The DC Comics Universe: Critical Essays 1476687374, 9781476687377

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The DC Comics Universe

Also of Interest and from McFarland Virgin Vampires: Or, Once Upon a Time in Transylvania, written by Douglas Brode; Illustrated by Joe Orsak (2012) Yellow Rose of Texas: The Myth of Emily Morgan, written by Douglas Brode; Illustrated by Joe Orsak (2010) Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture, by Douglas Brode (2006)

The DC Comics Universe Critical Essays Edited by Douglas Brode

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina

This book has undergone peer review.

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Names: Brode, Douglas, 1943– editor. Title: The DC Comics universe : critical essays / edited by Douglas Brode. Description: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2022 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022030570 | ISBN 9781476687377 (paperback : acid free paper) ISBN 9781476647265 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: DC Comics, Inc. | Comic books, strips, etc.—United States—History and criticism. | Comic books, strips, etc.—Film adaptations—History and criticism. | Comic books, strips, etc.—Television adaptations—History and criticism. | Superhero films—History and criticism. | Popular culture— Social aspects. | Graphic novels—History and criticism. | BISAC: COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Superheroes (see also FICTION / Superheroes) | PERFORMING ARTS / Television / Genres / Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror | LCGFT: Essays. Classification: LCC PN6725 .D19965 2022 | DDC 741.5/973—dc23/eng/20220707 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030570

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ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-8737-7 ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-4726-5 © 2022 Douglas Brode. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Front cover image © Maxim Maksutov/Shutterstock Printed in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com

Table of Contents Introduction: Superman, DC Comics, and the Lure of the Fantastic Douglas Brode

1

Super Immigrants in the DC Universe: Superman and Wonder Woman in the United States Emily Lauer

15

Deconstructing Batman, Encumbered and Unencumbered Cyrus R.K. Patell

25

Queer(ing) Robin: Performances of Sexuality in Dick Grayson and His Aliases Micah McCrary

42

Constructed Super Families: Superheroes, ­­Super-Kids, and ­­Super-Pets Ora C. McWilliams

54

From Sherlock Holmes to Contemporary Superheroes: The Art of Detection and Investigation in the DC Universe Michelle D. Miranda

65

Of Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn: Branding and Controlling Women in Batman Video Games Carl Wilson

77

Shipping Supergirl: Discovering and Defending Lesbian Identity Through a DC Fandom Katherine Pradt

89

v

vi   Table of Contents

Batgirl of Burnside: The Normalization of Diversity in the DC Universe Hafsa Alkhudairi

100

From Boy to Man: The Power of Shazam and Idealized Self-Image William Battle

110

The Cultural Context of Green Lantern: Superhero Commodity Rebirth, Renewal, and Rhetorical Extensions Garret L. Castleberry

122

Teleporting Off the Page: The Wacky Life and Truncated Career of Ambush Bug Joseph S. Walker

136

Ratoon, Remontant, Revenant, or Recorporation: Death, Melancholy, and Mourning in DC’s The Saga of the Swamp Thing Jeffrey Mccambridge

146

Aquaman Rex: The Arthurian Associations of a DC Superhero Carl B. Sell

158

Bound to the Shackles of History: Reading Archival Practices in DC Comics’ Flashpoint Priel Cohanim

170

DC’s King of the Wild Frontier: Tomahawk and the Tradition of the Eastern–Western Douglas Brode

180

DC Comics’ Renaissance: An Examination of the Audience for The New Teen Titans Joshua Ryan Roeder

191

“A vision of the world where all wisdom is annihilated”; Time, Narrative, and the Optics of Power in Watchmen Jeffrey Mccambridge

201

Wonder Woman Revisited: Increasing the Drama with Classical Reception in New 52’s Justice League Scott Manning

214

Table of Contents   vii

Evil Ink: Tattoos as a Sign of Villainy in Comics Michelle D. Miranda

225

Caped Crusaders and Cartoon Crossovers: A Nostalgic Look “Beyond” DC Superheroes Christina M. Knopf

236

About the Contributors247 Index

251

For my son Shaun Lichenstein Brode, a DC fan from day one

Introduction Superman, DC Comics, and the Lure of the Fantastic Douglas Brode

Comic books were first introduced in the late 1930s and positioned for sale within the juvenile section of newsstands (Berk, 1996/2016, p. 7–11). Thanks to the success of the New Deal, kids had enough money to purchase candy, ­­bubble-gum trading cards, marbles, or…. Superman. Action Comics #1 (June 1938) introduced “The Man of Steel” via a ­­four-color illustrated story and vivid cover image. It must be noted at the outset that these primitive predecessors to today’s upscale graphic novels were oriented toward ­­working-class, male adolescents. Today, most Americans—regardless of age, gender, or race—are aficionados of Superman, his DC brethren, and their competing cousins at Marvel. Moreover, this also holds true for citizens of the world. While we may never determine, once and for all, whether comics radically changed society, or if the situation worked the other way around (most likely, a combination of the two), we do know that what began as a ­­sub-literary pastime for those whose reading abilities were so poor that they required images to grasp narratives has snowballed into a multimedia modern equivalent of ancient myth. These stories are ­­larger-than-life tales of gods and heroes that inspired and enthralled the human race during humankind’s era of origination on Earth (Manning & Irvine, 2016, p. 32–63). However, where do we locate the initial spark that lit this enormous, ongoing, and ­­e ver-expanding blaze? For Superman, it happened when a pair of young, nerdy (long before that term entered our popular idiom), teenagers sat down to pool their talents and achieve on paper what they had not been able to do in life (Rockaway, 1998, p. 121–122). Sons of Jewish immigrants and, as such, outcasts attending a ­­junior-senior high school in Ohio, Jerry Siegel (1914–1996) and Joe Shuster (1914–1992) relieved 1

2  Introduction the boredom of afterschool hours by creating imitations of Funny Pages in daily newspapers. In addition, several publishers of pulp fiction had repackaged earlier syndicated stories as cheap paperback “books” (Lente & Dunlavy, 2017, p. 44–49). So it was that Siegel and Shuster collaborated on a shared vision: the geeky kid who discovers inner strengths and sets out to do good for the world. He—a ­­m ild-mannered, ­­big-city reporter named Clark Kent— is secretly a benign visitor from a distant planet, Krypton. Despite being “normal” in that lost world, he rates as a modern Herakles when compared to earthlings. However, similar to the demigod, this American equivalent is subject to earthly affairs. Clark interacts with ­­g irl-next-door Lana Lang in Smallville, Kansas, and later, after moving to a modern city, with the ambitious young professional Lois Lane (Daniels, 41–43). In reality, neither creator had had much luck meeting such pretty women; nevertheless, by way of fiction, anyone—each and every American everyman—could rise from simply another lonely face in the crowd to a mighty and moral hero: a white knight out of Malory, Tennyson, or Walter Scott, if without armor, as such relevant for the 20th century. To visually announce that he was a proud U.S. citizen, like the “American dreamers” who had conceived of Superman? Deck him out in red, white, and blue. Yet there is more to this ­­f lag-waving fantasy than meets the eye (Ricca, 2016, p. 17–21). In 2008, Los Angeles author/researcher Catherine Elsworth dug into previously untapped sources, discovering a darker side to the origination fable involving a crime that occurred on June 2, 1932, as reported in Cleveland’s newspapers. Jerry (the youngest of six children) had become aware that his parents, Mikhel and Sora Segalovich, had traveled to the United States owing to increasing anti–Semitism in their homeland, Lithuania. The couple hoped that America, if hardly a land in which every street was, as rumored, paved with gold, would at least live up to its reputation as a modicum of tolerance toward ethnic immigrants (Anderson, 2015, p. 92). The fin de siècle saw waves of “foreigners”—the destitute, homeless, and otherwise hopeless hordes welcomed by the Statue of Liberty—pouring in through Ellis Island. Despite their different backgrounds, they were all eager to subscribe to this relatively new nation’s code: work ethic (­­L eroy-Beaulieu, 2016). Apply yourself, and the sky is the limit. Not everyone would or could become rich, although this would occasionally occur. While every individual possessed a ­­lottery-like chance to become successful, countless others who diligently applied themselves might at least achieve a decent, respectable ­­middle-class existence: this was the less glamorous, if more widely significant, side of the “American dream” (Alger, 2019, p. 32–33). Here—according to the national ideal, though not always applicable—a country awaited in which birthrights and class distinctions no

Introduction (Brode)  3 longer held an ordinary person back from achieving fame and fortune. Horatio Alger’s popular tales of street kids who eventually find their place(s) in the sun were read by Siegel and Shuster, along with the more fantastical tales (emerging ­­sci-fi) that they also enjoyed. If such a vision took shape during the second half of the 19th century and the opening years of the 20th, it certainly crystalized following World War I. The modern technology that had led to the industrial revolution came to a standstill “over there” between 1916 and 1919, whereas the U.S. economy advanced by proverbial leaps and bounds. As Henry Luce of the Time magazine memorably announced, the “American Century” had begun (Brinkley, 2010). For a country propelled almost overnight (and to its own shock as well as ebullience) into the epicenter of global finance, politics, and power brokering, a new symbol was required. Uncle Sam had served his purpose back when the U.S. remained a partly settled frontier. Things had changed, and an icon of nearly limitless strength was needed, which would combine the noteworthy characteristics of two heroes from Homer’s Iliad: wily Ulysses and muscular Achilles. Yet, to serve our present purposes, the new representative figurehead had to be a kinder, gentler, and (perhaps most significantly) humbler soul than those Grecian heroes. He had to be, as mentioned earlier, wrapped in the United States’ representative coloring. To the casual eye, he had to resemble a more average citizen while walking down the main street and had to possess true grit to swiftly transform into a righteous warrior. Since such a symbol did not yet exist, someone had to invent him, however unconsciously. In an appealing (and typically American) turn of events, the geniuses were two kids with complimentary talents. In their own minds, Siegel and Shuster may have only been passing time, never guessing the immense public need that their cartoon character would fulfill. They christened their hero “Superman.” How noteworthy in context that Jerry’s parents had changed their last name upon arriving in the United States, though without ­­over-Anglicizing it. “Siegel” sounded considerably less foreign than “Segalovich,” while still hinting at their original identity. Many others opted for traditionally “White” names such as Brown, Smith, and Jones, hoping for total integration into the status quo. Notably, the Siegels did not choose that route; instead, they assimilated the established lifestyle during the workweek while clinging to their cherished traditions. If neighboring Christians presented their kids with Christmas gifts, Jews did the same for Hanukah. Such Americans of Jewish ethnicity, culturally dangling between two worlds, delicately balanced a pair of opposed identities, as would the fictional American hero from a distant planet. Had Jerry’s parents clung to their original surname of “Segalovich,” they would have likely moved into a ghetto; i.e., a closed neighborhood

4  Introduction where ethnicity remained a more significant part of identity than the nation now called home. Similarly, Joe was born in Toronto from parents named “Shusterowich”—a name his father had shortened to better fit in. Because Joe’s dad was barely able to support the family despite his profession as a tailor (the same as Jerry’s), his son scrounged through garbage for paper to fulfill his desire to sketch. In 1928, Joe’s family moved to Cleveland’s Glendale neighborhood, and the Siegels also left their original residence to settle there. Following their first meeting, the friendship/ working relationship between Jerry (who hoping for a career as a writer) and Joe was made in heaven. As “regular” guys, they dotted on Li’l Orphan Annie, Buster Brown, and The Katzenjammer Kids, sometimes talking and dreaming about collaborating on a commercial strip. If countless adolescents daydream of such things, settling for ordinary lives, Siegel and Shuster’s would come true—in part owing to serendipity but largely because, from day one, they refused to fail (Siegel, 1978). Then, contradicting the ­­long-held lightweight notion of their joint creation of Superman “just for the fun of it,” came the harsh catalyst for a contemporary savior: the sudden death of Jerry’s father. On June 2, 1932, at the end of the workday, a robber entered Mikhel’s secondhand clothing store, likely believing that the ­­6 0-year-old owner had headed home. Though police records insist that a gun had been fired, the prone body was not ­­bullet-ridden, and the aging man (like Glenn Ford as Clark Kent’s earthly dad in the 1978 film) had suffered a heart attack. “Was it the sudden loss of his father,” Catherine Elsworth wondered more than 20 years ago, “that pushed a distraught 17 ­­year-old to invent a ­­bullet-proof ­­super-being”—less an avenger (like Batman yet to come) of those who fell victim to modern mean streets than a guardian angel arriving, like the 7th cavalry in John Ford’s Western Stagecoach (1939), to rescue the innocent from the jaws of death. Such heroics were rendered contemporary, and the stark, severe, mythic beauty of Monument Valley gave way to the dim ­­late-night back alleys that are present in all America’s ­­crime-ridden asphalt jungles (Ricca, 2016, p. 36). For Superman, the ­­uber-city would be called Metropolis, and for Batman, Gotham. Both are inspired by Manhattan, as portrayed in the East Coast films Lights of New York (1928) and Sidewalks of New York (1931). However, if DC’s surreal exaggerations of New York appeared all but identical, significant differences allowed for sharp contrasts between the superheroes. Bob Kane’s Bruce Wayne, known as “Batman” (premiering in Detective Comics #27; May 1939) is a human whose superior physical and mental abilities always remain within the realm of possibility. What then inspired Siegel and Shuster to create an extraterrestrial blessed with superpowers? To formulate an answer, we must consider the status of science

Introduction (Brode)  5 fiction at that time. With the advent of ever more advanced technology during the 19th century, writers of creative fiction responded. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) conceived of Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) in part owing to her poet husband’s (Percy Bysshe) obsession with harnessing electricity for controversial experiments that may have included reanimation (Gordon, 2016, p. 179–186). Her curious subtitle hints at the naming of this ­­t hen-emergent genre which, more than a century later, would be identified by publisher Hugo Gernsback (1884– 1967) as “science fiction.” Though the teenage collaborators were motored by gut instinct rather than intellectual consideration, they did revitalize old fables in an epoch in which yesterday’s “impossible” became today’s “achievable” and tomorrow’s “brave new world” (Wright, 2003, p. 50–52). Notably, France’s Jules Verne (1828–1905) and England’s H.G. Wells (1866–1946), two giants of the genre, had penned novels about humankind’s travel into space, namely From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and The First Men in the Moon (1901), respectively (Roberts, 2016, p. 17). In France, pioneer filmmaker George Melies combined elements of both books for his groundbreaking ­­space-fantasy, A Trip to the Moon (1902). Whether Siegel and Shuster saw this “short” is unknown. More likely, they were drawn to space travel by Fritz Lang’s film A Woman in the Moon (1927). The first epic motion picture about a voyage into space, this film was showcased in Cleveland during their boyhood. As for literature, Wells’ (The) War of the Worlds (1897) featured hostile Star Visitors attempting to conquer Earth. On the other hand, Gernsback’s Analog (a.k.a. Astounding Stories), in print since 1930, featured tales in which the arriving aliens proved to be benign. Meanwhile, in high school English classes, Jerry and Joe were exposed to world mythology, which was a required subject then. They were well aware of the character currently referred to as Hercules, himself the child of a “Visitor from the Stars”; whereas in Ancient Greece such visitors had been called “gods,” they were now referred to as “extraterrestrials.” Out of these circumstances emerged a hero, combined with what fans referred to in the 1930s as “­­Super-Science,” namely cutting across all existent subgenres of rational/futuristic thinking to create a modern (and in time postmodern) sensibility toward science. Now, though, we must reconsider that fateful crime. “In fifty years of interviews,” Brad Meltzer claims, “Jerry never once mentioned that his father died in a robbery.” Yet Meltzer cites that incident as the inspiration for Superman in his novel The Book of Lies: “Think about it,” he stated in USA Today, “You father dies in a robbery, and you invent a ­­bullet-proof man who becomes the world’s greatest hero?” (Meltzer, 2009). It is not surprising then that DC’s initial image of Superman, as drawn by Siegel in 1932, depicts him rushing to protect an ordinary citizen from a mugging. This image, sketched on paper the

6  Introduction week after the death of Jerry’s father, ascertains that Superman came into being owing to deep angst: if only such a hero had been around, my dad might still be with us. As Woody Allen’s onscreen alter ego puts it in Annie Hall (1977): “You want to make things turn out right in drama because you never can do that in real life.” Superman may then be read as the transformation of actual tragedy into comedic fantasy. At least according to old Greek definitions of those terms, by which tragedy ends darkly, whereas comedy (laughter aside) provides the audience with an optimistic conclusion or “happy ending.” Nevertheless, Superman was not the first superhero to appear in comic book (or strip) form. Researchers have traced the concept at least back to the turn of the century, with such grotesque crime fighters as The Scarecrow, Dr. Occult, and Red Shadow (Daniels, 87). In truth, the form reaches back further still. Dime novels of the second half of the 19th century, churned out by the likes of Ned Buntline (E.Z.C. Judson, Sr.), turned historical figures of dubious reputation (William F. Cody, James Butler Hickock) into mighty warriors (Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill) (Cox, 2020, p. 72). Even earlier, almanacks of the 1840s celebrated Col. David Crockett (1786–1836) in ­­over-the-top fantasy yarns. In one, when a fiery comet threatens Earth, the King of the Frontier climbs high on a mountaintop, grabs hold of its tail, then hurls the ­­red-hot threat back where it came from. We might consider Crockett (the myth, not the man) to be America’s first Herculean superhero (Crockett, 1986, p. 2–4). In time, Superman would perform similar feats. As to comic strip/ books, the pulp fiction heroes created by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875– 1950) eased into illustrated form. John Carter visited “Barsoom” in the 1911 novel A Princess of Mars, The Space Cowboy would not appear in comics until 1941, as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon already fit that bill. Tarzan of the Apes had previously swung out of a 1912 novel and into Funny Papers as early as 1929. DC’s Superman and Batman were preceded by superheroes in publications from Fiction House, Comics Magazine, Centaur, Marvel, and Fox, among others. Still, it is the “Man of Steel” that most people recall as the first significant superhero. The perfect timing of Superman’s character and DC’s unique presentation approach derived from a stroke of genius by that company’s founder, the ubiquitous Malcolm ­­W heeler-Nicholson (1890–1961), originally from Greenville, Tennessee. A military school graduate and member of the U.S. Cavalry, this “Renaissance Man” of American popular culture became increasingly interested in writing and publishing after leaving the armed services. Though comic books preceded the establishment of his house, National Allied, such companies saved on costs by ­­re-printing strips previously published in newspapers. Once his Fourth Street office

Introduction (Brode)  7 opened in New York City, ­­W heeler-Nicholson realized that most popular characters were already optioned. Fortuitously, he stumbled upon a Dell “funnybook” from 1929, which featured much original work and provided him the inspiration for NA’s New Fun #1 (February 1935). The publication included heroes Henri Duval (a combination of Edmund Dantes from The Count of Monte Cristo and D’Artagnan of The Three Musketeers) and oddball ­­u ltra-modern Doctor Occult. Siegel and Shuster, already hitched to ­­W heeler-Nicholson’s star, helped create those characters while contributing to the writing and illustration (­­W heeler-Nicholson, 82–91). Then came that precipitous day when they shared the idea for Superman with their boss. By most accounts, Jerry and Joe considered themselves fortunate to receive a check for $130—not a first payment but a compensation in exchange for lifetime rights over Superman. Any elation at such “success” proved ­­short-lived. No sooner did The Man of Steel become a sensation than the boys realized they’d virtually given away their supreme joint creation. There followed long, costly, angry, bitter legal assaults on ­­W heeler-Nicholson and DC in hopes of winning back the rights. That never happened, though the duo did receive a guarantee of a modest $20,000 a year for life once Superman branched out into movie and TV incarnations (Williams & Lyons, 2010, p. 141–147). Subsequently, the two shunned the busy offices. Other writers, illustrators, inkers, and varied teammates continued working, and all their contributions merged under ­­W heeler-Nicholson’s guidance, who also assumed responsibility for daily dealings with banks, financial backers, printers, and advertisers. Still, he always found time to oversee the process, as Nicky ­­W heeler-Nicholson recalls in her book, DC Comics Before Superman (2018): “My grandfather just kind of threw out ideas … it was very exciting. This was brand new” (­­W heeler-Nicholson). Everyone profited but Siegel and Shuster. As to the ­­long-standard ­­four-color process (4CP) that reduced the real world’s all but infinite spectrum of possibilities to a tight visual conception carefully organized around dots, in a way similar to Seurat’s pointillist paintings, Lisa Cowen of Seesaw noted on March 14, 2011, that several processes existed between 1900 and 1950, with chromolithography and stone lithography being the most popular. Cowen quoted John Hilgart of 4CP on the use of dots not only as a financial decision within a commercial endeavor but, whatever the initial motivation, as a legitimate verisimilitude of styles leading to a unique and original art form that reflected the groupthink of the 1930s: At the level of a square inch of printed comic book, no one was the creative lead. 4CP highlights the work of arbitrary collectives that merged art and commerce, intent and accident, human and machine. A proper credit for

8  Introduction each image would include the scriptwriter, the penciller, the inker, the color designer, the paper buyer, the print production supervisor, and the serial number of the press. Credit is due to all of them, to differing and unknowable degrees, for every square inch of every old comic. The hand of fate created this art, and it guides our hand as we search for 4CP images: We move a tiny Ouija board pointer across mid–Century comic books, looking for beautiful ghosts.

