate continuing advancements in the verisimilitude, interactability, and spontaneity of artificial intelligences.  Accordingly, fewer and fewer holes in the experiential tapestry of narrative will have to be ignored as both storytelling techniques and rendering technologies continue to evolve.  Soon, what we practically treat as a ‘human’ subject may have more to do with that figure’s specific engageability than with its biology or physical consistency.  Given the view of the detailed project proposal that constitutes the second part of this work, spontaneous, humanlike, autonomous simulations culled from fictional worlds could very well become reality within the foreseeable future.  Emerging from our science fiction dreams, several considerable, real-world technological initiatives would see us reconstruct the intellects of great thinkers, such as Gandhi, Curie, or Hawking. But, reconstructing and functionalizing the consciousness of a real person--living or dead--is an ethically dubious proposition from the start.  Instead of an original personality, though--seemingly ‘complete’ at first, but limited in contextual understanding--what if researchers built a simulated subject from the material of a robustly developed fiction?  If the first of our deep, humanlike engagements with such technology will be the most important, Superman seems a fitting choice, given how we have already embraced him on personal and cultural levels.

But, as real technologies advance toward that imagined outcome, we must also ask how the practical, livable terms of fictionality would change. How would our own responsibilities evolve as we produced and engaged with such personalities?  The prototypical solution I propose here--referred to as the Metropolis Simulation System--could be considered one of Andrew M. Butler’s necessary explorations into the role of the simulacrum (“Postmodernism and Science Fiction” 147).  Whatever of these speculations does or does not bear out, it is my hope with this text to show the reader that we must pay substantial attention to our future relationships with our media and computing technologies. Such a situation need not be feared, though, if we approach with the optimistic combination of thoughtfulness and adventurousness that a character like Superman can inspire.

Strange Visitor is intended for any who might have the interest and/or resources to help realize the rendering of a densely-developed fiction as an exemplary representative of humanlike, fully-engageable general artificial intelligence, including the developers of the many technologies referenced.  Portions of the work might also be used as an introduction into the complexities of mediated identity construction, while the critical questions presented could be utilized in advanced media studies courses, or as portions of a forward-thinking philosophy curriculum. Other segments may benefit discussions on popular fictions generally, the ethics of narrative, or psychological and identiary dynamics.

Nietzsche und die hellenistische Philosophie 95 ANDREA CHRISTIAN BERTINO NIETZSCHE UND DIE HELLENISTISCHE PHILOSOPHIE. DER ÜBERMENSCH UND DER WEISE Zusammenfassung: In der Abhandlung wird zum ersten Mal Nietzsches Auseinandersetzung mit der hellenistischen Philosophie, dem Epikureismus, dem Stoizismus und dem Skeptizismus, systematisch rekonstruiert. Alle drei Schulen sind relevant auch für Nietzsches Kritik der Moral und des Christentums. Epikur bietet Nietzsche eine existentielle Alternative zum Platonismus, selbst wenn er nicht mehr zum vorsokratischen Philosophieren, Nietzsches Idealtypus des Philosophierens, zurückkommt. Auch Nietzsches Auseinandersetzung mit dem Stoizismus ist noch von der vorsokratischen Philosophie her bestimmt, vor allem durch Heraklit. Stoische Argumente teilt Nietzsche auch in seiner Kritik des Mitleids. Bei Pyrrho erkennt Nietzsche eine negative Form des Nihilismus. Dennoch bleibt eine unüberwindliche Distanz zwischen den verschiedenen Konzeptionen des Weisen in der hellenistischen Philosophie und Nietzsches Entwurf des Übermenschen -sie liegt im hellenistischen Eudämonismus. Abstract: In the paper Nietzsche's consideration of the Hellenistic Philosophy, of the Epicureanism, Stoicism, and the Scepticisms is for the first time systematically reconstructed. The three schools are significant for Nietzsche's critic of morals and Christianity, too. Epicurus gives to Nietzsche an existential alternative to the Platonism, even though he doesn't come back to the presocratic manner of doing philosophy, Nietzsche's ideal typos. Nietzsche's confrontation with the Stoicism is characterised by the presocratic Philosophy, too, above all by Heraclitus. Nietzsche shares also Stoic Arguments in his critic of compassion. In Pyrrho Nietzsche identifies a negative form of nihilism. All the same remains an insuperable distance between the various conceptions of the wise in the Hellenistic Philosophy and Nietzsche's model of the overman, distance that could be found in the Hellenistic Eudemonism.

In the summer of 2000 X-Men surpassed all box of ce expectations and ushered in an era of unprecedented production of comic book film adaptations. This trend, now in its second decade, has blossomed into Hollywood's leading genre. From superheroes to Spartan warriors, The Comic Book Film Adaptation offers the first dedicated study to examine how comic books moved from the fringes of popular culture to the center of mainstream film production.

