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Superheroes!: Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films (Paperback)

by Roz Kaveney (Author) "Officially, I never read them as a child ..." (more)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Superheroes!: Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films + Superheroes and Philosophy (Popular Culture & Philosophy) (Popular Culture and Philosophy) + PSYCHOLOGY OF SUPERHEROES: An Unauthorized Exploration (Psychology of Popular Culture)
Total RRP: £37.97
Price For All Three: £24.88

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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd (14 Dec 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1845115694
  • ISBN-13: 978-1845115692
  • Product Dimensions: 21 x 13.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 28,213 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #5 in  Books > History > Europe > The Crusades
    #19 in  Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Film > History of Film > United States
    #27 in  Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Cartooning

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  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Product Description

Review

"Roz Kaveney writes about the superhero myths with intelligence and love, from the inside, without the lofty alienation that says these texts are interesting but too dumb to know it. This book should be on the shelf of every comics fan, and proves that everyone should be a comics fan. - Paul Cornell (comics writer and scriptwriter for Doctor Who)"

Product Description

Modern myths, cheap trash or the objects of fetishist desire? Most people know something about Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and Wonder Woman, even if what they know is heavily filtered through film and television versions, rather than the comics in which they first appeared. Yet, even though the continuity of the DC and Marvel Comics universes rival or surpass in size almost anything else in Western culture, surprisingly little attention has been paid to comics, which we were supposed to grow out of. In "Superheroes!", acclaimed cultural commentator Roz Kaveney argues that this is a mistake, that, at their best, superhero comics are a form in which some writers and artists are doing fascinating work, not in spite of their chosen form, but because of it. "Superheroes!" discusses the slow accretion of comics universes from the thirties to the present day, the ongoing debate within the conventions of the superhero comic about whether superheroes are a good thing and the discussion within the comics fan community of the extent to which superhero comics are disfigured by misogyny and sexism. Roz Kaveney attempts to explain the differences between Marvel and DC, the notion of the floating present (or why Spider-Man, fifteen when he adopted the costume, is still only in his early thirties), and the various attempts by both companies to re-invent and re-boot individual characters and their entire continuity universes. She also looks at the influence of comics on the group of film and television screenwriters she calls 'the fanboy creators', all of whom moonlight as comics script writers, using Joss Whedon as her case study, and examines the adaptation of well-known comics into large-budget feature films, not always to the advantage of the material.
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
Officially, I never read them as a child. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Superheroes reclaimed., 24 Mar 2008
By Ian Williams "ianw" (Sunderland, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      


The superhero genre of comics is much-loved by its fans but often dumped on by the critics who see it as the equivalent of the daytime tv of the comics world. In this book, while admitting its many flaws, Kaveney attempts to reclaim the superhero genre in a series of essays which recount, analyse, and assess it.

As you've already seen from my rating, I have a high opinion of this book. But who is the author and what are her qualifications? All too often writers will descend on something and pretend to be experts. Ms Kaveney does not fall into this category. An intellectual with a command of literary theory and the author of several texts on different aspects of pop culture, a part of the UK's science fiction establishment, long-time reader of superhero comics, and long standing buddy of people like Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, she is well qualified to author a book like this.

This isn't intended as a survey of the superhero genre, though some time is spent outlining it, rather she cherry-picks specific areas on which to go into detail. I'm not going to go into what and where as part of the many joys of this book is discovery and reading how she links one thing to another, creates theories, praises, criticises, reveals surprising profundities here and feet of clay there.

Just one example. An entire chapter is devoted to the comic Alias, probably one of the very best things to come from Marvel (I'm not a great Marvel fan) in recent years, and an outstanding piece of work. Kaveney outlines, analyses, and assesses exactly what Alias is about, how and why it works, and why it is important in the context of the superhero genres. Her account is so good and vivid that reading Alias becomes almost redundant. (Almost. If you haven't already, buy the trades now.) As I read, images and scenes from it came back vividly to my mind.

I don't agree with everything Kaveney writes (probably because I'm not, with several exceptions, a great Marvel fan), but then that is part of the fun of this kind of book in that it stimulates debate and makes you reconsider your own judgements and the author is very persuasive.

There are a few minor errors. Two spring to mind: she confuses two very different DC villains, Deadshot and Deathlock (the Terminator; more often known by his real name Slade Wilson); and consistently misspells Ra's as R'as. Like I said, minor.

Despite the occasional need to check the dictionary, this is a compelling and fascinating read and I do hope she returns again to the field of comics. We need her.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Faster than a speeding retcon..., 3 Mar 2008
By Marcus L. Rowland "Marcus" (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Roz Kaveney's new book takes an interesting look at the world of comics and the huge sprawling narrative structures they've built up over the years, universes of idea in which something briefly glimpsed in a couple of panels ten years ago can turn out to have extraordinary effects in the latest plot twist today. Amongst other things she points out that they represent the largest and (despite their flaws) possibly the most coherent body of fictional continuity in all of fiction.

Concentrating mainly on the main players, DC and Marvel, it's a fascinating discussion of plot and its consequences. Some of the storylines followed may seem obvious - it would be odd if attention hadn't been devoted to The Watchmen, for example - but others introduce characters less fanatical readers will have overlooked; my example here would be Jessica Jones, heroine of Brian Bendis' Alias, who was deliberately written into Marvel continuity as someone who had always been around but had somehow never quite been mentioned, and would appear to be a fascinating character. The book concentrates on printed comics, but naturally films and TV receive some attention, if only to point out that their continuity often strays from the mainstream of the comics and is seldom sustained in the same way.

My only argument with the book would be the thought that some of the material on Joss Whedon could have been cut to some advantage. He's an important player, but I personally feel that his contribution to the field is a little over-emphasised here, although it may be necessary in discussing the way in which films, TV and comics are increasingly cross-fertilising each other.

Inevitably some of the storylines it discusses are already out of date - for example, the recent huge (and appallingly stupid) Spiderman retcon occurred after it went to press - but that's something that's bound to happen to any study of the field. Overall it's a very worthwhile snapshot of the field, and of the processes which tend to keep continuity coherent, which ought to be very useful to anyone with an interest in comics and their creation.
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