If this may sound “leftish,” all partisan politics would soon disappear from comics along with every other element of life. On the eve of the United States’ entrance into World War II, the McClure syndicated picked up Superman. A daily black and white strip appeared in 300+ papers beginning January 16, 1939—a Sunday “block” in color in more than 90 papers. Unusual for the time but to the delight of fans, this weekend feature did not consist of a summary of the previous week’s episodes but a continuing narrative in itself. Better yet, each differed from what could be found in monthlies, explaining why characters such as supervillain Lex Luthor appeared in the strip before their first “book” appearance. As all such formats created an immense appetite for fresh material, Superman organically broadened and deepened from contemporary epic into something more spectacular still: a virtual saga which further expanded when Supergirl and other characters were added. When in due time elements of the Superman and Batman casts ­­inter-mixed, the DC Universe came into being. As other media possibilities (including Saturday morning movie serials) picked up on DC’s character, Superman became the epicenter of the Multiverse. Sales for Superman comics at the height of their popularity (1938– 1941) were indeed impressive. A peak month might see as many as 1.5 million books sold. Their impact would likely have remained cultish had the newspaper strip not been initiated (Wright, 2003, p. 63–59). While the market for comic books remained largely for adolescent boys, newspapers were flipped through by almost everyone in a family. As a result, Superman became mainstream. This expanded further when WOR Radio in NYC began broadcasting another series of stories on February 12, 1942. Here, perhaps more so than in print, Superman emerged as the enemy of the Axis. Executives at Paramount Studio in Hollywood optioned the hero for 17 animated color shoots, initially provided by Max and Dave Fleischer of “Popeye” and later by Famous Studios. Rather than simply leaping from building to building, Superman unaccountably acquired the ability to fly. Superman’s duties (global and domestic) did not end once the war wound down, for the military had been integrated during the conflict. Succeeding Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President Harry Truman insisted that this continued stateside during the postwar era. Coordinating with the emergent Civil Rights Movement, Superman set out to destroy the Ku Klux Klan (Johnson, 2012, p. 127).

Introduction (Brode)  9 As previously mentioned, DC had sold Batman’s movie rights for a 1943 ­­cliff hanger-style presentation. These were shown along with other serials, short ­­l ive-action films, and cartoons during Saturday morning entertainment marathons. Soon, Sam Katzman, the legendary head of Columbia’s B unit, oversaw a pair of ­­15-episode “chapter plays” (Superman, 1948 and Atom Man vs. Superman, 1950); Kirk Alyn embodied the “Man of Steel,” with Noel Neill cast as Lois Lane. The second serial proved Superman’s adjustability to ­­ever-changing times: plutonium and radium, essential to the contemporary Atomic Age, established that, while Superman himself remained static, he could be called on to face our latest challenges beginning with the Cold War. Though the radio show ended in 1951 (having shifted to the ABC network), this did not indicate that Superman’s popularity was diminishing. Commercial TV joined the entertainment equation in 1949; shortly, radio would draw down the curtain on drama and comedy, concentrating on recorded music and news. No sooner had Superman left radio airwaves than he appeared on TV. Before that transition, the small indie film production company Lippert shot a B movie (58 minutes in length, completed in less than 28 days on a backlot set), called Superman and the Mole Men (1951). In 1952, Adventures of Superman premiered, running six seasons for a total of 104 episodes, and Kellogg’s Cereals, positioning itself as a central American ­­family-oriented institution, sponsored it. During the 1951–1956 run, black and white filming gave way to color—a decision made with an eye to the future and regular color broadcasts only a few years away. Although production on another 13 episodes was planned, such talk ended with the unexpected death of star George Reeves (Henderson, 2007, p. 151–152). Previous installments (at first a weekly presentation that had long since been “stripped” to five per week) continued until the mid–1960s, namely the era when Superman’s comic strips came to an end. Following the assassination of President John Kennedy in 1963, the United States entered a new era characterized by the controversial war in Vietnam, Civil Rights demonstrations turning violent, the awareness of environmental destruction owing to pesticides, a snowballing drug culture, decaying downtowns, and further assassinations of national leaders. Those old icons (Superman included), which once seemed reassuring, appeared comically quaint in a cynical context. When they did appear, the tone would be what Susan Sontag termed “camp”: projects from the past ­­re-envisioned from a cynical, “knowing” yet sentimental perspective. This was the case with Harold Prince’s Broadway musical It’s a Bird…. It’s a Plane…. It’s Superman, which premiered on March 29, 1966, at the Alvin Theatre. Though “camp” derived from an upscale Manhattan (and largely gay) sensibility, such a ­­tongue-in-cheek tone spread to Middle America. More than two

10  Introduction months before the Superman musical premiered, ABC unleashed Batman (January 12, 1966) as a ­­t wo-episode-per-week cliffhanger that kidded itself—a necessity for the contemporary audience. Ever grimmer films such as Midnight Cowboy (1969), Joe (1970), and Taxi Driver (1976) vividly depicted an ­­e ver-uglier world. Soon, people began to miss the good old days. The ­­box-office success of George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973), set a decade earlier, hinted that camp or realism were, in a “Future Shock” pop culture that constantly reinvented itself, about to give way to nostalgia. George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977), a Buck Rogers redux, proved not only a ­­box-office sensation but an international phenomenon. Lucas and Steven Spielberg worked on a joint effort, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), set in the 1940s, in which everything old was new again, maintaining a hint of the ­­late-1960s ­­w ink-at-the-audience approach, now toned down and presented in the latest sensibility by ­­state-of-the-art special effects. “You’ll believe a man can fly!” read advertisements for Superman (1978), a ­­super-spectacle produced by Alexander and Ilya Salkind; in it, Christopher Reeve offered anything but your father’s Clark Kent, the fellow hip and humorous in an understated way; John Williams composed the sort of symphonic score that he had provided for the Lucas and Spielberg grand adventures; and kids of all ages loved every moment of it. In the 21st century, Superman, Batman, and other DC (and Marvel) superheroes remind us that, however much the human race evolves, we still glance at the stars and wonder: is there life up there? Will we find them before they find us? Scientific rationality has not diminished our human hunger for imaginative fantasy—a form that turns a distorted mirror on us by allowing people to perceive themselves in a caricatured form as to better understand ­­real-life situations. Mythology is not now part of our past, continuing as a necessity and as a means for allowing people to grasp something greater and grander than what they experience every day. Like the ­­Judeo-Christian Bible, the works of Shakespeare, or J.R.R. Tolkien’s otherworldly trilogy, here is a canon with variety that absorbs us into its multidimensions at a time when the world has become, for many, too horrible to face. What follows is a collection of 20 essays that will hopefully allow for a grander understanding of the individual franchises and of the DC Universe as a whole. As this body of work began with the contributions of descendants from European immigrants, the first essay by Emily Lauer continues analyzing the theme, expanding to the first great female (and incipiently feminist) hero figure, Wonder Woman. It only made sense to next turn to Batman, another one of DC’s original creations. In addition to any nostalgic value, however, Cyrus R.K. Patell views The Dark Knight from a decidedly ­­21st-century perspective, analyzing the various stages of the character’s evolution as reflections of the time periods during

Introduction (Brode)  11 which Bruce Wayne’s alter ego was presented to the public. Logically, the next step was to consider Robin, as Micah McCrary does. The issue of Dick Grayson as not only a junior companion to Bruce in crime fighting but also as a possible longtime companion in the fullest sense of that term remained a closeted issue for discussion long before Saturday Night Live ­­l ate-night cartoon segments during the late 1970s and early 1980s suggested that, in addition to “dynamic,” this duo rated as “ambiguously gay.” The purpose of McCrary’s contribution is to finally dismiss the “ambiguous” aspect and, in our own time, allow for open discussion of sexual divergence in the ­­shadow-world of Gotham. At this point, the collection’s ambitions extend and broaden to include key themes. Ora C. McWilliams focuses on the issue of family as it relates to the DC oeuvre and to its audience, considering the implications of children and pets that would, in the better part of a century later, lead to Disney’s delightful “­­s end-up” of such ideas in their Incredibles films. Michelle D. Miranda opts for an alternative approach, relating how DC superheroes are significantly inf luenced by Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and other elements that form the basis of the detective story. After all, superhero cachet aside, we must not forget that DC does (or at least once did) refer to “detective comics” (emphasis mine). Holmes and others of his ilk were in fact superheroes long before anyone concocted that term to describe Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and all the rest. Miranda convincingly argues that we cannot fully comprehend the action heroes of today without first acknowledging those sleuths who preceded them. What follows is a series of essays that approach DC from the feminist perspective introduced in Lauer’s essay, extending our conversation as to the Women’s Movement’s great influence on the seemingly sacrosanct— though in truth socially relevant—realm of comic books and graphic novels. Carl Wilson studies two of the most memorable villainesses, Selina Kyle/Catwoman and Harley Quinn, from such a perspective, extending our discussion from print materials to not only film and TV but also video games; the latter are here considered to have more than the obvious escapist/pastime value, representing a contemporary means for the players’ ­­s elf-definition. Katherine Pradt circles back to the ­­gender-bending elements earlier introduced by McCrary in his discussion of Robin, now bringing Supergirl (both in her original conception and rebirth as a modern TV icon) into the mix as a symbol of lesbian solidarity. In the third and final essay of this block, Hafsa Alkhudairi closely scrutinizes the transformation of Batgirl from a silly ­­junior-league superheroine into an emblem of what was once condescendingly accepted as “different” from today’s enlightened vision of various senses of “normalcy.”

12  Introduction At this point, the wider world of DC’s Justice League is explored. William Battle analyzes Shazam (a.k.a. Captain Marvel) to emphasize the manner in which this hero is not merely a clever variation of the superhero theme but a fully realized literary figure. In this line, Garret L. Castleberry subsequently explores Green Lantern as a product of the society in which this character was originally conceived as well as how he has been “reborn” over the years. Our ongoing conversation then veers toward considerably ­­lesser-known DC figures, with Joseph S. Walker’s study of Ambush Bug explaining both this figure’s unique appeal as well as the key reasons why the character never achieved the heights of popularity of others in the DC Universe. Logically, it seemed right to then turn to a superhero more popular than Ambush Bug if less so than Shazam: Swamp Thing—deconstructed by Jeffrey Mccambridge to provide the reader a fuller understanding of the manner in which this offbeat superhero not only represented one more moneymaking franchise within the DC Universe but also filled a missing gap in the lineup of heroes in a unique way. Carl B. Sell and Priel Cohanim then reveal similar studies of Aquaman and Flashpoint, providing not only more of the same (with differing costumes) but additions to the line up every bit as significant as the extended assortment of ancient heroic figures in, say, Greek and Norse mythology, or as the various and highly specific knights at King Arthur’s court in Malory, Tennyson, or White. As the volume moves toward its conclusion, I provide, as a nostalgic addendum, the mostly forgotten “career” of Tomahawk, analyzing why that hero of the early American West did not, owing to the changing tastes of American and international receivers. From that purposeful step back in time, the remaining essays bring us into the present and likely future of DC. Joshua Ryan Roeder not only analyzes the New Teen Titans but also explains how these effective characters were designed with an evolving viewership in mind. Mccambridge returns with a study of the most postmodern of all DC franchises, The Dark Knight, revealing the reasons why the bleak vision presented here makes it look lighthearted in comparison. Scott Manning revisits Wonder Woman to reveal how a ­­nostalgia-draped figure from the 1940s effectively adjusts to the demands of DC’s current hall of heroes. The penultimate essay by Miranda deals with the manner in which the art of the tattoo, once dismissed as an emblem of ­­lower-class vulgarity, has become accepted in a post–“camp” cultural milieu by high society in modern metropolises as well as by DC heroes and villains. Finally, Christina M. Knopf takes on the responsibility of merging all the ideas and concepts presented in earlier essays into a study of DC then, now, and tomorrow. Our great hope is that this volume will offer new and insightful perceptions into the individual elements of this family of franchises and of the DC Universe itself.

Introduction (Brode)  13

References Alger, H., Jr. (2019). Strive and succeed. Outlook Verlag. Anderson, S.L. (2015). Immigration, assimilation, and the cultural construction of American national identity. Routledge. Berk, J. (1996). New Fun Magazine—The birth of an industry. Comic Book Collecting Association. Archived from the original on February 23, 2016. Brinkley, A. (2010). The publisher: Henry Luce and his American century. Knopf. Cox, J.R. (2020). The dime novel companion: A source book. Greenwood Press. Crockett, D. (1986). Davy Crockett’s Almanacks, 1835–1843; The Nashville imprints. Pioneer Press. Daniels, L. (1995). DC Comics: Sixty years of the world’s favorite comic book heroes. Bullfinch Press/Little Brown. Daniels, L. (1998). Superman: The complete history. Chronicle Books. Elsworth, C. (2008, August 27). The tragic real story behind Superman’s birth. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/2628733/­­T he-tragic-realstory-behind-Supermans-birth.html. Gordon, C. (2016) Romantic outlaws: The extraordinary lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Random House. Henderson, J.E. (2007). Speeding bullet: The life and bizarre death of George Reeves (Second Edition). Michael Bifulco. Johnson, J.K. (2012). ­­Super-history: Comic book superheroes and American society; 1938 to the present. McFarland. Kubert, J. (2016). Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Joe Kubert years. Dark Horse Books. ­­L eroy-Beaulieu, A. (2016). Jewish immigration in early 1900s America: A visitor’s account. Steven Capsuto Books. Manning, M.K., & Irvine, A. (2016). DC Comics encyclopedia ­­all-new edition: The definitive guide to characters of the DC Universe. DK. Ricca, B. (2016). Super boys: The amazing adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster Macmillan. Roberts, A. (2016). The history of science fiction. (Second Edition). Palgrave Macmillan. Rockaway, R.A. (1998). Words of the uprooted: Jewish immigrants in early ­­t wentieth-century America. Cornell University Press. Siegel, J. (1978). The story behind Superman #1 (Unpublished Memoir). Available from https://www.dropbox.com/s/k3rb8by5oupsjhz/Creation%20of%20a%20Superhero%20 by%20Jerry%20Siegel.pdf?dl=0. Stern, R. (2006). Superman, Sunday Comic Classics 1939–1943. DC Comics/Kitchen Sink Press/Sterling Publishing. USA Today. (2009, January 1). Interview with Brad Meltzer. Van Lente, F., & Dunlavy, R. (2017). History of comics: Birth of a medium. IDW Publishing. ­­W heeler-Nicholson, N. (2018). DC Comics before Superman. Hermes Press. Williams, P., & Lyons, J. (eds.). (2010). The rise of the American comic artist: Creators and contexts. University Press of Mississippi. Wright, B. (2003). Comic book nation: The transformation of youth culture in America. John Hopkins University Press. Wright, N. (2000). The classic era of American comics. Contemporary Books.

Super Immigrants in the DC Universe Superman and Wonder Woman in the United States Emily Lauer

The American superhero, born on the cusp of the United States’ involvement in World War II, was heavy with tropes championing “the immigrant” in U.S. rhetoric. Since the Golden Age of the 1930s and ’40s, the evolution of those tropes has enabled them to be reimagined, interrogated, and sometimes subverted. Superman and Wonder Woman, in particular, presented progressive, ­­pro-immigrant narratives in their first instances and have continued to do so in their reimaginings. In the combination of powers, secret identity, and symbolic costume, superhero narratives often engage with different models of nationalism and different ways of perceiving the “other” and have been used by historians as primary documents to trace evolving ideas about what it means to be “American.” Wonder Woman/Diana Prince and Superman/Clark Kent exemplify both an integration model and an assimilation model of immigration stories with their dual identities as their superpowered personalities integrate, championing America without trying to “fit in,” while their alter egos assimilate, smoothly passing as ­­A merican-born citizens. ­­Kal-El was a baby refugee before he became Clark Kent/Superman, and Wonder Woman grew up on the Amazon island of Themyscira as Princess Diana of the Amazons, choosing to become an American as an adult. Using their powers for good as they wear their costumes evoking the American flag proves the stories’ progressive elements. Less flashy than the superhero costumes and powers, their alter egos are also those of good Americans and thus good for America. Clark, in his role as a reporter, is a champion of the free press, providing investigative 15

16   The DC Comics Universe journalism for the populace to democratically learn about the state of the world, whereas Diana is a nurse who literally saves the lives of Americans. Both are undocumented immigrants whose Americanness is presented as overwhelmingly positive. Superman ­­crash-landed on American soil as an infant and was secretly by the Kents; Wonder Woman assumed a new identity when she arrived. The United States is lucky to have them here, loving and protecting America and its freedoms, regardless of paperwork or origin. The creators of Golden Age superheroes were essentially inventing their genre, cobbling together traditions out of component parts of other genre traditions such as the Western, the detective story, and the boy’s adventure as well as propagandistic elements of immigrant literature. Julian Chambliss notes that “comic books and superheroes offer a distinct means to understand U.S. culture” (2012, p. 145). Summarizing Peter Coogan’s defining characteristics of superheroes, Chambliss explains how “the superhero’s mission is ­­pro-social and selfless. The superhero has powers beyond normal standards. The superhero has a secret identity. Finally, the superhero has a costume that symbolizes heroic identity” (p. 146). Every element allowed creators of the first superheroes to employ evolving tropes of their emerging genre to champion the role of the immigrant in U.S. culture. Therefore, it is not ­­far-fetched to perceive Golden Age superheroes as fitting into an existing tradition of immigrant literature. Superman and Wonder Woman emerged, as it were, fully formed from their creators’ minds. In their very first stories, they were already adults making adult decisions with full knowledge of their superpowered status. Preexisting immigrant stories project a didactic message of mutual benefit; in “America and I,” a classic example of such stories, Anzia Yezierska (1923) writes, Then came a light—a great revelation! I saw America—a big idea—a deathless hope—a world still in the making. I saw that it was the glory of America that it was not yet finished. And I, the last comer, had her share to give, small or great, to the making of America, like those Pilgrims who came in the Mayflower [https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/­­a merica-and-i].