Through in-depth analysis, industry interviews, and audience research, this book charts the cause-and-effect of this influential trend. It considers the cultural traumas, business demands, and digital possibilities that Hollywood faced at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The industry managed to meet these challenges by exploiting comics and their existing audiences. However, studios were caught off-guard when these comic book fans, empowered by digital media, began to in uence the success of these adaptations. Nonetheless, filmmakers soon developed strategies to take advantage of this intense fanbase, while codifying the trend into a more lucrative genre, the comic book movie, which appealed to an even wider audience. Central to this vibrant trend is a comic aesthetic in which filmmakers utilize digital filmmaking technologies to engage with the language and conventions of comics like never before.

The Comic Book Film Adaptation explores this unique moment in which cinema is stimulated, challenged, and enriched by the once-dismissed medium of comics.

The course focuses on the reconstruction of comic books’ role in American culture. Comics as well as graphic novels are often seen as purely American medium and thus it important to discuss its uniqueness and well as its place among other art-forms.

The definition of comic book as a specific form of art will be the starting point. During the first part of the course several schools of American comic books in historical perspective will be analysed from the popular superhero stories to underground ones. Our attention will be directed to the analysis of the evolution of the medium and its main genres.

During the second part of the course selected important comics and graphic novel will be thoroughly analysed. Special attention will be devoted to European, especially British authors who created their main works in US and became the force that revolutionised the medium (Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Garth Ennis).

Since the earliest days of the US comic book industry publishers have adapted popular films (and later TV shows), with DC Comics’ precursor National Allied Publications releasing Movie Comics in 1939, which promised “a full movie for 10¢” and featured Imperial adventure film Gunga Din on the cover of the first issue. This long-standing practice has often seen films that were based on comics, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Judge Dredd (1995), and The Avengers (2012) return to their originating form via comic book adaptations. Yet despite the volume and longevity of this practice, these comic book adaptations have received little scholarly attention.
This chapter argues that the comic book adaptation offers a window onto the creative and formal fluidity that marks today’s media industries. To bring this analysis into sharper focus, the key examples will be those texts that close the loop between comics and cinema: comic book adaptations of comic book movies. Drawing on new interviews with comic book adaptation writers and artists such as Dennis O’Neil (Batman), Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition, Dick Tracy), and David Yardin (Injustice: Gods Among Us), this chapter positions comic book tie-ins as antecedents to today’s transmedia practices.
The chapter considers the various commercial and creative reasons for producing these seemingly redundant transmedia extensions. It provides a taxonomy of comic book adaptations as well as highlighting some of the key considerations in studying comic book adaptations, including: authorship, continuity, and medium specificity. Ultimately, this chapter will demonstrate how comic book adaptations provide a better understanding of why comics, their characters, and their creators form the connective tissue of many modern media conglomerates and their transmedia storyworlds.

This essay explores some of the ways in which Smallville, as one of many examples of popular media, places us in the position of the Swamp Thing: the series confronts us not only with the history of Superman as a transmedia phenomenon, but also challenges Smallville’s audience to understand how and why it intersects with the spatio-temporal realities of many other media stories and characters. Adopting and adapting a mode of storytelling that has dominated the comics since the 1960s, Smallville not only participates in an intense dialogic engagement with the codes that comprise the Superman media universe, but it also becomes one of many Superman realities that occupy a multiverse of possibilities.

Grant Morrison is regarded as one of the most original and inventive writers in the comics medium. He has contributed ground-breaking and best-selling superhero stories for both DC Comics—Batman, Superman, JLA, Doom Patrol, Animal Man—and Marvel Comics—New X-Men, Marvel Boy and Fantastic Four. In addition he has created a number of revolutionary original works including We3, The Invisibles, The Filth and the cult classics Kill Your Boyfriend, The Mystery Play, and Seaguy. His original graphic novels and comic collections have been translated into over a dozen languages.

In 2006 Morrison wrote two Eisner Award winning series, the 30-part epic Seven Soldiers and the critically acclaimed All-Star Superman (with artist Frank Quitely) and was also honored with three Eagle Awards in the U.K., including one for Lifetime Achievement in the field. In 2007, Morrison was nominated for two Eisner Awards for All-Star Superman and a Harvey Award for Best Writer and won another Eagle Award for All-Star Superman. He was one of four writers for 52, a weekly comic book series published by DC Comics from 2006-2007, an overwhelming success, selling up to 180,000 copies per week. He is currently writing the Batman and Final Crisis series for DC Comics. This second installment of a two-part interview covers his work on Final Crisis as well as his upcoming Seaguy series.

Paper presentado en el congreso "Posthumanism and Posthumanities: a Dialogue with Rossi Braidotti", celebrado en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid en diciembre de 2015.

En este paper pretendo explorar la relevancia de algunos cómics norteamericanos de superhéroes como literatura utópica en relación con el concepto de posthumanismo.