The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics
2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 104; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/jahist/jax108
ISSN1945-2314
Autores Tópico(s)Gender, Feminism, and Media
ResumoThe New Mutants is a sophisticated and detailed reading of a select slice of American comic book history: those über-popular superheroes now celebrated in Hollywood blockbusters, who, at their original creation, were the stuff of cheap ephemeral adolescent literature. What Ramzi Fawaz demonstrates through quite stunning readings and precise cultural observations (involving everything from Saran Wrap and disco balls to inner-city race relations and drug addiction) is that these same popular culture figures embodied some quite sophisticated queer, transhuman, and posthuman desires—what he calls a “queer world-making” (p. xvii). Toward this end, the book moves through seven chapters on some classic comic book series: The Justice League of America (which began publication in 1960) in chapter 1; The Fantastic Four (1961) in chapters 2 and 3; and three important iterations of The X-Men (1963, 1974, and 1981) in chapters 4, 6, and 7. Chapter 5 on urban folktale in DC Comics' widely celebrated Green Lantern/Green Arrow mini-series (1970–1974) and Marvel Comics' Captain America and the Falcon (1974–1975) complete the chapter studies. The latter chapter features cross-racial male bonding and tough realistic portrayals of urban poverty, all functioning as radical critiques of the traditional superhero as an impenetrable white male body protecting the conservative institutions of law and order.
Referência(s)