Immigrants’ contribution to the U.S. is both idealistic and practical in that it requires them to be utopian in their optimism: they must love the nation’s potential and work to achieve it. The message? Both the immigrant and the U.S. will be enriched by immigrants’ vital contribution to the nation. This blend of idealism and practical empowerment fits the emerging superhero genre well. Today, the field has changed drastically; the superhero narrative has been codified into its own genre—one that, like the Western, is associated with American mythmaking. In addition to the evolution of the superhero genre itself, “major waves of immigration

Super Immigrants (Lauer)  17 bookended the twentieth century” (Passel, 2011, p. 20). These mass influxes formed populations ready to create superhero stories and prepared to see themselves reflected in their pages. Action Comics #1 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster arguably established the genre in 1938. In it, Superman’s superheroic origin is introduced to us on the first page. It takes only two rows of panels to detail his ­­crash-landing as an infant and his various powers. By the bottom row of panels on page 1, readers can already see Superman in his classic pose, namely that of an adult who appears poised for action in his blue costume, red cape, and yellow logo. Underneath him runs the caption: “Superman! Champion of the Oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!” (Siegel & Shuster, 1938, p. 1). On the top of page 2, readers witness the activities of the ­­g rown-up hero, dashing around as though he was wearing seven league boots, forcing down doors to encourage legal action, beating up gangsters, and tracking down ne’­­erdo-wells, as well as interspersed scenes of his daily life as a ­­mild-mannered reporter, taking assignments from his boss while trying to date coworker Lois Lane. Famously, the figure of Superman was, in its origin, one of explicit wish fulfillment: Jerry Siegel wondered, “What if I was real terrific?,” fantasizing about being noticed by all the people who ignored him (as cited in Harvey, 1996, p. 19, among many others). The idea of an ordinary ­­working-class man, secretly a mighty being for the force of good, was born out of this fantasy. In addition to this fantasy of a slight, seemingly ineffectual man possessing secret strength, Superman also embodies the twin fantasies of successful assimilation and integration so often at odds in immigrant literature. Superman’s creation is a fantasy of immigrants’ ability to blend in so well that they can be ignored and of the idea that someone could shed their outer skin to reveal and employ the massive power underneath in an admirable way. Though it is not revealed in Action Comics #1, the emerging mythos of Superman upholds both the ­­pro-immigrant stance and the ­­w ish-fulfillment fantasy of his heroic nature. Over the next decade, comics, radio series, and other media platforms allowed fans to learn that he was originally named ­­Kal-El and had been sent by brilliant, loving parents in a ­­baby-sized spaceship to save him from the destruction of their planet, Krypton. “In the context of the time, his story echoes that of the ‘kindertransports’ of Europe by which Jewish children were evacuated to safe countries to escape Nazis, leaving their parents behind” (Brod, 2012, p. 9). Having the good fortune to land in the rural United States, baby ­­Kal-El is adopted by the Kents, who raise him “right.” In fact, ­­Kal-El gets to have his cake and eat it, too. As the product of a solid, rural American upbringing,

18   The DC Comics Universe no one would ever suspect Clark Kent of being more—or other—than what he seems to be. Even his many trials and tribulations are those of an ordinary American. In the person of Superman, however, ­­K al-El avoids assimilating in appearance. Superman does not become a representative member of the society so much as a ­­l arger-than-life metaphor for the goals of society. He adopts the ideals of his new nation (as he understands them) and uses his considerable power to uphold them, fashioning his baby blanket from Krypton into a costume. Wearing his own native garment and not pretending for an instant to be less than he is, he will be celebrated as himself. The rhetoric of this costuming choice, which will be echoed in Wonder Woman’s, has been employed to great progressive effect by activist artists such as Neil Rivas, who in 2012 created “Wanted” posters for superhero immigrants, including Superman and Wonder Woman, with “ILLEGAL” written in large letters below them (Gates, 2012). Similarly, the photographer Dulce Pinzòn shot a series of staged, costumed pictures called “The Real Story of the Superheroes,” in which she depicts the difficult manual labor of immigrants costumed as superheroes (http://www.dulcepinzon. com/). Wonder Woman is working in a laundry, while Superman is making a delivery by bike. Under each picture, a caption explains how much money each sends home every week. These costumes resonate with viewers in explicitly progressive ways. David Hajdu does not see the original use of these native garments as heroic costumes as subversive or revolutionary because Golden Age comics clearly championed American ideals. He writes, “Action and its ilk were not so much … vehicles for the [creators] to challenge social convention or authority, as blunt credenda of virtue and testaments to the goodness of America. With Superman, the comics assimilated” (Hajdu, 1999, p. 31). However, it is also possible to see the particular way in which America was lauded in the comics as a kind of progressive rhetorical move. Akin to Emma Lazarus’ 1883 poem “The New Colossus,” what now seems to be, for us, a hackneyed and saccharine reminder of the nation’s progressive mission of inclusion was actually a savvy push toward the nation accepting such ideals as innately American at the time of its creation. Thus, it is possible to see the creation of Superman in Action Comics #1 as an integrative act: the superhero genre arrived, declaring itself good for America, and swiftly became a part of the cultural landscape. Similarly, Harry Brod assesses the role of the superhero in the comic book industry as a kind of integration, which he calls “assimilation by idealization.” He notes that original readers as well as creators were largely urban recent immigrants or ­­f irst-generation American Jews (Brod, 2012, p. 3), proposing that marginalized Jewish cartoonists were creating

Super Immigrants (Lauer)  19 an alternate, idealized version of America…. Their strategy of assimilation by idealization worked. As audiences accepted the idealized images these Jews created, these new cultural icons became the vehicles through which these marginalized Jews were able to enter the cultural mainstream. Shut out of the centers of American culture, they created new cultural forms to bring America to them [Brod, 2012, p. 3].

Like the Anzia Yezierska story quoted earlier, this rhetorical stance is one in which America’s potential must be realized and idealized by the romanticized immigrant figure for both the nation and the individual immigrant to benefit from. In superhero immigrant stories, the “other” could become an idealized hero figure by using their power to support an idealized nation. As a result, many marginalized authors and artists who created the various Golden Age heroes would be folded into the fabric of America. Many scholars have referred to Superman’s refugee origins as essential to his embodiment of American values. Chambliss calls the Superman story “the perfect immigrant narrative [because ­­K al-El] is an alien (another word for immigrant) who comes to the U.S. at a young age. He is raised in the heartland. [Then, as an adult in the city,] his innate immigrant traits combined with his rural upbringing to allow him to improve society” (Chambliss, 2012, p. 149). Jeffrey K. Johnson, addressing the rhetoric of the divide between the city and the country in DC comics in a similar way, writes that, whether Clark Kent is exposing corruption as a journalist or Superman is saving Metropolis from an extraterrestrial threat, he “was ‘raised right.’ [H]e is a physically super man with … super morals” instilled by the Kents (Johnson, 2010, p. 726), which would not have been possible without his refugee status. While Chambliss and Johnson emphasize the ways in which Superman is wholly Americanized by growing up in the rural United States, his identity is far more fractured than this would imply. ­­Kal-El, also known as Clark Kent, also known as Superman, has not one alter ego but in fact three. He has his birth name, indicating cultural roots that he was torn from as a baby and that he rediscovers as an American adult; he also has his adopted name, indicating strong ties to the parents who raised and loved him as well as to his career as a journalist; he also has his title—Superman—which arises from a misreading of the symbol on his chest, referring to his powers rather than individual identity. Although the fissures between his ­­K al-El and Clark Kent identities indicate the trauma of refugee status, those between his Clark Kent and Superman are the ones that receive more scholarly and fan attention, as they enforce the message of mutual benefit in the immigrant narrative. He is accepting a home from Americans, while Americans are gifted his powerful action and devotion in return.

20   The DC Comics Universe Wonder Woman’s origin story is potentially more overtly ­­p roimmigrant than Superman’s since she chooses to come to the country as an adult and assumes an American identity on arrival. Her costume is aggressively United ­­States-coded in style and motif, like a rodeo queen bedecked with an eagle, red stripes, and blue shorts spangled with white stars. Importantly, like Superman, Wonder Woman can represent America without being born in it. According to Katherine Aiken, Wonder Woman’s ­­co-creator, “William Moulton Marston (1893–1947), was a member of the Massachusetts bar, held a doctorate in psychology from Harvard, and invented the lie detector.” According to her, he began working on the concept for Wonder Woman in 1937—before Superman came into existence (2010, p. 46). Aiken characterizes Wonder Woman’s introduction in this way: When American pilot Steve Trevor’s plane crashed on Paradise Island, Diana rescued him and nursed him back to health. Eventually, Diana, disguised as a nurse, accompanied Trevor back to the United States. Later, as Lt. Diana Prince, she continues to fight injustice in the man’s world as Wonder Woman [p. 46].

Similarly, Bryan Dietrich dismissively claims that Wonder Woman “wanders into Man’s World” (2006, p. 209). However, Diana does not “accompany” Steve and certainly does not “wander.” In December 1941, when Diana is introduced in All Star Comics #8, she does not even leave Paradise Island. The plot concerns her decision to leave and proving her superpowered readiness to do so. In Sensation Comics #1, which swiftly follows in January 1942, Diana f lies the wounded soldier back home, physically carries him to a hospital, then endures a few pages of annoyance based on her inability to be respected when dressed in the outfit her mother gave her on Paradise Island, even as she beats up gangsters. When she meets Army Nurse Diana Prince, she exasperatedly asks, “If I gave you money, would you sell me your credentials?” (Marston, 1942, p. 8). The nurse agrees, and Wonder Woman assumes the identity of a “real” American. Though she came to the United States by her own volition as an adult rather than as an infant refugee, Wonder Woman is, like Superman, an undocumented immigrant; as such, she presents a similar dichotomy of experiences. Like Clark, although Diana is an undocumented immigrant, she is nevertheless White, ­­able-bodied, and fluent in English. Thus, she can lead a successful double life because she is able to blend in entirely with the dominant culture whenever she wants and is also able to employ the strengths of her upbringing and ancestry at will. For Wonder Woman as well as Superman, creating a secret identity is not merely the fulfillment of an assimilation wish, but it also recasts the “otherness” of the immigrant

Super Immigrants (Lauer)  21 as a powerful tool to be used for America’s benefit. In both cases, the hero can hide his or her otherness when necessary while activating the power associated with otherness when trouble arises. This ability casts that otherness as power. The Golden Age expanded the roster of superheroes into a genre—a new form initiated by the creators of Superman and Wonder Woman, among others. As the number of superheroes grew, the versions of the Golden Age founding heroes also expanded. Clark and Diana have themselves been reborn time and time again, in different versions of costumes, personalities, and adolescences to address changing cultural situations in successive eras. Their stories continue to resonate today. The tropes of the genre can be interrogated or subverted in contemporary versions, allowing for additional layers of depth. Clark Kent has been envisioned differently in alternative comic book series, and screen versions present even starker differences. In recent years, Superman has gained popularity in a romantic teen version on the ­­long-running WB show Smallville (2001–2011) and was then turned into a dark and gritty murderer by film director Zack Snyder in Man of Steel (2013). Now, a more wholesome version of his character appears in cameos on the television show Supergirl (2015–present), even as Snyder’s version simultaneously continues in ­­big-screen DC movies including Batman vs. Superman (2016) and Justice League (2017). This multiplicity of versions of the hero is reminiscent of versions of him that have existed concurrently in comic books for decades. In each case, a willing suspension of disbelief is required by the fan to appreciate the various ways in which these versions can purport to be the same character as they engage with the cultural climate. Yet, tracking the fortunes of Wonder Woman as a hero is even more politically charged than the changes found in Superman. In addition to symbolizing America and heroism in a general sense, Wonder Woman is also inextricably bound up (pun intended) with women’s rights and gender politics. As Tim Hanley observes in his book, “She grew up in the world’s most idyllic environment and became a hero to help others and spread Amazon values” (2014, p. 20, as cited in Jurković, 2015, p. 2). Her role as an immigrant and as a hero is explicitly proselytizing for her gender. The ups and downs of her characterization tend to react to women’s rights movements more closely than to any sort of immigrant sentiment because, as Charlotte E. Howell notes, Wonder Woman is “one of the most beloved comic book characters, and feminism is central to her character and brand, from her origins to her ongoing stories” (2015, p.143). Most of Wonder Woman’s “history” has been written and/or illustrated by men who are not all feminists. More recently, however, she has been scripted

22   The DC Comics Universe by women authors, including Gail Simone and G. Willow Wilson, to great acclaim. Her teen version is central to the DC Superhero Girls line ­­co-created by Shea Fontana, and she became the title character in a blockbuster film directed by Patty Jenkins (2017). Wonder Woman is clearly as (more) relevant than ever before. Tracking the different versions can prove illuminating for the manner(s) in which they engage with the heroes’ status as undocumented immigrants. Both Superman and Wonder Woman put on their own garments, brought with them from their homelands, when engaging in superheroics. The big “S” in a shield shape, or the nested golden “WW” of their symbols become multiple in their symbolism as versions proliferate, and those trademarked symbols are honed and restyled for the different incarnations of the heroes they indicate. Like their branded logos, Superman and Wonder Woman escape the bounds of narratives that once housed them to become ­­f ree-floating character “cultural texts” by existing in such multiplicity. Analogously, Renata Kobetts Miller addresses how the many versions of the Jekyll and Hyde story form a “cultural text” that eclipses its original text. She notes that the 1886 novella “offers an excellent example of a ­­culture-text whose cultural afterlife has so eclipsed its source text that the original story bears little resemblance to the details of its cultural afterlife” (Miller, 2017, p. 63). In this discussion, even Miller’s phrasing indicates that the original first story will somehow come later in the life of an aficionado. Miller presents a scenario wherein someone interested in a Jekyll and Hyde personality type, themed restaurant, or horror tour of London will seek out the novella from 1886 to learn more about the initiation/creation of the cultural text. Similarly, for both Superman and Wonder Woman, the origin of the phenomenon is eclipsed by later versions. It is unlikely that a fan’s first experience with either of these heroes will be reading Action Comics #1, All Star Comics #8, or Sensation Comics #1. Rather, in a timeline like the one Miller describes for Jekyll and Hyde, it is more likely that a fan of Superman or Wonder Woman as a cultural text will seek out the unknown original comic and reflect on its differences with what the fan is used to. Finally, in the cases of both Superman and Wonder Woman, they have clearly become subgenres of the superhero genre. It is possible to tell a new Superman story, adding to the mythos of Superman specifically as well as the genre of superheroes more generally, by creating another version of Superman along the way. Analogously, in her influential book on versioning, Our Vampires, Ourselves (1995), Nina Auerbach addresses how this situation has emerged for Dracula. As a subgenre of vampire stories, the “character” of Dracula can be fleshed out, humanized or not, based on needs of the individual storyteller using the cultural text of the figure as

Super Immigrants (Lauer)  23 a shortcut to characterization and often the cultural commentary. Auerbach writes in her introduction: “We all know Dracula or think we do, but as this book will show, there are many Draculas and still more vampires who refuse to be Dracula or to play him … vampires are easy to stereotype, but it is their variety that make them survivors” (1995, p. 1). The same holds true for superheroes. There are many Supermen and Wonder Women, and if we think of them as being unified enough to believe that we “know” Superman and Wonder Woman, our knowledge may not be as vast as we guessed. What Auerbach says about vampires is also true of superheroes: it is the variety of the genre that makes it thrive. Today, comics’ creators have a unique opportunity to engage in the ongoing critique that the Golden Age of superheroes initiated: in telling new stories about Superman, Wonder Woman, or any of the other immigrant heroes who followed, creators can support the idea that the U.S. benefits from new people arriving to widen the definition of who qualifies as an American. Together—all the Supermen and all the Wonder Women— imply that superhero tropes can be rebooted along with the superheroes themselves and that versioning may be interrogated as commentary. Superhero fans seek variation within a theme. Engaging with the legacy of Golden Age immigrant heroes pushes the boundaries of what variety can fit into that theme in productive, progressive ways.

References Aiken, K. (2010, April). Superhero history: Using comic books to teach U.S. history. OAH Magazine of History 24(2), 41–47. Auerbach, N. (1995). Our vampires, ourselves. University of Chicago Press. Brod, H. (2012). Superman is Jewish? How comic book superheroes came to serve truth, justice and the ­­Jewish-American way. Simon & Schuster. Chambliss, J.C. (2012, May 29). Superhero comics: Artifacts of the U.S. experience. Address delivered at Sequential SmArt: A Conference on Teaching with Comics, Juniata College, Pennsylvania. Dietrich, B. (2006). Queen of pentacles: Archetyping Wonder Woman. Extrapolation, 47(2). 207–236. Gates, S. (2012, Aug. 20). Neil Rivas’ “Illegal Superheroes” addresses undocumented immigration issues (PHOTOS). Huffpost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/­­neil-rivas-artistillegal-superheroes-satire-immigration_n_1812565?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aH R0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=­­AQAAAH-RHg0Yf8FdcCNKbG ThoOHTULTBVWqjGRw5EWSRTt3trtrcEQOmGVUQ-8mfoYu_iqQrELaZiZdx80w2 9WVM0o16U2qiwihK8ncuiBlbOQOlakiZrHWFDvDZzLYbvqWJuXaZKA2IDaMLE0 _3SX9FEFf4jud-F7rpUmSLVTlCES0o. Hajdu, D. (1999). The ­­ten-cent plague: The great comic book scare and how it changed America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Howell, C.E. (2015). “Tricky” connotations: Wonder Woman as DC’s brand disruptor. Cinema Journal, 55(1), 141–149. Johnson, J.K. (2010). The countryside triumphant: Jefferson’s ideal of rural superiority in modern superhero mythology. The Journal of Popular Culture, 43(4), 720–737.

24   The DC Comics Universe Jurković, I. (2015). “Lasso of truth”: Rediscovering the forgotten history of Wonder Woman. Review of Wonder Woman unbound: The curious history of the world’s most famous heroine by Tim Hanley. Utopia and Political Theology, 5(2). 1–4. Marston, W.M. (1942). Sensation comics #1. DC Comics. Miller, R.K. (2017). Nineteenth century theatrical adaptations of novels: The paradox of ephemerality. In T. Leitch (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies (pp. 53–70). Oxford University Press. Passel, J.S. (2011). Demography of immigrant youth: Past, present, and future. The Future of Children, 21(1), 19–41. Siegel, J., & Shuster, J. (1938). Action comics #1. National Allied Publications (DC Comics).

Deconstructing Batman, Encumbered and Unencumbered Cyrus R.K. Patell

Like the ­­h ard-boiled dick, with whom he shares a ­­pulp-magazine genealogy, Batman embodies a U.S. cultural mythology that is oriented around the idea of rugged individualism. Batman made his debut in May 1939 in “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” the first story in Detective Comics #27, which also included adventures featuring a number of other sleuths: Speed Saunders, Ace Detective; Buck Marshall, Range Detective; investigator Bart Regan; the Crimson Avenger; amateur detective Bruce Nelson; Flatfoot Flannigan; Cosmo, The Phantom of Disguise; Plainclothes Pete; and Slam Bradley. The issue also featured the first installment of an illustrated Fu Manchu story by Sax Rohmer. Batman was thus a product of the detective tradition emerging in pulp magazines like Dime Detective, Spicy Detective, and above all Black Mask, where Dashiell Hammett got his start and in which Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner would later publish. The first Batman story was indebted to Theodore Tisley’s novel Partners of Peril (1936), which featured the popular crimefighter known as “The Shadow,” Batman ­­co-creator Bill Finger acknowledged that his “first script was a ­­t ake-off on a Shadow story,” adding, “I patterned my style of writing Batman after the Shadow. Also after the old Warner Bros. movies…. It was completely pulp style…. My idea was to have Batman be a combination of Douglas Fairbanks, Sherlock Holmes, The Shadow, and Doc Savage as well” (as cited in Tollin, 2018, p. 22). Finger’s collaborator, artist Bob Kane, cited similar influences: “I have always been an ardent mystery and adventure fan.… I suppose both The Shadow’s cloaked costume and ­­double-identity role, as well as the extraordinary acrobatics of 25

26   The DC Comics Universe Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., did more to my subconscious to create the character and personality of Batman than any other factors” (p. 22). Batman was a hit, and subsequent issues of Detective Comics promised “a new intriguing Batman story every month” (to quote issue #32). The conclusion of the Batman story in issue #33 noted that “the Batman appears only in ‘Detective Comics’”—which was true for another five issues until the first number of Batman appeared in Spring 1940, devoted wholly to the adventures of Batman and his sidekick Robin, “the Boy Wonder,” who had made his debut in Detective Comics #38. Batman thus begins his career as a ­­pop-culture counterpart to the figure from political theory that Michael Sandel famously described as “the unencumbered self ”—a self understood as “prior to and independent of purposes and ends,” that expresses an individualistic conception of “the way we stand toward the things we have, or want, or seek” (1984, pp. 84, 86). Sandel argued that this conception of the self served as the foundation for John Rawls’ treatise A Theory of Justice (1971), perhaps the most influential defense of liberal individualism in ­­late-20th-century ­­A nglo-American political theory. What Sandel finds problematic about this conception of the self is that it promotes an ontology in which the self is “an antecedently individuated subject, standing always at a certain distance from the interests it has,” an ontology that therefore rejects any concept of communally constituted identity (1998, p. 55). Millionaire Bruce Wayne, described in the second panel of the first Batman story as a “young socialite,” is embedded in the social and institutional life of Gotham City. To pursue his particular ends, which involve a ­­self-generated conception of justice and how to achieve it, the fabulously wealthy Wayne, orphaned as a boy by the murder of his parents, reinvents himself as “Batman,” a figure who stands outside Gotham’s sanctioned legal institutions. Pop culture is not, however, the ­­non-contradictory domain that political theory aspires to be. If Sandel’s procedure is to locate what he believes is a significant contradiction between Rawls’ conception of the self and the ways in which selves actually function in U.S. society, pop culture is, in contrast, quite happy to let contradictory conceptions coexist and vie for dominance. In fact, U.S. popular culture has two different types of story to tell about individualism. The first is primarily ontological: it takes as its subject the individualist—­­self-reliant and unencumbered—and shows us what the world looks like through his or (less often) her eyes. Driven by a vision of the individualist as loner and agent of justice, the ontological story has given rise to character types that have attained mythical status in U.S. culture: the frontiersman, the cowboy, the ­­hard-boiled dick, and Batman. The second type of story, however, is teleological: it shifts its focus from the individualist to the relationship between the individual and the

Deconstructing Batman (Patell)  27 community, portraying the ways in which the individualist comes to be situated within familial and social bonds. These two types of story define two ends of a spectrum, and each type gives rise to variations that incorporate elements of the other type. The ontological story and the teleological story coexist, simultaneously contradicting and complementing one another. The first eleven Batman stories, which ran in Detective Comics from May 1939 to April 1940, present an unencumbered Batman, but with issue #38’s introduction of Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Robin “the Boy Wonder,” Batman became part of the teleological story. Since that time, there have essentially been two Batmans circulating in U.S. popular culture: the unencumbered self that Detective Comics presented in issue #27; that Tim Burton revived in his films Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992); and that Christopher Nolan explored with a vengeance in Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012)—and the encumbered version made famous in the three season of the campy television series (1966–1968) that starred Adam West as Bruce Wayne and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson, in which (as the Internet Movie Database tells us) “the Caped Crusader and his young ward battle evildoers in Gotham City.” They are aided by a grandfatherly version of the butler Alfred (Alan Napier), and Wayne Manor is home not only to this ­­crime-fighting trio, but also to Dick’s Aunt Harriet Cooper (Madge Blake). The celebrated cartoon Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995) eschewed this camp sensibility, returning to the noir roots of the original comic books, but retained the encumbered Batman, introducing his partnership with Robin in its second episode. These seemingly contradictory but ultimately complementary versions of Batman make him an effective embodiment of the dynamics of the U.S. cultural mythology that has arisen around the idea of liberal individualism. Frank Miller’s groundbreaking comic series The Dark Knight Returns (1986) inserts itself into these contradictions, as it depicts a Batman caught uncomfortably between these two versions of the liberal individual. Written while the Reagan era was in full swing, The Dark Knight Returns cast a jaundiced eye on Reagan’s mythologization of individualism, in part because Reagan’s storytelling about “America” failed to account for the problems faced by cities in the United States. The idea of “Batman” has always been associated with a dark vision of the city: the first panel of the first Batman story shows the protagonist standing at the edge of a roof with outstretched wings and skyscrapers in the background. Variously attributed to Frank Miller and to John Byrne, the idea that “Metropolis is New York by day; Gotham City is New York by night” sums up a longstanding distinction about the ideologies that animate Superman and Batman respectively (as cited in Brooker, 2000, p. 48). Dennis O’Neil, one of the many

28   The DC Comics Universe writers associated with Batman, expands on this idea: “Gotham is Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at 3 a.m., November 28 in a cold year. Metropolis is Manhattan between Fourteenth and One Hundred and Tenth Streets on the brightest, sunniest July day of the year” (p. 48). Miller was born and raised in Vermont; he told an interviewer in 1981, “As a child, I was fascinated with the New York that I saw in television and comic books. It seemed to be an Emerald City in my mind…. Moving here changed a lot of my perceptions, but I fell in love with the city in different ways. I was born in the wrong place; I was never really at home in the country” (Decker, 2003, p. 15). He moved to New York in 1976, not long after President Gerald Ford refused to provide loan guarantees to the city during a fiscal crisis, leading to the famous New York Daily News headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Miller experienced an era in the city’s history that was dominated by crime and urban decay, and after eight years he had had enough. While finishing up work on The Dark Knight, Miller told an interviewer in 1985: “When I left New York, I had come to regard it as an emotional, psychological and spiritual dead end. It simply costs so much in terms of aggravation and frustration.” He had come to feel that “the normal human response to the crime and unending hostility of the city would be to become as ungentlemanly and uncivilized as the city’s customs demand” (as cited in Thompson, 2003, p. 33). Miller claimed that to a far greater extent than was the case in his previous title, Daredevil: [The Dark Knight made] much more direct use of my ­­real-life experiences in New York, particularly my experiences with crime, my awareness of the horrible pressure that crime exerted on my life and the fury of the fact that crime is so much taken for granted that people live in fortresses and walk around looking and acting like victims, carrying money to bribe muggers [p. 33].

He cited Bernhard Goetz, a White man who had shot four Black teenagers on a subway car after they ostensibly threatened him by asking him for money. Goetz fled but turned himself in, confessing to the crime; he was acquitted of all charges but gun possession and received a light sentence. “One Bernhard Goetz is enough,” Miller said, adding, “though I’m amazed there aren’t more people doing what he did” (p. 33). That same year, the literary critic Morris Dickstein wrote that crime and detective stories are among the last outposts of the kind of individualism that enters fiction with Robinson Crusoe: the belief in the power of the individual to solve problems, to correct wrongs, and to control his own destiny In the twentieth century this kind of mastery survives only in popular culture, as a fantasy which compensates for the widespread feeling that larger, more impersonal forces now dominate the destiny of individuals [56].

Goetz’s case was the exception that proved the rule. To many New Yorkers fed up with crime, Goetz was a hero, a ­­real-life vigilante cut from

Deconstructing Batman (Patell)  29 the same cloth as cinematic characters such as Clint Eastwood’s cop in Dirty Harry (1971) or Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey in Death Wish (1974), two films that were frequently cited in contemporary discussions of the case. Writing in the journal Surveillance and Society, Justin Mann (2017) suggests that “the immediate and frequent reference to Death Wish reveals the ease with which Goetz’s attacks mapped onto extant cultural fantasies of retributive violence” (p. 65). But, Mann argues, we can now recognize that something else was clearly at work: Bernhard Goetz’s attacks were not, however, revenge fantasies in the spirit of Dirty Harry or Paul Kersey; they were manifestations of the assumption of criminality, racialized and racist assumptions of imminent danger. Race thus played a central role in scripting the Goetz drama, as it dictated which passengers were understood to be innocent and which were presumed guilty [pp. 65–66].

The Goetz case was an example of fantasies of the violent reclaiming of lost agency suddenly erupting into the real world from their normal repositories, the pages of books and the screens of cinema. Given the ideology of white male rugged individualism that provided the context for Goetz’s vigilantism, it is no surprise that it sprang from a racist conception of the origins of urban crime. Fantasies of violent mastery in the ­­late-20th-century U.S. compensate for a lived reality of risk aversion. Reflecting on the lived experience of what he called “middle American individualism,” the sociologist Herbert Gans claimed in 1988 that “popular individualism does not preach the virtues of ­­risk-taking” (p. 3), since its primary goal is the ability “to finance the American Dream,” which typically means “having a job which provides economic security, some satisfaction, and the feeling of usefulness” (p. 25). Nevertheless, if middle Americans in the 1970s and 1980s tended to live their economic lives according to the dictates of this pragmatic, materialistic form of individualism, they did not reject mythical, heroic individualism altogether: they merely relegated it to the realm of popular culture—and politics. Ronald Reagan created a successful political persona that was built around an aura of personal mastery that drew from imagery drawn from different representations of mythical individualism—the cowboy, the frontiersman, Rambo, and Dirty Harry—a persona that was undamaged by his propensity to utter politically embarrassing gaffes during the course of his two terms. Miller’s Dark Knight represents Reagan most often as a talking head on a television screen, blathering in a folksy way while his government proves incapable of dealing with either domestic or (in the final installment) foreign threats. Bruce Wayne’s Dark Knight returns in Miller’s telling to rescue society not only from urban crime, but also from the failed promises of Reagan’s brand of individualism.

30   The DC Comics Universe The fusing of popular and political culture that resulted from the transformation of a ­­B -movie actor into the President of the United States signaled a political homecoming for mythical individualism, which had played a crucial role during the 1928 Presidential Election, when Herbert Hoover defeated Al Smith by a landslide vote. Consciously portraying himself as a ­­self-made man, Hoover campaigned on a platform built on rugged individualism. Late in the campaign, Hoover claimed that “the most vital of all issues” facing both the United States and the entire world in the aftermath of the Great War was whether Governments should continue their wartime ownership and operation of many instrumentalities of production and distribution. We were challenged with a peacetime choice between the American system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of diametrically opposed doctrines—doctrines of paternalism and state socialism.

Reiterating the Republican Party’s staunch opposition to “these ideas and these war practices,” Hoover claimed that because of its “adherence to the principles of decentralized ­­self-government, ordered liberty, equal opportunity and freedom to the individual, our American experiment has yielded a degree of ­­well-being unparalleled in all the world. It has come nearer to the abolition of poverty, to the abolition of fear of want than humanity has ever reached before” (Hoover, 1928, n.p.). ­­Nineteen-twenty-nine, however, would ultimately prove to be a bad year for Hoover and his brand of individualism: on October 29, the stock market crashed, the Great Depression began, and poverty was soon back with a vengeance. But 1929 was a good year for U.S. literature: William Faulkner published The Sound and the Fury, Ernest Hemingway published A Farewell to Arms, and Dashiell Hammett published Red Harvest. Hammett’s book inaugurated a new literary genre—the hard­boiled detective novel—that would reinvigorate the myths of individualism within the domain of popular culture, even as they were being discredited within the domain of political and economic theory. Observing that Richard Hofstadter’s The American Political Tradition contains a chapter entitled “Hoover and the Crisis of American Individualism,” Dennis Porter (1981) finds it ironic that a historian of popular culture could quite plausibly write a chapter entitled “Hammett and the Reaffirmation of American Individualism.” For Porter, the irony lies in the fact “that the private eye began to flourish in popular culture at a time that coincided with a major crisis of American individualism as the political philosophy of industrial capitalism.” Arguing that the private eye who narrates Hammett’s Red Harvest “reaffirms his mastery over a city out of control in a way that the president signally failed to do for American society at large,” Porter concludes that “in fiction, if no longer in life, the myth of heroic individualism persists” (pp. 176–77).

Deconstructing Batman (Patell)  31 Hammett and the other writers who contributed to pulp magazines like Black Mask revised the model of the formal detective story—the whodunit—by removing it from its rarefied surroundings and resetting it into ­­Prohibition-era city streets teeming with gangsterism, violence, and corruption. Hammett, wrote Raymond Chandler, “was one of a ­­g roup—the only who achieved critical ­­recognition—who wrote or tried to write realistic mystery fiction.” The emphasis on realism made him part of an even larger fictional project; according to Chandler, “there is nothing in [Hammett’s] work that is not implicit in the early novels and short stories of Hemingway,” and he links Hammett to the “rather revolutionary debunking of both the language and material of fiction” that animated the work not only of Hemingway but also of “Dreiser, Ring Lardner, Carl Sandburg, [and] Sherwood Anderson” (1995a, p. 988). The language of the Sherlock Holmes stories is urbane, proper, rational, whereas Hammett’s language is streetwise, tough, ­­s tripped-down. Unlike the ­­h ard-boiled detective, Holmes represents the ultimate development of the Cartesian mind with its emphasis on rationalism and ­­s elf-consciousness. Holmes remains always at a distance from us because we see him only through the eyes of his less astute companion, Watson, with whom we share an implicit faith in the ability of Holmes to uncover the truth. Hammett, however, toughens Watson up and makes him the detective: we have direct access to the thoughts of his character the Continental Op, but we find that they are the thoughts of the less astute mind. “So that’s the way you scientific detectives work,” Dinah Brand says to the Op in Red Harvest. “My God! For a fat, ­­m iddle-aged, ­­hard-boiled, ­­pig-headed guy, you’ve got the vaguest way of doing things I ever heard of.” The Op replies that “plans are all right sometimes And sometimes just stirring things up is all ­­r ight—if you’re tough enough to survive” (Hammett, 1999, p. 75). The ­­hard-boiled detective story thus transmutes Cartesian individualism into rugged individualism. According to Chandler, “the emotional basis of the standard detective story was and had always been that murder will out and justice will be done”; the ­­hard-boiled story, however, offers no guarantee “that murder will out and justice will be ­­done—unless some very determined individual makes it his business to see that justice is done” (1995a, p. 1017). The Op himself is not a particularly attractive protagonist: short, fat, ­­m iddle-aged, and brutal, he is a Hobbesian figure who has no time for questions of morality or honor and who operates in an urban milieu that recalls Thomas Hobbes’ description of the state of nature in his treatise Leviathan (1651) as “the war of all against all.” Personville—tellingly nicknamed “Poisonville” in a pun that plays on the accent commonly associated with fictional gangsters—is a completely corrupt city where the social contract has been replaced by another sort of contract, the kind that

32   The DC Comics Universe gangsters put out. Interested only in getting his job done, the Op is not above using violence to achieve his ends, and he cleans up Poisonville by starting a war of all against all, goading different factions of gangsters and corrupt policemen into exterminating one another. But he finds himself implicated in the violence he has instigated: “This damned burg’s getting me. If I don’t get away soon, I’ll be going blood­simple like the natives…. I’ve arranged a killing or two in my time, when they were necessary. But this is the first time I’ve got the fever. It’s this damned burg” (p. 135). At the end of the novel, he ducks out of sight and spends a week “trying to fix up my reports so they would not read as if I had broken as many Agency rules, state laws and human bones as I had” (p. 186). Hammett, writes Chandler, “took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley … [He] gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons…. He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes” (1995a, pp. 988–89). Hammett’s novels make use of narrative devices that would emerge as the dominant conventions of ­­h ard-boiled detective fiction: the depiction of the detective as an unencumbered loner who embodies masculine rugged individualism; the presence of a female character who is implicated connected to the world of crime and poses a danger to the detective; the corrupt urban setting, where the police bureaucracy is uncooperative, incompetent, or even in cahoots with the criminals; the graphic description of violence and murder; the use of spare ­­stripped-down language by a ­­f irst-person narrator. From 1929 onward, ­­hard-boiled detective fiction would remain one of the major cultural repositories for rugged individualist mythology, even as its popularity and its credibility waxed and waned in other arenas of U.S. culture. In 1984, however, Michael Sandel detected something that closely resembles this myth of rugged individualism at work not only in popular cultural forms such as detective fiction and presidential rhetoric, but also at the very heart of the ­­r ights-based individualism that he believed to be “the theory most thoroughly embodied in the practices and institutions most central to our public life” (p. 82). Sandel found this theory most forcefully enunciated in the work of John Rawls, and his critique of Rawl’s philosophy of “justice as fairness” was an ontological critique that faulted Rawls for depending on an untenable conception of personhood—and Sandel faulted U.S. culture for falling into a similar trap. The term “unencumbered self ”—Sandel’s description of this conception of personhood— gained currency among social theorists involved in late ­­t wentieth-century scholarly debates over the role of individualism in U.S. life, despite the fact that it does not appear in A Theory of Justice. According to Sandel, “the unencumbered self, and the ethic it inspires, taken together, hold out

Deconstructing Batman (Patell)  33 a liberating vision. Freed from the dictates of nature and the sanction of social roles, the human subject is installed as sovereign, cast as the author of the only moral meanings there are” (1984, 87). What interests me here is not the question of whether this description of the Rawlsian person represented a misreading of Rawls (as some of Sandel’s critics contended), but rather the fact that Sandel considered the “liberating vision of the unencumbered self ” to be the cornerstone of “the liberal vision” according to which he believed that late ­­t wentieth-century Americans were living, and the fact that the feelings of moral sovereignty and authority that seemingly resulted from this vision so closely resemble the feeling of “mastery” that both Dickstein and Porter associate with the ontology of the ­­hard-boiled detective. The genius of Reagan’s rhetoric was that it managed to set this notion of ontological mastery not in opposition to communal ideas such as family, community or nation, but rather into a teleological relationship with them. For example, in a 1977 speech to the American Conservative Union, Reagan asserted that the preservation and enhancement of the values that strengthen and protect individual freedom, family life, communities, and neighborhoods and the liberty of our beloved nation should be at the heart of any legislative or political program presented to the American people [1984, p. 192].

Declaring that “liberty can be measured by how much freedom Americans have to make their own decisions—even their mistakes,” Reagan argued that the Republican party “must be the party of the individual. It must not sell out the individual to cater to the group. No greater challenge faces our society today than ensuring that each one of us can maintain his dignity and his identity in an increasingly complex, centralized society.” Deploying a favorite image appropriated from John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity,” Reagan argued that, if U.S. society could maintain its basis in the idea of the sacredness of the individual, “then with God’s help we shall indeed be as a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon us” (pp. 200–201). In other words, there is no contradiction between the pursuit of individualism and the pursuit of communal goals: pursuing the former leads, seemingly inevitably, to achieving the latter. Although Reagan seems to set the “dignity” and “identity” of the individual in opposition to the idea of “an increasingly complex, centralized society,” at the heart of his political philosophy was a teleological sequence that began with the individual and ended with the nation: he sought “the preservation and enhancement of the values that strengthen and protect individual freedom, family life, communities, and neighborhoods and the liberty of our beloved nation.”

34   The DC Comics Universe Batman was born from the same pop cultural climate that produced the ­­hard-boiled detective novel and Reagan’s storytelling, though as the comics evolved, the character turned out to be less like Hammett’s Continental Op and more like Chandler’s Philip Marlowe with his moral code and Reagan’s individualism with its comparatively sunny outlook. In contrast to Hammett, who depicts a cynical and corrupt version of the quest for the Holy Grail in The Maltese Falcon (1930), Chandler used romance to temper the ­­hard-boiled naturalism of Black Mask fiction. When openly displayed in names like Helen Grayle, Orfamay Quest, or The Lady in the Lake (1943), the allusions to romance occasionally resemble parody, but Chandler constantly depicts Marlowe’s sense of honor as a modern form of chivalry, fortified by a healthy dose of cynicism, but never corrupt. In the second paragraph of The Big Sleep (1939), for example, Marlowe notices a ­­stained-glass window showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him [1995b, p. 589].

Chandler’s most famous description of his detective hero stresses the inherent goodness of the character: Down these mean streets a man must go, who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world [1995a, p. 992].

Like Chandler’s detective, Batman eventually operated according to a code that led him to refrain from using guns and from killing his adversaries. This code was one way of making his adventures more hospitable to young readers. As Paul Young notes in his study of Frank Miller, Batman “wields a gun only two or three times in his entire first ­­forty-five years in print, due in each case to editorial inattention” (2016, p. 50). This attentiveness to a young readership, driven primarily by marketplace concerns, would shape DC’s Batman narrative so that it would come to be a version of the teleology that Reagan would ultimately celebrate—or perhaps an inadvertent, proleptic parody. In1940, with the Great Depression over and the U.S. embroiled in the Second World War, Batman was given what the panel introducing “Robin the Boy Wonder” called an “ally”:

Deconstructing Batman (Patell)  35 The Batman. That amazing weird figure of night, at last takes under his protecting mantle an ally in his relentless fight against crime…. Introducing in this issue … an exciting new figure whose incredible gymnastic and athletic feats will astound you … a laughing, fighting, young daredevil who scoffs at danger like the legendary Robin Hood whose name and spirit he has adopted… [Kane et al., 1940, p. 1].

Comic books in this era were, after all, largely intended for an audience of adolescents, and the introduction of Robin was intended to give young (male) readers a character with whom to identify. As ­­comic-book historian Les Daniels has noted, the gambit was successful, and sales of Detective Comics doubled as Batman and Robin became “the Dynamic Duo” (2003, p. 36). Success brought controversy during the 1950s in the form of a charge, leveled by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, that the relationship between Batman and Robin had a homosexual subtext that was a bad influence on young ­­c omic-book readers. In Wertham’s view, “ordinary crime comic books contribute to the fixation of violent and hostile patterns by suggesting definite forms for their expression,” but Batman does that and something else: “the Batman type of story helps to fixate homoerotic tendencies by suggesting the form of an ­­adolescent-with-adult or ­­G anymede-Zeus type of ­­love-relationship” (1954, p. 211). Noting that in these stories “there are practically no decent, attractive, successful women” and that “a typical female character is the Catwoman, who is vicious and uses a whip” (p. 212), Wertham argued that “the atmosphere is homosexual and ­­a nti-feminine.” He recounted an anecdote about a patient who was fixated on Batman: One young homosexual during psychotherapy brought us a copy of Detective Comics, with a Batman story. He pointed out a picture of “The Home of Bruce and Dick,” a house beautifully landscaped, warmly lighted and showing the devoted pair side by side, looking out a picture window. When he was eight this boy had realized from fantasies about ­­comic-book pictures that he was aroused by men. At the age of ten or eleven, “I found my liking, my sexual desires, in comic books. I think I put myself in the position of Robin. I did want to have relations with Batman. The only suggestion of homosexuality may be that they seem to be so close to each other. I remember the first time I came across the page mentioning the ‘secret bat cave.’ The thought of Batman and Robin living together and possibly having sex relations came to my mind. You can almost connect yourself with the people. I was put in the position of the rescued rather than the rescuer. I felt I’d like to be loved by someone like Batman or Superman” [p. 213].

As Ora C. McWilliams notes elsewhere in this volume, DC Comics responded to the controversy that Wertham’s critique generated by recasting the “ ­­loner-orphan origin stories” of both Batman and Superman, which “stood in opposition to the zeitgeist of the 1950s ideal family.”

36   The DC Comics Universe New supporting characters were introduced to the Batman titles, adding an element of silliness that bordered on camp: ­­Bat-Woman (Kathy Kane) appeared in Detective Comics #233 (1956) to serve as a potential love interest for Batman, and Kane’s niece Betty became ­­Bat-Girl in Batman #139 (1961) to serve a similar role for Robin. This ­­Bat-family even had two pets: Ace the ­­Bat-Hound appeared in Batman #92 (1955), and an even more outlandish character—­­Bat-Mite, a trickster figure from outer space who draws on ­­f ifth-dimension powers that are beyond human understanding—was the featured story in Detective Comics #267 (May 1959). The cover of that issue depicted a surprised Batman and Robin returning to the Batcave to find papers strewn all over the floor, with Robin exclaiming, “Great Scott, Batman, somebody’s been prowling around the ­­Bat-cave!” Batman, meanwhile, has already discovered who that “somebody” is, as he looks in surprise at a levitating miniature version of himself with a ­­big-eared mask (think Dr. Evil’s counterpart ­­Mini-Me in the Austin Powers films), who replies, “Sure, it’s me—­­Bat-Mite! I’ve come to your world to join your team.” These campy characters were retired when editor Julius Schwartz took over the Batman title in 1964, seeking to revive the series: the cover of issue #327 promised a “new look” for Batman and Robin. But the association between camp and Batman would become a lasting feature of Batman stories with the three seasons of the Batman television series starring Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin that ran from January 1966 through March 1968. The butler Alfred was played by Alan Napier as a grandfatherly confidante, who keeps the Dynamic Duo’s escapades a secret from Dick’s Aunt Harriet, who lives with them and would disapprove of the kinds of “camping trips” that Bruce and Burt frequently take. Aunt Harriet had entered the ­­comic-book stories in 1964, coming to live at Wayne Manor after the apparent death of Alfred and staying on after his return. The ­­t wo-episode story arc that initiated the television series played on the fact that Robin is a minor: he is unable to enter a discotheque where Batman has been drugged by Molly (Jill St. John), an accomplice of the Riddler (Frank Gorshin), after a brief bout of dancing (called the “Batusi” in the narrator’s recap at the start of the second episode). Robin actually proves to be a weak spot for Batman in another way, as Molly impersonates him and infiltrates the Batcave, where she meets an untimely end. The episode ends with the Dynamic Duo safely back in Wayne Manor and Bruce demonstrating his heterosexual bona fides: Bruce: I have only one regret in the whole affair. One thing that makes me heartsick. [An image of Molly’s face appears over his shoulder.] Dick: Molly? Kind’ve liked her, didn’t you? Bruce: If only I could have helped her somehow, weaned her from that tragic alliance with the underworld, which led to….

Deconstructing Batman (Patell)  37 The conversation is cut short when Aunt Harriet walks in with a tray of snacks, tea for Bruce, milk and sandwiches for Dick: “Dear me, Bruce. I hope you’re not speaking of any young lady we know.” Putting her hand on Dick’s shoulder, she continues: “The thought of Dick being exposed to any criminal element is….” Bruce reassures her: “Rest at ease, Aunt Harriet. The young lady won’t trouble us. [Wistfully] She’s merely someone I passed like a ship in the night, now vanished like a puff of smoke.” And then: “Dick, like some help with that algebra?” Nothing to see here, Mr. Wertham. The Dark Knight Returns and its sequels reject this campy, ­­f amily-oriented and ­­f amily-friendly Batman and ostensibly return the character to its roots in ­­hard-boiled detective fiction, paving the way for the Batman without Robin of Tim Burton’s two films shortly afterward, Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), and later Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of films, Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Perhaps not coincidentally, director Joel Schumacher brought back both Robin and camp in Batman Forever (1995), then introduced Batgirl in his ­­follow-up Batman and Robin (1997), which remains the worst reviewed and least financially successful of the Batman films that followed Miller’s Dark Knight. In his depiction of Batman, Miller rejected Chandler’s version of the ­­h ard-boiled detective, which Miller had explored in his reworking of the character Daredevil, whom he depicted as feeling a sense of “responsibility to the law.” Describing Daredevil’s motivation as “more complicated” than the revenge that (at least initially) motivates both Batman and Marvel’s Punisher, Miller argued that Daredevil “wants law and order, even to the point of not breaking laws himself. He doesn’t allow people to die, not even his enemies, because he ultimately doesn’t regard that as his decision” (as cited in Decker 2003, p. 24). For Miller, however, Batman is different—or, at least, should be different. Extolling what he called the “purity” of the character, Miller praised Marvel’s Punisher as “Batman without any impurities … without the lies built in,” deriding the side of Batman that makes him spare the criminals as nothing but “a sop thrown in mainly for the reader’s parents” (as cited in Howell and Kalish, 1981, p. 24). Miller’s Batman causes the kind of mayhem that we see Hammett’s Continental Op substitute for method in Red Harvest, but the graphic violence of The Dark Knight Returns has even more in common with the ­­no-holds-barred approach of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. Miller reaches back even further into the genealogy of ­­hard-boiled detective fiction to Jacobean revenge tragedy, restoring Batman to his role as an antihero motivated by the pursuit of revenge. Miller’s Dark Knight explores the ugly side of rugged individualism as part of a ­­w ide-ranging critique of the U.S. politics of the 1980s and

38   The DC Comics Universe the latter stages of the Cold War. He portrays Reagan as a buffoon who launches a proxy war that the U.S. “wins” with the aid of Superman, only to have the Soviets launch a nuclear missile that Superman destroys at great cost to himself, leaving him vulnerable to the ­­technologically-powered Batman, who is armed with synthetic Kryptonite, in the showdown that concludes The Dark Knight Returns. The noir side of the “comic” is tempered not only by the bright color provided by artist Lynn Varley, but also by the broad satire of Miller’s writing. It isn’t camp, but it isn’t ­­straight-up noir either. Perhaps the only thing that Frank Miller’s 1986 reboot shares with the 1960s television series is its insistence on Bruce’s heterosexuality, which Miller transforms into hypermasculinity. When The Dark Knight opens, we learn that it has been 10 years since Batman was last seen. Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne are having a drink together, and they are both ­­g ray-haired and mustachioed. Bruce Wayne had been pretending to be a playboy all those years ago, drinking ginger ale instead of champagne. Bruce hasn’t spoken to “Dick lately” (“Not for seven years, you know that.”). Jim is sorry about that, “especially with what happened to Jason”; Jim thinks that the cure to what ails Bruce is simple: “You just need a woman.” Jim’s parting words are revealed in a caption next to a shot of Bruce walking past a barefoot man holding a sign that says “We are damned,” and the next words show us that Jim’s diagnosis isn’t quite right: “while in my gut the creature writhes and snarls and tells me what I need.” We are on page four of Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, and we are in a dystopian world that that seems literally to have gone to hell. What Bruce needs begins to be clear on the next page when he realizes that he has wandered to the spot where Batman was born—where his parents were killed. Two kids try to mug him and then think better of it, because they realize that their intended victim is “into it.” What these introductory pages indicate is that Miller’s Batman is only an unencumbered loner on the surface, in the same way that Bruce Wayne was merely pretending to be a playboy: he is in mourning for his second Robin, Jason Todd, who has been killed in some unspecified way, but whose costume is preserved as a museum piece deep in the bowels of the Batcave. (Todd was an unpopular character, who would later be killed off by DC Comics in its main Batman continuity after a ­­fan-vote publicity stunt.) What Bruce Wayne cannot admit to himself in The Dark Knight Returns is that he is also in mourning for his relationship with the first Robin, Dick Grayson: even though he hasn’t spoken to Dick in seven years, at a moment of duress, when he seems to be losing his battle with the leader of the “Mutant Gang” who is the primary antagonist of the first two installments of comic series, he remembers not Jason but Dick: “Where

Deconstructing Batman (Patell)  39 are you Dick? You were always … my little monkey wrench” (Miller et al. 1996, 82). Part of his affection for Carrie Kelley, the new, female Robin whom he adopts in the course of the novel stems from the fact that she appears at just this moment and saves him. Just like Dick would have. Still, for all of its apparent interest in the dynamics of individualism and vigilantism, Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and its sequels are obsessed with family, which Miller explores in large part through his dramatizations of Batman’s relationships with his Robins. In The Dark Knight Returns, Batman literally demolishes his family genealogy, retreating at the end to the depths of the Batcave beneath the ruins of Wayne Manor, with his new Robin and the remnants of the Mutant Gang, who now call themselves the “Sons of Batman” and whom he now promises “to train” and with whom he will “study and plan” (Miller et al., 1996, p. 199). In what might be a nod to the ending of the first story arc of the Batman television series when Bruce offers to help Dick with his algebra, Batman interrupts his explanation of his logistical plans in the final image of The Dark Knight Returns to admonish his new ward: “Robin! Sit up straight!” To which she replies, “Yes, sir” (p. 199). In the sequel, The Dark Knight Strikes Again (2001–2002), Batman affectionately calls the rehabilitated members of the Mutant Gang his “boys,” and they sport Bat costumes as they help Batman to reassemble a group of disaffected former superheroes to combat Lex Luthor, who looks like he has been pumped up on a ­­superhero-portion of steroids, which is how one might describe what happens to political satire in the second book. Luthor doesn’t turn out to be the primary antagonist in The Dark Knight Strikes Again, however. Along the way to the conclusion, we see that Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel are in thrall to Luthor, because he has threatened their families (and also, in Superman’s case, the surviving remnants of the population of his destroyed ­­home-planet, Krypton). Family, it turns out, is a superhero’s Achilles heel, but also, perhaps, a source of salvation, as Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, who has been hidden from the government since her birth, comes to the aid of her parents, who have at least temporarily allied themselves with Batman. The final confrontation of the novel, however, is not the apocalyptic battle against Luthor’s ally, the extraterrestrial supervillain Brainiac. Instead, it is something far more apocalyptic for Batman: a battle against his first Robin, Dick Grayson, whom Batman claims to have “fired” for “incompetence” and “cowardice” and who has plotted his revenge by undergoing “radical gene therapy” so that he can regenerate his body parts and recover from any injuries that fall short of the total annihilation of his cells (Miller and Varley, 2002, p. 241). For much of the novel, Grayson masquerades as a reincarnated Joker, but for the final confrontation, he

40   The DC Comics Universe menaces his successor, Carrie, to lure Batman out and dons his old Robin costume. “Damn you, I loved you,” Dick screams after Batman cuts off his head (which quickly becomes reattached), in what is less an acknowledgment of Wertham’s reading of the Batman and Robin story, than a moment of familial reckoning torn from an old revenge tragedy (p. 243). The Robins—and with them the idea of family obligations—turn out to be the ­­t hrough-line of Miller’s exploration of the mythology of Batman. Shortly after the publication of The Dark Knight Returns, Miller retold the story of Batman’s origins in a ­­four-installment arc in Batman comics, which would later be collected into the graphic novel Batman: Year One. He would revisit the origins of Batman’s relationship with Dick Grayson in the controversial ­­comic-book series All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder (2005–2008), in which Batman is an ­­off-putting antihero, a narcissist who apes Clint Eastwood and basks in the mythology in which he has cloaked himself in a way that is often childish: it is he who has given his armored car the name “Batmobile,” though he blames it on Robin when asked about it after he meets Batwoman. The adoption of Dick Grayson is presented as a ­­long-planned “recruitment” that was put on an accelerated timetable by the murder of Grayson’s parents, and it is presented in a brutally ­­off-putting way that mixes child abuse and Stockholm syndrome, and disgusts the ­­ever-loyal Alfred. The death of Jason Todd, which haunts Batman at the start of The Dark Knight Returns, is dramatized in gruesome detail in Miller’s 2016 ­­one-shot, The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade. Miller’s Dark Knight series also traces the development of the third Robin, Carrie Kelley, into a new Catwoman in The Dark Knight Strikes Again and then into a new Batwoman in The Dark Knight III: The Master Race (2015–2017), which features a storyline that recounts the cataclysmic events that occur when a teenage superhero daughter rebels against her parents. At the end of Dark Knight III, Carrie demands to be Batman’s partner rather than his sidekick, and in The Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child (2019), Batman is nowhere to be seen, present only in Carrie’s reminiscences as “the boss,” as she teams up with Superman’s children, Lara and the ­­super-toddler Jonathan, to save the Earth once again. Far from being about an unencumbered loner, Frank Miller’s Batman stories are all about family, exposing the myth of the rugged individualist as a damaging form of cultural mythology. In his Batman universe, everyone is encumbered not only by family, but also by the idea of family. Hard as it proves to be, that encumbrance may also be the thing that ultimately saves the world.

Deconstructing Batman (Patell)  41

References Brooker, W. (2000). Batman unmasked: Analyzing a cultural icon. Bloomsbury. Chandler, R. (1995a). Later novels and other writings. (F. MacShane, Ed.). Library of America. Chandler, R. (1995b). Stories and early novels and other writings. (F. MacShane, Ed.). Library of America. Daniels, L. (2003). DC Comics: A celebration of the world’s favorite comic book heroes. Billboard Books. Decker, D. (2003). Interview one. In The Comics Journal Library, Volume Two: Frank Miller. (M. George, Ed., pp. 15–31). Fantagraphics Books. Dickstein, M. (1985). Popular culture and critical values: The novel as a challenge to literary history (pp. 29–66). In Reconstructing American literary history. (S. Bercovitch, Ed.). Harvard University Press. Gans, H.J. (1988). Middle American individualism: The future of liberal democracy. Free Press. Hammett, D. (1999). Complete novels. (S. Marcus, Ed.). Library of America. Hoover, H. (1928, October 22). Principles and ideals of the United States government. [Speech transcript]. Miller Center. https://millercenter.org/­­t he-presidency/­­presidentialspeeches/­­october-22-­1928-principles-and-ideals-united-states-government. Howell, R., & Kalish, C. (1981). An interview with Frank Miller, Comics Feature 14, 16–26. Kane, B., Finger, B. & Robinson, J. (1940). Detective comics #38. DC Comics. Mann, J. (2017). The ‘vigilante spirit’: Bernhard Goetz, Batman, and racial violence in 1980s New York. Surveillance & Society, 15 (2017): 56–67. Miller, F., Janson, K., & Varley, L. (1996). The dark knight returns: Tenth anniversary edition. DC Comics. Miller, F., & Varley, L. (2002). The dark knight strikes again. DC Comics. Porter, D. (1981). The pursuit of crime: Art and ideology in detective fiction. Yale University Press. Reagan, R. (1984). A time for choosing: The speeches of Ronald Reagan, 1961–1982. (A.A. Baltizer & G.M. Bonetto, Eds.). Regnery Gateway. Sandel, M. (1984). The procedural republic and the unencumbered self. Political Theory, 12, 81–96. Sandel, M. (1998). Liberalism and the limits of justice. (Second Edition). Cambridge University Press. Thompson, K. (2003). Interview two. In The Comics Journal Library, Volume Two: Frank Miller. (M. George, Ed., pp. 32–49). Fantagraphics Books. Tollin, A. (2018). Batman Foreshadowed. In Detective comics: 80 Years of Batman (pp. 22–23). DC Comics. Wertham, F. (1954). Seduction of the innocent: The influence of comic books on today’s youth. Rinehart. Young, P. (2016). Frank Miller’s Daredevil and the ends of heroism. Rutgers.

Queer(ing) Robin Performances of Sexuality in Dick Grayson and His Aliases Micah McCrary

March 2020 saw the release of the Robin: 80th Anniversary ­­100-Page Super Spectacular, with stories about various Robins throughout DC Comics’ history including Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne (while notably excluding Carrie Kelley). One such story is Tim Seely’s and Tom King’s “The Lesson Plan,” wherein Dick Grayson—a.k.a., Agent 37—instructs fellow Spyral agent Paris Pantoja in conducting a rescue operation. Together, Agents Grayson and Pantoja safely retrieve Dr. Siani from a group of “Earth emancipator militants.” Siani is immediately shown to be an ally, saying, “I will save this planet, but not at the cost of millions of lives” (Seeley & King, 2020, p. 29). Dr. Siani then leads the agents, first to Tanzania to aid their mission and then, from there, to Gorilla City (exact location unknown). Between one page of the paperback and the next, however, Dr. Siani tells Dick Grayson, “Agent 37, we show our respect and supplication to Great King Nnamdi with the Dance of The Averted Gaze. I hope those words you whispered to me were true” (p. 31), implying a tryst between Siani and Grayson the night prior. In the next panel, Dr. Siani adds, “My father has a keen eye and will know if your affections for me are genuine” (p. 31), simultaneously transforming from the presentation of a redheaded, ­­g reen-eyed woman into a red, ­­g reen-eyed gorilla. Grayson shrugs and goes along with this, later following Siani into battle with the gorillas (Grodd not among them). In doing so, he not only proves a commitment to not regretting what might have been a ­­one-night stand between himself and Siani but also an additional commitment to acknowledging a potential future relationship. This is key in the authors’ attempts to further queer Dick Grayson 42

Queer(ing) Robin (McCrary)  43 within a ­­21st-century milieu. Seeley’s and King’s story pushes toward identifying Grayson as pansexual via his eagerness to acknowledge a romantic/sexual relationship with a shapeshifting gorilla. Here, it is also important to note that Grayson’s reputation precedes him—he is as much a “billionaire playboy” as his adoptive father Bruce Wayne, who is straight. However, Grayson’s relationships have veered in notable instances toward nonhuman characters; though presented as women, they belong to cultures/species that may not utilize gendered identification. For an earlier reference, in Chuck Dixon’s Nightwing #25 (October 1998), “The Boys,” Grayson (as Nightwing) and Tim Drake (as Robin), hop around atop a moving freight train blindfolded during in a training session, to condition their senses and coordination. While this happens, they discuss their personal lives—including Robin’s revelation that his girlfriend, The Spoiler, has been impregnated by another man. In one panel, Robin lists: “An alien. A goddess. A murderer. A suspected murderer. Your landlady? Oh … and remember the crimefighter formerly known as Batgirl. Sure. Just the girl next door” (Dixon, 1998, p. 6). Two panels later, Nightwing remarks, Kory … answered a need I had at that time for affection. Donna and I never really dated. We just … hmm. Miggie wasn’t a murderer when I met her. Emily … well, she wasn’t really a murderer, I just thought she was when I, uh … married her. And Clancy and I are just, you know, friends [p. 7].

Having had relationships (or even mere intimacies) with other characters throughout the DC Universe—confirmed in “The Boys” to be at least Barbara Gordon (Batgirl/Oracle), Bridget Clancy, Donna Troy (Wonder Girl/ Troia), Emily Washburn, Helena Bertinelli (Huntress), Koriand’r (Starfire), and Miggie Webster—Grayson is a character whom writers want to hypersexualize within heterosexuality, without also considering that in the process they further cement his character as queer/pansexual. Adding Siani to a list already containing Koriand’r (and potentially Donna Troy), Grayson’s authors have developed a pattern for his relationships that portray him as veering away from “traditional” (human) heterosexuality. Dick Grayson is notably both upper class (having access to Bruce Wayne’s wealth) and ­­hyper-athletic. Less obviously, he has been queered since his relationship with Starfire/Koriand’r in the 1980s. Considering his history as a character, readers also note the ways in which Grayson has been defined through how he is written to perform heteromasculinity without necessarily being heterosexual himself. Fans love him because he is tough as a superhero but “soft” in his Grayson persona. He is flirtatious but monogamous, also genuinely concerned about those he cares for. Finally, Grayson’s dyadic portrayal is interesting, especially with

44   The DC Comics Universe a contemporary story like “The Lesson Plan,” as it veers him further away from the “Boy Wonder” innocence introduced to readers in 1940. He is a man now—and as a man, he has developed a record of intimate, ­­well-thought-out partnerships. Numerous stories incorporate sexuality as one of Grayson’s dimensions. It is also interesting to note how authors treat such sexuality as a part of his core when it is, rather, a performance to be contrasted between different authors’ takes on the character. In this particular instance, he is contrasted with Bruce Wayne—an (apparent) straight playboy who is actually a nocturnal vigilante pursuing criminal justice. Significantly, Grayson does not operate superficially: He is himself through and through, whether as Robin, Nightwing, Batman, Agent 37, or Dick Grayson. This authenticity includes his executions of sexuality.

Grayson, Gender, and Sexuality Important initial considerations should include the following questions: (1) What is pansexuality? (2) What is sex? and (3) What is gender? Considering the latter here as culturally conceived and sex as postgenomic leads toward a simultaneous consideration of gender, sex, and sexuality and of Grayson’s relationships with characters from nonhuman/extraterrestrial identities.

What Is Pansexuality? There are reasons to note the ways in which people identify as omnior pansexual; among them is LGBTQ+ communities’ outright recognition of pansexuality as a sexual orientation. In particular, Vera Papisova’s “What is Pansexual? A Guide to Pansexuality” (2020) provides GLAAD’s (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) contrast between the terms pansexual and bisexual, noting that “identifying as bisexual means you’re attracted to more than one gender, while identifying as pansexual means you’re attracted to people of more than one gender, or regardless of gender” (Papisova, 2020, para. 3, emphasis mine), also noting that “while the two overlap quite a bit … they are subtly different” (para. 3). Given these distinctions, it is helpful to note the fluidity with which someone identifying as pansexual can operate. As one of Papisova’s interviewees notes, “My sexual attraction is not based on gender assignment or gender expression. I am attracted to men and women as well as nonbinary people who don’t identify as either” (para. 9). There should be no issue in also claiming Dick Grayson’s pansexuality, then, given his position as someone attracted to women “as well as nonbinary people who don’t identify as either” (displayed through his

Queer(ing) Robin (McCrary)  45 attraction to nonhuman characters). This further points toward a need to continue exploring gender in the same—if not in a more layered— way than sexuality due to its cultural connotations, though preconceived notions of gender and sex as synonymous.

What Is Sex? Exploring sex as “postgenomic” requires deeper investigation. Particular assistance derives from Sarah Richardson’s Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome (2015), a book examining the “interaction between cultural gender norms and genetic theories of sex from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present postgenomic age” (Richardson, 2015, p. 1), which also aims “to open a conversation about the methods and models of sex difference research in a genomic age” (p. 5). Within the book, Richardson centrally outlines that though often described as the “female” and “male” chromosomes, there is nothing essential about the X and Y in relation to femaleness and maleness. Chromosomes are only one form of ­­sex-determining mechanism in the natural world. Birds have sex chromosomes, but the system is the reverse of mammals. In our avian cousins, males have the duplicate larger chromosome (called ZZ), while females are heterozygous (ZW), possessing one larger and one smaller chromosome. In fruit flies, sex is determined by the ratio of X chromosomes to autosomes, rather than the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, as in mammals. For turtles and many reptiles, sex depends on the temperature of the environment during early development, not sex chromosomes. Some species have just one sex, some have three or more, and some can change sexes during their lifetimes—and this can depend purely on the arrangement of sex chromosomes, wholly on exposure to environmental factors, or on a combination of the two [p. 6].

Recently, the scientific community has come to understand sex through contrasting species as well as factors not bound by individual biology. This is particularly useful for further imagining how species might be perceived within ­­sci-fi/superhero comic books and, in the process, how characters’ sexes are often presented as either male or female and further reinforce a cultural/binary conception of sex even among extraterrestrial and nonhuman characters. As a result, authors’ understanding of sex is likely to affect how they ascribe sex traits to their invented characters, and a postgenomic understanding of sex can offer richer contributions to nonhuman/extraterrestrial character breakdowns. Further considering a relationship between sex and gender, Richardson mentions a complicated history around the two, noting the …layered conception of sex derives from clinical practice. It owes its origins to the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of sexual development and identity.

46   The DC Comics Universe Consider an individual with the intersex condition androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS). She may have “male” chromosomal sex (XY), “male” gonadal sex (internal undescended testes), and “male” hormonal sex (high levels of androgens), but “female” genitalia (breasts and vagina) and “female” identity. Similarly, a ­­male-to-female transgender individual who has received hormonal and surgical therapy may have “male” chromosomal sex (XY), but “female” hormones, genitals, facial appearance, secondary sex characters, and identity. A unidimensional conception of sex falls apart in the face of these clinical encounters. Researchers and physicians have innovated accordingly, creating a conceptual apparatus for describing sex, gender, and sexuality in all of their social and biological dimensions [p. 8].

Such a “cultural apparatus” offers a persistence toward combining notions of chromosomal sex, gonadal sex, hormonal sex, and identity—rather than binary notions of sex—as necessary for providing opportunities to view comic book characters as even more layered than previous/traditional understandings have allowed for. Finally, Richardson notes that analytically distinguishing sex and gender can separate the anatomy and physiology of males and females (sex) from the behavioral and cultural expectations [emphasis mine] associated with the ideals of masculinity and femininity (gender). By design, the distinction underscores the idea that while sex may be fixed and given, gender is fluid and changeable [p. 8].

Grayson is a fictional character in a fictional universe. And other characters he is surrounded by can therefore belong to cultures and species that do not belong to our reality. Readers must accept that these stories are fictional, while understanding that constructions of sex and gender are social facts. Readers should examine how our own sociological/cultural understandings of sex(uality) and gender affects the ways in which these comic book characters are written. For example, Siani’s female presentation (in at least one form) should not permit the claim that Siani internalizes concepts of gender or sex in the same way that we do—or that such concepts even exist in a locale like Gorilla City, as some of its inhabitants are known shapeshifters. For many characters like Siani, identity is likely internalized rather than phenotypically expressed. Without explicit acknowledgment from authors about how such identities are internalized/expressed, it may be unfair to nonhuman characters (as well as our own understandings of sex and gender) to presume that such identities are interchangeable.

What Is Gender? For a final cultural point relating gender and expression, it must be noted that Lucy Diavolo (2017) highlights the ways in which gender

Queer(ing) Robin (McCrary)  47 identity may be contrasted throughout history and geography. As Diavolo notes, “[m]any claim that the struggle for transgender rights is difficult because the concept is still new to many Americans” (Diavolo, 2017, para. 3), employing the specific examples of hijras (in South Asia) while presenting the example as a “blanket term applied to people Westerners might define as transgender, intersex, or eunuchs” (para. 6). Diavolo discusses North America’s ­­t wo-spirit individuals, specifically within Navajo tribes recognizing four genders that roughly correlate with cisgender and transgender men and women, using the terms nadleehi for those who “transform” into femininity and dilbaa for those [sic] “transform” into masculinity. The Mohave people use the terms alyha and hwame to describe similar identities. And the Lakota tribe believed the winkte people among them had supernatural powers like India’s hijras [para. 11].

Moreover, Diavolo refers to “il femminiello,” or “individuals assigned male at birth who dressed and behaved like women in Naples, Italy” (para. 14), before mentioning Elagabalus, a figure who was “crowned emperor of the Roman empire in the third century, but insisted that subjects use the term empress and dressed as a woman” (para. 16). Social constructions of gender identity beyond girl/boy/woman/ man therefore not only stretch and morph throughout the globe but also throughout many histories, providing a lens here for considering comic book characters’ own histories as well—including those from civilizations and cultures that might be modeled after our own and taken from actual geographies and histories. Especially if comic book authors base their characters on instances of gender identity, it would prove limiting to presume that such characters are in line only with North American/ Westernized conceptions of gendered expression. What might readers otherwise be able to learn about the myriad nonhuman characters (such as Siani) within superhero comics? Certainly not all characters share the same cultural and conceptual understandings of sex and gender as many American readers, and not every character, like Dick Grayson, becomes involved with one who identifies (or should even be positioned) as a woman. Authors may use feminine expressions for characters like Koriand’r/Starfire, Dr. Siani, and Donna Troy/Wonder Girl/Troia (who, in iterations such as the DC Universe’s Titans series [2016–2017] was made from clay rather than born from flesh) to help paint Grayson as borderline promiscuous, if always sincere about his romantic intentions. What authors really do by perpetuating Grayson’s “playboy” status, though, especially when bringing nonhuman partners into the fold, is further cement his pansexual identity by contributing to a history of partnerships with characters whose gendered expressions may not align

48   The DC Comics Universe with our own. Grayson could easily express an attraction to “women as well as nonbinary people who don’t identify as either” (Papisova, 2020), thus erasing his “heterosexual” ­­subject-position altogether. What this pattern (with Koriand’r/Donna Troy/Siani) perpetuates and has established since the 1980s’ New Teen Titans is Grayson’s openness toward those who identify however they may choose—not only in terms of nonhuman biology but in regard to their own internalized cultural norms. Authors do a disservice to Grayson by pretending that he is only heterosexual, but the potential for his depth is greater when he is positioned as a queer/pansexual character instead.

Queer(ing) Grayson Though Barbara Gordon/Batgirl was Dick Grayson’s first love, Koriand’r/Starfire is positioned as a mature love interest later in Grayson’s life (arguably Grayson’s most serious relationship, resulting in daughter Mar’i Grayson/Nightstar, depending on the author) which cements his simultaneous movement away from youth and “traditional” heterosexuality. It is crucial to browse Grayson’s romantic/sexual history to establish that his adult relationships should be taken seriously within human and nonhuman partnerships. Joshua ­­L apin-Bertone (2019) traces Grayson’s ­­roller-coaster relationship history, listing 25 of his relationships or “flings” (a term applied liberally here). ­­L apin-Bertone mentions two of Grayson’s engagements (Barbara Gordon and Koriand’r) as well as his ­­one-time marriage to Emily Washburn, outlining most of his relationship history as seemingly heteronormative. Still, readers should give weight to Grayson’s pivotal relationship with Koriand’r (even if his nonhuman relationships are overall in the minority) in effort to witness how readers’ contemporary perceptions of Grayson as a character were shaped. For decades, Grayson’s early origins were presented not only as the “Boy Wonder” but as a symbol of innocence and sincerity. Any of Grayson’s relationships were romantic rather than sexual, portrayed as “puppy love” for Grayson’s youngest iterations and as crushes or attempts at more serious relationships in later versions of the character. It was not until 1983 and the New Teen Titans (1980–1996) that Grayson was repositioned from a sincerely innocent “Boy Wonder” to a male sex symbol. This may be due to the New Teen Titans having portrayed Grayson as the first DC Comics character to explicitly engage in premarital sex (shown in the New Teen Titans #28, February 1983), wherein Grayson’s sexual relationship with Koriand’r is revealed through a panel

Queer(ing) Robin (McCrary)  49 displaying the two as topless in bed together after having been awakened by a loud noise elsewhere in Titans Tower. This scene also served to officially queer Grayson, distancing him from readers’ most traditional or concrete concepts of heteronormativity. Meg Downey (2018) provides a necessary and thorough history of Grayson’s character through the lens of sexuality. Downey discusses Grayson having been created as a character with boyhood innocence; however, she firmly ties this to concerns about Grayson’s relationship as a boy with Batman/Bruce Wayne as well as their cohabitation and the subtext this offered within a 1950s milieu. Downey discusses the advent of the Comics Code Authority (CCA, 1954), noting that in Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comics on Today’s Youth (1954) American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham claims that [t]he Batman type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies, of the nature of which they may be unconscious…. Only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and of the psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventures of the mature “Batman” and his young friend Robin [Wertham, as cited in Downey, 2018 para. 17].

From this arose public panic over questions surrounding Batman and Robin as an “ambiguously gay duo” who would “ruin our youth.” It could plainly be seen how the CCA had influenced DC Comics to then take a different direction with Grayson in two distinct ways. One was by having Grayson age alongside his readers, which was uncommon for comic book characters at the time. This tied directly to the second aspect of DC’s response: Grayson’s aging, through which readers witnessed puberty. Grayson’s authors could then affirm that not only were Batman and Robin not gay, but that Grayson merely needed puberty to take hold so that he could begin to explore his romantic and sexual interests—proving to the world once and for all that he was “straight.” Downey notes that as an effect of this evolution, Grayson became not just a sexually active but a sexually desired character. Often pursued and objectified—and, in one or two cases, even raped by women characters who desired sexual encounters that were not reciprocated. Over time, this not only served the “female gaze” for a portion of Grayson’s readership but also the gaze of any fan romantically/sexually interested in men. As a result, it displayed not just authors’ acknowledgment of Grayson’s sexualized position but also their having fully embraced it. It is then important to glean that readers’ contemporary (and future) perceptions of Grayson are not that far departed from his entire history and are still postured toward both heteronormative (for straight women) and queer gazes—making Grayson a character who does not merely exist

50   The DC Comics Universe for the entertainment of one kind of reader. Plenty of backlash has of course arisen around the notion of making Grayson “available to all”; we must here note the irony of numerous (male) fans saying Grayson’s character “deserves more” than objectification, despite a long history of women characters who have been objectified via illustration, writing, and overall portrayal. Then, I insist that the “forward steps” toward Grayson being made more “available” for multiple demographics of readers (as well as to communicate an accurate representation of his sexuality) also demonstrate that authors do not take such forward steps quite as far as they could. Meg Downey points, in particular, to Tim Seeley’s and Tom King’s Grayson series (2014–2016) as the first iteration of Grayson wherein readers witness the sexualized attention he gains as neither deflected nor problematic, as it had been for previous multiple decades. Rather, this is relished in Grayson: In addition to human women, characters from multiple cultures/species recognize him as sexually attractive, and he can both receive and reciprocate attraction. There is also Grayson’s friendship with the superhero Midnighter— one of a small number of openly gay DC superheroes. Though Grayson is not “interested in” Midnighter, Grayson is still explicitly placed within queer discourse. A far cry from the accusations of Wertham and the CCA, readers can see Grayson in relation to queer characters without repelling questions about queerness. Readers can also look more closely at instances within the Robin: 80th Anniversary as well as Nightwing: Year One (2020) and Grayson; all point toward how Dick Grayson can be positioned not just within a queer subtext but among queer overtones—such as within his relationships with Siani and Koriand’r—to better highlight the directions authors can (and perhaps should) take Grayson for the delight of ­­21st-century fans. Returning now to Seeley’s and King’s “The Lesson Plan,” it is important that the only mentioning of Grayson’s sexual activity amounts to undertones in the space of four or five panels, with Siani trying to test how strongly their relationship might be forged. This is achieved not only through the revelation that Siani is a shapeshifter in Gorilla City but also that Siani and Grayson are prepared to battle together, which will take place over the next four panels. This is a request for affirmation of affection; Siani may as well be asking, “Are you still with me?” after shapeshifting. In one panel Siani reaches out to take Grayson’s hand, and he reciprocates, then shrugging over at Agent Pantoja. Not only do Grayson and Siani exit the room together, but he follows Siani into battle, ready to support and be at their side. This is an important development for Grayson as Agent 37, offering

Queer(ing) Robin (McCrary)  51 evidence for his openness toward gendered orientations of nonhuman romantic and sexual partners. As a shapeshifter, many assumptions readers may have about Siani’s character, especially in terms of gendered identification, should be discarded. Additionally, it is helpful for readers to see Agent 37, especially among the oldest of Grayson’s iterations, be maturely confident in what he is accepting of sexually. Here, Grayson should be trusted by his readers as a character making adult decisions. Dixon’s, Beatty’s, McDaniel’s, and Owens’ Nightwing: Year One (2020) does not play much with Grayson’s sexuality, except in one story, “Night and the City,” in which Grayson introduces himself for the first time as Nightwing to Gotham City’s Commissioner Jim Gordon. Jim’s daughter Barbara, overhearing their discussion, suits up as Batgirl, then joins Grayson on his nocturnal debut throughout Gotham as he introduces himself to street criminals (and even to Joker) as “Nightwing.” Nightwing and Batgirl eat hot dogs, with Batgirl getting mustard on her cheek. After wiping it off, Nightwing looks at her as though they are ready to kiss. Then, Batgirl speaks: “And what about her? The spice girl….” “Koriand’r?” “Yeah, the tall one with the green eyes, great tan, and legs up to my chin. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t stand for you taking some other ­­super-chick to Inspiration Point. So maybe you and I should keep this relationship strictly business” [Beatty & Dixon, 2020, p. 86].

Nightwing agrees; the two further discuss how he can make his first footprints on Gotham’s scene as Nightwing, i.e., a hero no one has seen before. Aside from the “great tan,” Batgirl refers to ignoring the fact that Koriand’r is literally orange. She recognizes Nightwing’s romantic/sexual commitment to Starfire, which could be one way of further recognizing his pansexual orientation. At this point in the story, Grayson’s and Koriandr’s relationship seems intact. At the end of Nightwing: Year One, a ­­f ull-page spread shows Nightwing reunited with the Teen Titans and Starfire. This serves as a moment for Batgirl to positively recognize Grayson’s romantic/sexual relationship with a nonhuman character—a recognition that could serve to establish how other characters recognize Grayson’s sexuality. That is, other characters should be able to see the parameters of Grayson’s sexuality through recognizing the seriousness of his relationship with Koriand’r, also portrayed as an opportunity for Batgirl to be the first of many to positively affirm Grayson’s orientation, while acknowledging that the possibility of his future relationships (should things not work out with Koriand’r) with nonhuman characters should not be off the table.

52   The DC Comics Universe

Conclusion: Dick Grayson, Queer Icon? Overall, this suggests that Grayson’s contemporary evolution be made bolder through an explicitly acknowledged pansexual orientation. In direct contrast to a character like John Constantine, who is openly pansexual yet who maintains long relationships with human women, human men, and other characters from nonhuman species (including King Shark, according to the 2020 animated film Justice League: Apokolips War), Grayson’s sexual orientation is almost equally fluid to Constantine’s in regard to nonhuman characters. A retrospective gaze at Grayson’s relationships reveals that, as part of his maturation process, he also came to a sexual orientation that would not (and could not) have been acknowledged in the 1980s given the cultural and sociopolitical climates in the U.S. In 2021, however, such character identities by way of sexual orientation may be much better parsed and digested by contemporary readers. And as to the contrast with John Constantine, readers have for a long time accepted the establishment of Constantine as a character whose sexual orientation allows for relationships with characters from many different backgrounds. As a result, Constantine has been made into a kind of queer icon whose gendered and sexualized identities are fluid, and who may not always be able to cling positively to a superhero who only recognizes heterosexuality or binary notions of gender. Dick Grayson’s character should be taken in a similar direction. Grayson is already an “icon” based on a history of sexualization; thus, authors have a precedent to rely on. This not only emerges from the New Teen Titans but also in contemporary iterations like those in the Robin: 80th Anniversary. ­­Twenty-first-century authors are willing to “go there.” And Grayson, as an icon, does not have to be separated from his status as a “sex symbol”; if the latter can also be attributed to queerness, however, then Grayson can become a hero not just for the straight men and women who love him but also for everyone in between.

References Beatty, S., & Dixon, C. (2020). Nightwing: Year one. DC Comics. Diavolo, L. (2017, June 21). Gender variance around the world over time. Teen Vogue. www. teenvogue.com/story/­­gender-variance-around-the-world. Dixon, C. (1998). Nightwing: The boys. DC Comics. Downey, M. (2018, August 8). In defense of Dick Grayson: objectification, sexuality, and subtext. Women Write About Comics. https://womenwriteaboutcomics. com/2015/12/­­i n-defense-of-dick-grayson-objectification-sexuality-and-subtext/. ­­L apin-Bertone, J. (2019, November 9). Everybody loves Dick: Take a peek in Dick Grayson’s little black book. DC Universe. https://dcuniverse.com/news/­­e verybody-lovesdick-take-peek-dick-graysons-little-black-book/.

Queer(ing) Robin (McCrary)  53 Papisova, V. (2020, April 21). What is pansexual? A guide to pansexuality. Teen Vogue. https://teenvogue.com/story/­­what-is-pansexuality?utm_brand=tv. Richardson, S.S. (2015). Sex itself: The search for male and female in the human genome. University of Chicago Press. Seeley, T., & King, T. (2020). The lesson plan. In P. Kaminski (Ed.), Robin: 80th Anniversary ­­100-Page Super Spectacular, pp. 26–33. DC Comics. Wertham, Fredric. (1954). Seduction of the innocent: The influence of comic books on today’s Youth. Museum Press.

Constructed Super Families Superheroes, ­­Super-Kids, and ­­Super-Pets Ora C. McWilliams

“I have a great longing, for foster parents who would keep my ­­super-powers a secret” In 1945, America’s detonation of the atomic weapon set the world at large into a collective panic. For Americans, the situation hit home when technological superiority was challenged after the Soviets (USSR) built their own weapon in August 1949 (Boyer 1985, p. 21). The United States also worried about the enemy inside: the supposed “Red Menace.” The situation during the Cold War seemed out of control, creating anxiety among many citizens. To alleviate such concern, the United States to the locus over which they could still exert control: that of the home, specifically the family (Coontz, 2000, p. 33). DC/National Comics had previously told the stories of two of their primary superhero characters: Batman and Superman, both featuring origin stories that included an untimely orphaning. For Bruce Wayne, a robber shooting his parents in Crime Alley led to the creation of his superhero identity (Detective #33, 1939), whereas Superman’s birth parents were killed when the planet Krypton exploded, his adoptive parents only mentioned in a single panel (Action Comics #1). Not until a year later were the Kents introduced by name in a single panel in Superman #1. Because political and social movements of the 1950s stressed family values, these ­­loner-orphan origin stories stood in opposition to the zeitgeist of the 1950s’ ideal family. Whether a conscious movement on the part of editors/writers or a coincidence of the time, Superman and Batman set about building families, in retrospect reflecting the changing times. In the 1950s, as a reaction to external pressures to make comics safer for kids and families, comic companies (DC Comics in particular) strove 54

Constructed Super Families (McWilliams)  55 to reimagine the families of superhero characters,1 specifically for those who were originally loners/orphans. For Superman, the transformation began with the addition of childhood adventures under the guise of Superboy, prompting the addition of his adoptive parents. With his ongoing adult adventures, the supporting cast consisted of Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and Supergirl, and Superman became the patriarch of a ­­Super-family. For Batman, the alteration occurred slightly before Superman, with the introduction of Robin, “the Boy Wonder,” in 1940. The two acted as a father and son team fighting crime together, though alternative readings from psychiatrists such as Fredric Wertham cast a shadow of deviance and homosexuality on Batman by suggesting that their relationship was the “wish dream of two homosexuals living together” (Wertham 190, Wright 161). After Wertham’s critique of such alleged homosexuality, it became necessary to search for a feminine influence; in response, DC introduced Batwoman and Batgirl. In their 1950s and 1960 contexts, during the Cold War, ­­Super-Pets such as Krypto, Ace, Streaky, Comet, and Bepo presented the final pieces of an intricately woven tapestry—the final thread used to create a picture of a nuclear family within constructed, nontraditional families. Such constructed families represented stability in the precariously unstable world of any superhero. This idea is also featured in other ­­popular-culture artifacts, such as the television show Leave it to Beaver (1957–1963). As an illustration of the superhero father figure, many of the same tropes as television shows of the era were followed by comic books, such as a larger life lesson being presented at the end of the story.

The Superhero Family For comic books, the Atomic Age focused on the “nuclear family” created a particular challenge because so many of these heroes based their origin stories on the destruction of a family. The solution was a slow slide toward constructing family units for these characters. Some 10 years after their introduction, writers and editors had constructed ­­proto-families around these (and other) superhero characters. A generation earlier, the first superhero stories considered the anxieties of the late 1930s: street crime, corrupt politicians, and even some subtle war anxiety. For the most part, the characters fought these social ills on behalf of strangers or ­­near-strangers. However, the new Atomic Age paradigm created a ­­re-centered morality for the story and characters. The creation of families implied that Superman and Batman were fighting for someone—a child, a love interest, or a good friend.

56   The DC Comics Universe This change reflects a wholly 1950s mentality of the nuclear family as paramount to stability. Elaine Tyler May (1999) writes, The legendary family of the 1950s … was not, as common wisdom tells us, the last gasp of “traditional” family life with deep roots in the past. Rather it was the first wholehearted effort to create a home that would fulfill virtually all its members’ personal needs through an energized and expressive personal life [May, p. XXII].

May states that for the individual of the 1950s, the nuclear family had to be created. Further, family historian Stephanie Coontz explains: The key to understanding the successes, failures and comparatively short life of 1950s family forms and values is to understand the period as one of experimentation [emphasis mine] with possibilities of a new kind of family. Not the expression of some longstanding tradition [Coontz, 1998, p. 36].

Since the nuclear family was an experiment, guides came in the form of popular culture instructing people on how to run the fulfillment experiment. On TV, this was reflected in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett (1952–1966), Father Knows Best (1954–1958), and Leave it to Beaver (1957– 1963). Significantly, these were not reflections of reality but rather ideals to strive toward. Superhero comics followed suit. Superman writers in the 1950s reshaped his origins to defy his orphan roots. Although he remained an orphan from Krypton, his earthly/American story was reshaped. This was achieved by the creation of Superboy in More Fun Comics #101. His adoptive parents (the Kents) were never mentioned in the old Superman origin story in Superman #1.2 The Superman orphan story was reshaped in another way: the creation of Supergirl, namely Superman’s Kryptonian cousin, in Action Comics #252. By teaching Supergirl about Earth, Superman was given a patriarchal role within the larger Superman family. Often, the man would allow the girl to bungle through some (often contrived) situations and would explain the lesson at the end. Lastly, Superman occupied the fatherly position with his boyish friend, Jimmy Olsen.

The Superman Family Superboy was introduced in 1945 in More Fun Comics #101. Later, his childhood hijinks were expanded upon within the pages of the Superboy features in Adventure Comics #103–300 (1949–1977). The Kents were, of course, aware of Clark’s identity as Superman, but they instilled earthly values—specifically, American values—in the young man. In these features, Superboy often learned lessons about family and the responsibility

Constructed Super Families (McWilliams)  57 that came with it. With Superman stories set in the big city of Metropolis and Superboy stories simultaneously taking place in the small, rural country town of Smallville, there existed a Superman for every receiver. Fans could now trace Superman’s advanced moral development as an adult to his upbringing by human ­­Middle-American parents—a family. The creation of Supergirl in Action Comics #252 (May 1959) followed several attempts to create a female counterpart to Superman. Supergirl (Kara ­­Z or-el) is Superman’s cousin from Krypton sent on another rocket which also landed on Earth for the purpose of allowing ­­Kal-El (Superman) to raise her. From the view of narrative necessity, a ­­Super-counterpart would provide the perfect love interest for Superman. A common theme in the Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane comic book was that Superman could not be her husband because she was vulnerable to attacks from Superman’s enemies. A ­­Super-counterpart would not have that same problem. However, since Supergirl was Superman’s cousin, any potential for a love interest to inadvertently foul up his ongoing love story with Lois Lane was removed. Superman does what is expected of him, raising Linda as he would his own child, teaching her about Earth in the backup stories of Action Comics #252–307. Superman insists that Supergirl could not make her presence known until she reined her powers and properly learned the “earthly ways”—a fatherly behavior. Just like Superman, Supergirl maintained a secret identity: Linda Lee Danvers. Younger than Clark, she attended school and lived in an orphanage. With Supergirl in the picture, Superman was no longer alone in his Kryptonian heritage as a survivor as she acted as his surrogate daughter, negating his ­­sole-survivor status. In Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #14 (January 1960), Supergirl attempted to concoct a way for Superman and Lois to marry in an effort to get herself out of the orphanage. She mentioned her plan to become a family several times, which involved Mr. and Mrs. Superman and Daughter: “Jeepers! If … If … Cousin Superman and Lois got Married, they could adopt me! … ‘Mother Lois!!! Father Superman’!! … Gee! I’d be the happiest girl alive!!!” (pg. 25). However, it was not meant to be; at the end of the story, Superman revealed that he was onto her scheme, which included misusing her superpowers and forgery. He then sent her back to the orphanage, the whole charade having been contrived to teach her a lesson. In much the same way, Superman acted as a patriarch for the characters of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. In the 1950s, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (1954) and Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane (1958) both appeared in their own comics that ran well into 1970s. Even though Jimmy was “Superman’s Pal” and Lois “Superman’s Girlfriend,” the formula of both of their books was similar: Lois or Jimmy would get into some kind of

58   The DC Comics Universe trouble doing what they thought was best, Superman would save them, then overtly nod to the reader about the preciousness of his friends. He would often pontificate on the characters or nod through a thought bubble that only the reader saw. Since Superman was high above the mere mortals he consorted with, both in power and morality, he effectively became a patriarch for these characters, further adding to the sense of family. An example occurs in the first feature in the issue of Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #14 (January 1960). Superman drops Lois off at the “Fortress of Solitude,” his “home,” as a sample effort to keep her safe from enemies. Through a thought bubble, Superman reveals to the audience that his actual plan was to show her how miserable she would be if they married as Lois would have to remain there alone all the time. A panel that drives home the patriarchal idea is the one in which Lois goes snooping in the cave, as any good reporter would. A robot sentry and Superman ­­look-alike bends her over his knee and spanks her, punishing her for being a “bad girl.” The idea of Superman teaching a lesson and clear illustration of punishment demonstrates that he does not see Lois as an equal partner but as little more than a child, to whom he must serve not as spouse but as a father figure. An example of Superman acting as a patriarch for Jimmy Olsen occurs in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #39 (September 1959). Jimmy accidentally gets launched to a planet where he has all the powers of Superman. There, Jimmy imitates Superman by dressing up like him and acting in the same way—a son playing with his father’s tools. However, even with all the trappings of Superman, he could never be Superman because everyone keeps calling him by his own name. At the end of the story, Superman reveals to Jimmy that the inhabitants, the Zolians, were aware of his plot the entire time because they had the ability to read minds. The implied lesson for the reader is that one should never make assumptions about the abilities of other people, whereas for Jimmy it is a simple message: you will always be the boy; I, the man.

Batman Family For Bat ma n, t he t ra nsformat ion into a fa mi ly ma n a nd ­­f amily-friendly comic occurred slightly earlier, in the 1940s, with the introduction of Robin, the “Boy Wonder.” DC Comics introduced Robin (Dick Grayson) in Detective Comics #38 (1940) to attract a younger readership. With Robin’s introduction, the series became “more lighthearted” (Wright 17). Robin’s origin story parallels that of Batman’s; his parents were killed in front of him by criminals, and he then vowed to avenge

Constructed Super Families (McWilliams)  59 them. Bruce takes Dick under his (metaphorical) wing as Batman takes Robin. Interestingly, throughout this period, the comic book is careful to always refer to Dick as Bruce’s “ward” and never as his “son.” This was likely done so that a “father” was not seen throwing his “son” into harm’s way. The dramatic result was that he acted as a father figure to Robin but could also remain distant from him. To establish some context, in the 1950s, the United States was already worried about juvenile delinquency. Comics Code Authority expert Amy Kiste Nyberg wrote of the perceived rise in juvenile delinquency in the postwar years. In quoting historian James Gilbert, she stated that the rise was threefold: firstly, children and teens were more visible; secondly, evidence that crime was committed by youth increased significantly; and thirdly, family life was disrupted by men at war and women in the workforce. Nyberg went on to state that “while most professional social workers, psychologists, sociologists, and criminologists denied any direct link between mass media and delinquency, focusing instead on the family environment as the cause, this conclusion did not produce a solution” (1998, p. 19–20). Nyberg further drew on Gilbert to state that the mass media, including comics, were a tempting target because it was an “outside force” which “penetrated the home” and promoted values running contrary to those of parents (p. 20). Essentially, comics (like teenagers’ rock and roll music, also attacked by moralists) invaded the family and was perceived as attempting to destroy parental authority. Parents worried that their children might be subversively converted to Communism. Within this context, Fredric Wertham wrote his influential polemic against comics, “Seduction of the Innocent.” He targeted comics as a primary cause of juvenile delinquency: “The most disturbing theme sounded in ‘Seduction’ was Wertham’s contention that the comic book industry made children deceitful, turning them against their own parents” (Wright, 2003, p. 157–164). Sections of the book were reprinted in popular magazines Ladies Home Journal and Reader’s Digest. Parents acting in what they believed to the best interests of their children while families clamored for action. As a result, the U.S. Senate held hearings. These resulted in no official sanctions, but suggestions were made. Although the U.S. Senate did not censor comics, they suggested that the industry police itself. Any other solution would be tantamount to limiting free speech. As a result, the Comics Code Authority was created in 1954. All but a few comic book companies partook of values restrictive toward anything potentially obscene. The code effectively destroyed the horror genre, also affected superhero comics. Dominatrix Catwoman all but disappeared from the pages of Batman. This action codified the idea in the imagination of the American public that comic books were intended for children.

60   The DC Comics Universe Batman and Robin had several years of adventures racked up before these critiques started. In “Seduction of the Innocent,” Dr. Fredric Wertham alleged that Batman and Robin acted as a homosexual couple—a 1950s deviancy contrary to the ideal of the nuclear family: “The Batman type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies, of the nature of which they may be unconscious” and “only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and of the psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventures” (1954/2004, p. 189–190). After Wertham’s critique of the alleged homosexuality, DC introduced Batwoman in Detective Comics #23 (1956) as a possible love interest and later, in Batman #139 (1961), Batgirl as a potential love interest for Robin. Eventually, the ­­B at-family even had a precocious child in the form of a magic imp named ­­Bat-Mite, who meddled in the affairs of Batman and Robin. ­­Bat-Mite tried to get the ­­Bat-family together in Detective Comics #276, where Batwoman saves the day, and in Batman #133, where ­­Bat-Mite magically makes Batwoman the greatest hero. ­­Bat-Mite reasoned that this change would surely get his surrogate “mother and father” together—a theme that may have spoken to children of broken families. Although DC Comics tried to get the audience interested in these characters, they never really took hold. The Comics Code of 1954, which the U.S. Senate’s involvement in the comic book industry helped create, was not the first of its kind, but it was the one that worked. Comics companies had to “see the writing on the wall,” and evidence within the books of the time suggests that DC did take action. Many Superman and Batman stories skewed toward ­­child-friendly earlier than other comics, which probably saved the books. They focused less on crime and more on whimsical adventures, such as those with superpowered animals.

­­Super-Pets Many people remember the characters of Krypto the Superdog, Ace the ­­Bat-Hound, and Streaky the ­­Super-Cat from their ­­short-lived cartoon series in the 2000s. However, these characters found their origins in a different time. In their original context of the 1950s and 1960s, ­­Super-Pets represented the final piece of the puzzle, providing the final thread used to create a picture of the nuclear family within the constructed nontraditional families. Comic books sold very well to children (Wright, 2003 p. 57) and this “soft touch” approach to children was certainly precipitated, at least in part, by the Comics Code. As a result, Superboy and Supergirl stories also include 1950s issues of “mental hygiene,” lessons about taking

Constructed Super Families (McWilliams)  61 care of pets, and so on, while fighting crime and maintaining a secret identity. For Supergirl, many of these echoed an example of the 1950s homemaker that could (and was expected to) juggle it all. The practice of introducing a pet into comics became a craze, particularly at DC, where nearly every superhero that remained after the comic crash of the late 1940s had a ­­super-pet at some point. Indeed, these offbeat characters certainly offer a reflection of their time. In the pages of Adventure Comics #210 (March 1955), Superboy got a dog. Through a twist of fate, a second rocket landed on Earth a few years after Superboy’s own rocket; the literature within the rocket explains that citizens of Krypton could not test the rocket on humans first and thus experimented on animals. In an emergency test, one such was ­­Kal-El’s (Superman/Superboy’s given name) beloved puppy, and Krypto and Superman were then reunited. Krypto, like Superman, could fly and had ­­super-strength and, later, heat vision. At first, Krypto was a handful for young Superboy but eventually turned into a ­­well-trained dog. Krypto even built his own “Doghouse of Solitude” (Eury, 2006, p. 36). Like television’s Lassie, these tales of a boy and his dog are often heartwarming. They also precipitated a floodgate of other Kryptonians coming to Earth. Yet, with the Kents and now a dog, the Superman’s (earthly) nuclear family is complete. Another ­­super-pet, Streaky the ­­Super-Cat, first appeared in Action Comics #261 (February 1960). Streaky was named as such because of the white lines on his sides. He was an earthly cat that had played with a ball of experimental ­­X-Kryptonite, which had given it superpowers. Streaky was Supergirl’s equivalent of Krypto: both were realistic animals that children could own and have in their daily lives and might even be responsible for. DC had also had more unrealistic ­­Super-Pets. Beppo the ­­super-monkey first appeared in Superboy Vol. 1 #76 (October 1959). The primate had stowed away on ­­K al-El’s rocket, sneaking away before the Kents had found him. Beppo lived in the jungle and later used his telescopic vision to encounter infant Superman. Comet the ­­Super-Horse first appeared in Action Comics #292 (1962). In the next issue, Comet telepathically told Supergirl his origin story. He was originally a centaur in Ancient Greece, named Biron. While wandering the countryside, he had foiled an attempt to poison his beloved, Circe; in return, all he wanted was to become a man to be with her. She had given him a potion which—she thought—would turn him fully human. However, she had mixed up the potions and given him one that had turned him into a horse instead. Feeling terrible about the mistake, she had given him another potion that had blessed him with ­­super-strength, speed, and immortality, among other powers, though he still wished to become fully human. Another spell had been cast later that turned him into a human whenever there was a comet in the solar system.

62   The DC Comics Universe As a human, he had adopted the identity of “Bronco” Bill Starr—a rodeo rider whom Supergirl later fell in love with. However, once the comet passed, he transformed back into a horse. In this form, he lamented that he could not tell her his secret, namely that he was, in fact, her horse. He went on to become a ­­semi-regular in Supergirl features. On the one hand, Krypto and Streaky, as characters, were born out of the relationship between children and pets that they could conceivably have. On the other, Beppo and Comet were merely tools for marketing and sales: these are fantasy animals that children would want but could never have. For Beppo’s part, an urban legend claims that comics fans have always loved monkeys and that comics with monkeys created sales spikes (Eury, 2007, p. 74). As for Comet, the horse already existed in popular culture with the introduction of Mr. Ed in 1961—a year before Comet. In later adventures, all four characters gathered in the Legion of ­­Super-Pets. The last of the ­­w ell-known ­­S uper-Pets of this era was Ace the ­­Bat-Hound, which first appeared in Batman #92 (June 1955). In the story, Ace was the hound of a prominent businessman that was found by Batman. Bruce Wayne had taken out a “lost dog” ad. When the businessman recognized the dog, he came close to discovering Batman’s true identity. Batman used Ace (who bore a striking resemblance to Rin-Tin-Tin 3) in several adventures. To understand Krypto and Ace in their original contexts, we must consider other contemporary “boy and his dog” tales: Lassie, Rin-Tin-Tin and Old Yeller. Lassie’s first story appeared in 1938 as a book, then as a film, and finally as a radio program. As a television show, it predated Krypto’s introduction by a year, first airing in 1954; it was about a young farm boy and his dog, around whom trouble occurs, interrupting farm life. Ultimately, the dog finds a way to save the day. The Adventures of ­­R in-Tin-Tin was another popular dog television show that ran from October 1954 (also the year before Krypto) to May 1959. ­­R in-Tin-Tin was a heroic dog who worked with his boy to save soldiers from various dangers in the Old West. Another text that resonated with children was Old Yeller, a 1957 movie based on a 1956 book. This text is also about a heroic dog with the classic sad ending. The “boy and his dog” stories last well into late 1960s with William Armstrong’s Sounder. Of course, the adage that a dog was “man’s best friend” links directly to these characters as well as Krypto. With the dog, the family was complete. In much the same way as Superman, with Robin, Alfred, Batwoman and Ace, Batman also presided over a Batman Family. After a few adventures in the late 1950s and early 1960s, these characters only appeared a handful of times. Eventually, in 1986, the existence of the ­­Super-Pets was a casualty of DC Comics’ attempt at simplifying the mess their stories had become, called Crisis on Infinite Earths. Retroactively, the ­­Super-Pets were wiped away as if they had never

Constructed Super Families (McWilliams)  63 existed. In addition, that same story wiped out both Batwoman and Batgirl and killed Supergirl. The story itself is complicated but marked a turning point for DC Comics wherein they recognized that their audience was getting older and more sophisticated. As a result, the tone of stories turned darker, and in the grander scheme of things, Superman became more political, and Batman became a more broody character. Since Crisis, many of the Superman family characters have gone on to have their own successes in film, cartoon, and TV series—apart from the boundaries of family that created key restrictions and plot developments in the 1950s.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to Nicolas Ware for the encouragement to turn this lark about the ­­Super-Pets into scholarship. Thanks to my thesis committee at Bowling Green State University that helped me refine some of these ideas: Dr. Marilyn Motz, Dr. Esther Clinton, and especially to Dr. Jeffrey Brown, whose class was the first kernel of this project. Thanks to Dr. Heather Fryer who allowed me to audit her “Atomic Age” class a few years ago and for her many other encouragements. Lastly, thanks to A.D. Merchant, Joshua Richardson, Elizabeth Potter, Stephanie Krehbiel, Jessica Roach, and many others whom I owe for copy edits or chats about this topic over the years.

Notes 1.  Comic books published in the 1950s were surprisingly more generically disparate than they are today. Comic books had the same diversity that existed in television and radio programs at that time: they were Western comics, romance comics, and action comics, primarily represented by the superhero. The medium of comic books was not synonymous with the superhero genre the way it often is today. At that time, superhero characters themselves were going through a fallow period which saw many of them being canceled or retooled in the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, the surviving characters can illustrate the cultural politics of the 1950s. 2.  Later postmodern interpretations of the superhero state that, even with nuclear families (constructed or otherwise), superheroes generally occupy a liminal space between stability and instability, that is, they are somewhat unstable, fighting the chaos in an effort to reassert stable hegemony. 3.  Ace the ­­Bat-Hound even wore a mask to hide his dog identity. Other ­­Super-Pets represented their owners by adopting a Superman or Supergirl cape.

References Binder, O., & Papp, G. (Illus). (1976). The ­­Super-Monkey from Krypton!. Superboy #76. DC Comics.

64   The DC Comics Universe Binder, O., & Plastino, A. (Illus.). (1959). The Supergirl from Krypton. Action comics #252. DC Comics. Binder, O., & Schaffenberger, K. (Illus.). (1960). Superman’s girlfriend. Lois Lane (14). DC Comics. Binder, O. & Swan, C. (Illus.). (1955). The Superdog from Krypton. Adventure comics #210. DC Comics. Binder, O., & Swan, C. (Illus.). (1959). The superlad of space. Superman’s pal, Jimmy Olsen #39. DC Comics. Boyer, P. (1985). By bombs early light: American thought and culture at the dawn of the Atomic Age. University of North Carolina Press. Coontz, S. (1992/2000). The way we never were: American families and the nostalgia trap. Basic. Coontz, S. (1998). The way we really are: Coming to terms with America’s changing families. Basic. Dorfman, L., & Mooney, J. (Illus.). (1962). The secret origin of Supergirl’s ­­Super-Horse. Action comics #293. DC Comics. Dorfman, L., & Mooney, J. (Illus.). (1962). The ­­Super-Steed of steel. Action comics #292. DC Comics. Eury, M. (2006). The Krypton companion: A historical exploration of Superman comic books of 1958–1986. TwoMorrows. Eury, M. (2007). Comics gone ape! TwoMorrows. Finger, B., & Kane, B. (Illus.). (1940). Batman #1. DC Comics. Finger, B., & Kane, B. (Illus.). (1940). Introducing Robin, the Boy Wonder. Detective comics #38. DC Comics. Finger, B., & Moldoff, S. (Illus.). (1955). Ace, the ­­Bat-Hound. Batman #92. DC Comics. Finger, B., & Moldoff, S. (Illus.). (1961). Batgirl. Batman #139. DC Comics. Finger, B., & Moldoff, S. (Illus.). (1960). The return of ­­B at-Mite. Detective comics #276. DC Comics. Finger, B., & Sprang, D. (Illus.). (1960). Batwoman’s publicity agent. Batman #133. DC Comics. Fox, G., & Kane, B. (Illus.). (1939). Detective comics #33. DC Comics. Hamilton, E., & Moldoff, S. (Illus.). (1956). The Batwoman. Detective comics #233. DC Comics. May, E.T. (1999). Homeward bound: American families in the Cold War era. Basic. Nyberg, A.K. (1998). Seal of approval: The history of the comics code. University of Mississippi. Siegel, J., & Mooney, J. (Illus.). (1960). Supergirl’s ­­s uper-pet. Action comics #261. DC Comics. Siegel, J., & Shuster, J. (Illus.). (1938). Superman, champion of the oppressed! Action comics #1. DC Comics. Siegel, J. (Writer), & Shuster, J. (Illus.). (1939). Superman #1. DC Comics. Siegel, J., & Shuster, J. (Illus.). (1945). The origin of Superboy. More fun comics #1. DC Comics. Wertham, F. (1954/2004). Seduction of the innocent. Main Road. Wolfman, M., & Perez, G. (Illus.). (1985–1986). Crisis on infinite earths #1–12. DC Comics. Wright, B.W. (2003). Comic book nation: The transformation of youth culture in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.

From Sherlock Holmes to Contemporary Superheroes The Art of Detection and Investigation in the DC Universe Michelle D. Miranda

In a 1940 copyright infringement case, Judge Hand rendered an opinion that set the groundwork for defining the characteristics of the comic book superhero. In 2002, utilizing Hand’s decision, Peter Coogan (2006) developed a historical framework for defining and classifying the “superhero genre” in his graduate dissertation: he defined a superhero as “a heroic character with a … pro social mission; with superpowers—extraordinary abilities, advanced technology, or highly developed physical, mental or mystical skills … who is generically distinct—distinguished from characters of related genres by a preponderance of generic conventions” (p. 30). Coogan isolated three characteristics of the superhero genre: mission, powers, and identity—the latter with the subgroups codename and costume. For example, the Flash is on a mission to fight crime, driven to work in the crime lab as a police scientist after his mother’s murder. The Flash gained his superpowers (notably ­­super-speed) after an incident in the laboratory, has a costume characterized by red and yellow colors and a lightning symbol, and his secret identity is masked by a human persona, Barry Allen. The Flash meets the three “conventions” that characterize the superhero; however, while elements of the genre can be absent or weak, characters can remain superheroes. Batman established his mission to fight crime in his 1939 debut, maintains his secret identity through a public persona and wears a costume, yet he has no superpowers. Described by Benton as an ordinary mortal, Batman “was the first ­­non-super superhero. His only powers came from his ­­self-developed physique and trained detective mind” (1989, p. 178). As the comic book hero evolved, characteristics 65

66   The DC Comics Universe such as secret identity and costumes were no longer necessities, broadening the scope of the superhero. Like Batman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ­­Victorian-era detective Sherlock Holmes had a mission to fight crime but no superpowers. Characterized by physical strength and fighting skills (Watson notes singlestick, boxing, and swordsmanship in his 1887 debut, A Study in Scarlet) along with superior analytical skills and powers of observation and “deduction,” Holmes is also known for his pipe and deerstalker cap (and perhaps for the inverness cape and magnifying glass). Eco (1972) referred to Holmes’ powers as examples of natural human abilities, stating “often the hero’s virtue is humanized and his powers, rather than being supernatural, are the extreme realization of natural endowments such as astuteness, swiftness, fighting ability, or even the logical faculties and pure spirit of observation” (p. 14). Eco’s sentiment could be applied to Batman, drawing a similarity between them; yet Coogan asserts that the detective genre can be distinguished from the superhero genre: “Generic distinction marks these characters as ­­non-superheroes even though they may have the missions and powers requisite to be superheroes and might even possess elements of the identity convention” (Coogan, 2006, p. 57). Specifically, he remarks that Sherlock Holmes can be “firmly and sensibly” placed in the alternate detective genre (p. 47) and that “Sherlock Holmes is a detective, not a superhero” (p. 24). On several occasions in Doyle, references are made to Holmes’ powers. In The ­­Red-Headed League (1891), Dr. John Watson notes that “his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals” (Doyle, 1967, I, p. 431). In The Adventure of the Priory School (1904), the Duke asserts that Holmes “seem(s) to have powers that are hardly human” (Doyle, 1967, II, p. 626), whereas in The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (1904), regarding his abilities, Sherlock remarks, “Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand” (Doyle, 1967, II, p. 498). Conversely, while the Flash meets the superhero classification, a rigid, binary1 application of Coogan’s three characteristics would suggest that Batman falls short on a technicality, falling somewhere in the middle of detective– superhero distinctions. Classification aside, Holmes played a prominent role in the comic book world, featured in the DC Universe and Marvel Comics as well as others. Whether a detective or a superhero by definition, Holmes exerted a substantial influence on writers and artists, along with such comic book precursors as the dime novel and pulp magazines. A review of the history

From Sherlock Holmes to Contemporary Superheroes (Miranda)  67 of Sherlock Holmes in comic books demonstrates the fictional consulting detective’s influence on what should be considered the detective–superhero genre.

Sherlock Holmes: From the Victorian Era into the Bronze Age of Comics Appearing in a series of fictional stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from 1887 to 1927, deduction becomes the cornerstone of Holmes’ analytical skills as he employs a combination of reasoning methods—specifically abduction, induction, and deduction—to solve crimes. All three are also apparent in early detective comics. The deductive method requires making an inference from a known, general principle, which provides a certainty in reaching a conclusion. Inductive reasoning begins with observations and knowledge about the observed phenomena, from which a hypothesis is developed. With induction, a measure of probability is assigned to a given conclusion. Abduction is the process of forming hunches about the world based on observation and perception (Eco & Sebeok, 1983), and abductive reasoning requires creativity, intuition, and imagination to generate new ideas about the observed phenomena. Often, investigators in both detective fiction and comic books rely on their hunches and intuitions during initial stages of investigations—a characteristic of abductive reasoning. As such, abduction is the first step in reasoning in which the significance of observation is evaluated using guesswork, experience, and insight to develop an explanation for what one sees or suspects, followed by a transition to induction upon balancing probabilities and likelihoods. The final step is deduction which, due to its certainty, requires a confirmation of events. This occurs when the primary suspect is captured and confesses to the crimes, confirming the detective’s initial hunches and investigatory prowess. While Holmes is often credited with the development of the deductive method applied to detective fiction, Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin used ratiocination to solve crimes in The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1842), and The Purloined Letter (1844). Ratiocination is characterized by use of observation and analytical reasoning to develop a clear explanation of experiences and encounters. Poe further highlighted the importance of imagination in analytical skills as applied to detection (see, in general, Miranda, 2017). Poe’s inf luence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is clear, and some indications of Poe’s stories featuring Dupin are apparent in detective comics; for example, In Batman vs. The Vampire, Part I (1939), Batman encounters a huge ape in Paris—a direct correlation to The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

68   The DC Comics Universe The inf luence of the classic fictional detective in the comic book world can be traced back to the aforementioned dime novels and detective pulp magazines. Characters such as Old Sleuth, Old King Brady, and Nick Carter proliferated in the 1870s, extending into the early 20th century. “Dime detectives are rarely theorizers like their English counterpart Sherlock Holmes but are rather impulsive individuals who narrowly avoid death or capture and whose hunches luckily turn out to be correct” (Miller, 2016, p. 206). Focused on action, the thrill of the chase, and urban crime fighting, such stories were “meant to describe and reveal rather than analyze and criticize” (p. 204). These detectives lacked the analytic or scientific methodology in crime solving and forensic investigations characteristic of Holmes. Hoppenstand (1982) describes the emphasis as based “on action rather than investigation, on physical powers rather than mental powers” (p. 4). This latter description sums up the fusion of the dime novel “avenger” detective with the “classic” fictional detective to produce what would become the comic book superhero; here, the physical powers of the dime novel’s avenger detective combine with the intellectual powers of the classic detective to produce heroes such as Batman and the Flash. ­­P ulp-magazine characters such as The Shadow (1930), The Phantom Detective (1933), and Doc Savage (1933) were inspired by Sherlock Holmes and his methods of detection. The Shadow’s secret identity, Kent Allard, was reportedly based on Colonel P.H. Fawcett, who was a friend of Conan Doyle.2 They “shared Conan Doyle’s determination to solve unknowable mysteries” (Grant, 2008, p. 121). Lester Dent, writer of The Shadow and Doc Savage’s adventures, remarked: “…I took Sherlock Holmes with his deducting ability, Tarzan of the Apes…. Craig Kennedy with his scientific knowledge, and Abraham Lincoln…. Then I rolled ’em all into one to get— Doc Savage” (Nanovic, 1980, p.2). A year prior, Dent had written a series of stories featuring the scientific detective Lynn Lash, described in The Sinister Ray as “all Sherlock Holmes was and a lot Sherlock Holmes wasn’t” (Dent, 1932, p. 18). In the Golden Age of comics, Holmes appeared in several issues, first as retelling of the popular stories of Doyle, later in tales of the comic book writer’s own design. In 1947, Classic Comics published The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, featuring A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles (Doyle, 1947). Classics Illustrated published The Sign of the Four in 1945 and A Study in Scarlet and The Adventure of the Speckled Band in 1953 (Doyle, 1945; 1953). Charlton Comics (CDC) published two featuring Sherlock Holmes: in 1955, The Final Curtain, Love Thy Neighbor, and The Star of the East, and in 1956 Holmes appeared in comics The Mystery of the Doomed Daredevil, Sherlock Holmes’ Greatest Challenge,

From Sherlock Holmes to Contemporary Superheroes (Miranda)  69 and The Overseas Smuggling Racket. Dell publishing Co. released two, entitled New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1961 and 1962, each containing two stories (“The Derelict Ship” and “ The Cunning Assassin”; “The Case of the Deadly Inheritance” and “The Tunnel Scheme,” respectively). Holmes appeared again in 1975 and 1976, simultaneously featured in Marvel Preview and National Periodical Publications, the latter rebranded as DC Comics in 1977. In 1975, National Periodical Publications published The Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House; that same year, Marvel Preview published the first of a ­­t wo-part The Hound of the Baskervilles. Marvel Preview published the second part a year later, when National Periodical Publications published Sherlock Stalks the Joker. The comic presents a crossover parody in which the Joker interrupts a theater rehearsal by playing a series of practical jokes on actor Clive Sigerson (playing Sherlock Holmes). References to Doyle’s adventures featuring Sherlock Holmes are made throughout the comic as uncanny coincidences (The Empty House; A Scandal in Bohemia; The ­­R ed-Headed League; The Sign of the Four; The Bruce Partington Plans; The Hound of the Baskervilles; and A Case of Identity). The Joker mirrors Holmes’ archenemy Moriarty, and a sidekick nicknamed “Dock Watson” shares the adventure. Characteristic Sherlock Holmes catch phrases also appear, namely the cliché expressions “Elementary!” and “The game is afoot!” (O’Neil, 1976). Prior to this, Holmes appeared alongside Captain Marvel Jr. in The Black Market (1942). Using clues while conducting his own investigation into the Black Market and its leader Captain Nazi, Holmes crosses paths with Captain Marvel Jr., saving the young superhero’s life. Yet here Holmes remains an unnamed, mysterious companion—a hero out of the past. He would be recast from adventures in the 19th century into the world of comic books, settling comfortably in the DC Universe. In addition to appearing as himself in the Golden Age, Holmes influenced DC’s greatest detective–superhero, Batman.

Batman: Detection and Investigation in the Golden Age Described as a ­­super-sleuth (Kane & Finger, 2017, II, p. 62, 75) and a master scientist able to perform amazing athletic feats (Kane & Finger, 2016, p. 67), Bruce Wayne develops deductive powers after vowing to fight crime to avenge his parent’s death (The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom, 1939). Directly influenced by Sherlock Holmes, according to Daniels (1999), “While (Bob) Kane’s main sources for Batman were two

70   The DC Comics Universe movies and a blueprint, (Bill) Finger saw the character as a combination of Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckler from The Three Musketeers and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective Sherlock Holmes…” (p. 23). Moreover, Benton (1989) directly refers to Batman as “Sherlock Holmes in a cape” (p. 24). Even Batman’s trusty sidekick Robin (Dick Grayson) fulfills the detective–sidekick duality that characterized the early detective fiction influencing Detective Comics: “Finger had always compared Batman to Sherlock Holmes, and now the star of Detective Comics has his own Dr. Watson” (Daniels, 1999, p. 38). In Peril in Paris (1939) the criminal mastermind is likened to Napoleon, a nod to Doyle’s The Final Problem (1893), in which Holmes describes Moriarity as “the Napoleon of crime” (Doyle, 1967, II, p. 303). In A Master Murderer (1940), the plot surrounding a missing boy at Blake’s School for Boys has parallels to The Adventure of the Priory School (1904) featuring Holmes. References are made to Batman’s hunches (The Return of Doctor Death, 1939; The Story of the Seventeen Stones, 1942) and his imagination (Professor Hugo Strange, 1940) as a detective. In The Return of Doctor Death, Batman remarks that his hunch that Strange is still alive is “almost a certainty” (Kane & Finger, 2016, p. 33). Not meeting the certainty of deduction, Batman uses abductive reasoning to draw this conclusion. In the 1942 comic, Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make, Batman makes an observation that leads to a suspicion that something is wrong, namely that crime czar Big Mike Russo’s prison shoes are “special.” Despite his master detection skills, he does make mistakes in reasoning, reflecting human fallibility. In the 1942 The Superstition Murders, Batman is misled by the perpetrator; only upon capture does Batman learn of his oversight. Initially, Batman rules out the perpetrator as a suspect: “It certainly isn’t the author … he saved my life…. He certainly wouldn’t save the life of the detective if he were guilty” (Kane & Finger, 2016, p. 70). Eventually, the perpetrator asserts, “I knew no one would suspect me if I had just saved the life of the nation’s leading crime fighter…” (p. 74). Using clues and forensic traces, Batman moves beyond hunches to improve his reasoning methods and conclusions regarding a criminal’s next move. In 1941’s The Witch and the Manuscript of Doom, Batman recovers hairs from a crime scene and conducts a wig comparison using microscopy. In the 1942 The Superstition Murders, Batman collects a glass at a death scene and, upon smelling the odor of burned almonds, concludes that the victim was poisoned by prussic acid (cyanide). In The Crimes of ­­Two-Face (1942), Batman examines the “dead thug’s body” and finds a clue—paper containing a map adhering to the shoe with gum (Kane & Finger, 2018, p. 61). In The Story of the Seventeen Stones (1942), Batman successfully recovers inked information from burned cards

From Sherlock Holmes to Contemporary Superheroes (Miranda)  71 using a “red spray” and developed infrared film plates. Batman remarks, “…it’s time criminals realized that crime will out when they start bucking the scientific apparatus pitted against them!” (Kane & Finger, 2018, p. 148). Early Detective Comics also highlight fingerprints as an important tool in investigations; in The Secret of the Jade Box (1941), the fingerprint clue does not match any prints on file, and in The Strange Case of Professor Radium (1941–2), fingerprint processing and development of a glove left at a crime scene is conducted using powdered oxide of lead and a gelatin sheet. Advancing through the Silver Age, through the Bronze Age, and into the Modern Age, Batman comics maintain the importance of observation, detection, and understanding the significance of evidentiary traces (see, for example, A Vow from the Grave, 1971; Blood Secrets, 1989; and Batman Black and White: Perpetual Morning, 2010). Two comics highlight Batman’s superior powers of observation and reasoning, drawing attention to the importance of these traits in “­­real-world” criminal investigations. Interestingly, both cases have distinct correlations to Holmes. In The Harlequin’s Hoax (1942), Batman finds a pattern that becomes critical to understanding a case in which the Joker employs a cryptic series of gags to blackmail four men. While each gift holds a specific significance for each recipient that only the Joker understands, Batman uncovers such meanings. To confirm his suspicions (hypotheses), Batman conducts a series of experiments and inquiries, scientifically observing the results. Using a scientific approach to problem solving, Batman effectively solves a crime by confirming the basis for the Joker’s series of riddles.3 Upon recognizing the significance of his observations, an overzealous Batman remarks to Robin, “C’mon Watson…. Sherlock Holmes has one more stop to make” (Kane & Finger, 2018, p. 177). In The Case Batman Failed to Solve!!! (1942–3), a shooting reconstruction challenges the world’s greatest detectives when one of their own is felled. All the detectives, including Batman, assume that the case is one of murder, with Batman eventually determining that the death was an elaborate suicide. Once set upon the right path through inquiries and clues uncovered, Batman recovers the firearm in the river and make sense of a mark on a windowsill where the gun was mounted. Highlighting the perils of assumptions early in investigations along with overlooking critical details, this case serves as a basis for existing deficiencies in criminal investigations in the present day and parallels Doyle’s The Problem of Thor Bridge (1922) with elements of murder, suicide, crime scene staging, and misdirection. Holmes discovers, through a mark on the bridge and firearm in the water, that the victim staged her suicide to frame another for her murder. Inspired by Holmes, the writers of Batman comics left subtle clues connecting the superhero to the greatest fictional detective throughout the

72   The DC Comics Universe comics. Such clues are also apparent in The Flash, extending the legacy of Holmes in the DC Universe.

The Flash: Detection and Investigation in the Silver Age Early in character development and throughout The Flash featuring Barry Allen, writers and artists incorporated details highlighting the background of the Flash as a forensic (police) scientist. From working with various chemicals to the books present on his laboratory desk (including one entitled Reason; Broome & Fox, 2016, p. 63), Allen’s time in a crime lab allows him to observe and understand various phenomena and behaviors of the villains he encounters. A chemist working for the Police Scientific Detection Bureau, Allen is introduced in 1956 in The Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt! in which, after an explosion from a bolt of lightning coupled with a “certain cocktail” of chemicals that spill on him as Allen experiments, he discovers that he is the fastest man alive—the Flash. A direct nod to a catch phrase that has become synonymous with Sherlock Holmes is present in the 1958 comic Master of the Elements! as the Flash surprises the criminal and remarks, “Elementary, Mr. Element…” (Broome & Kanigher, 2016, p. 78). Throughout early comics of The Flash, many clues are based on Allen’s knowledge of the natural sciences and traced to scientific techniques used in a modern crime laboratory. In The Master of Mirrors! (1959), the Flash identifies that the manipulation of light is the key to the creatures he encounters and ultimately must overcome. In The Reign of the ­­Super-Gorilla! (1962), strong solar flares provide a critical clue that the Flash utilizes in his investigation; like Batman, the Flash also uses forensic traces to his advantage. In The Heat is on for Captain Cold (1963), he works off of a hunch, a memory, and the singular clue of a birthmark while attempting to identify a girl years after she went missing. Crime scene investigation is apparent in The Mirror Master’s Invincible Bodyguards! (1963), when the Flash goes “over every inch of [the Mirror Master’s prison] cell” in an attempt to find clues about Mirror Master’s escape, remarking, “At ­­super-speed I can search this cell more thoroughly in one minute that a slew of detectives could in one year!” (Broome & Fox, 2018, p. 89). In Barry Allen—You’re the Flash—and I can Prove it! (1963), the Flash detects a crime pattern in the middle of a cold reading at a charity event he attends as Allen. The Flash: Rebirth (2010) further situates Allen as a forensic scientist through the panels depicting DNA analysis, crime scene investigation, microscopy and trace evidence processing (fibers), testimony about glass

From Sherlock Holmes to Contemporary Superheroes (Miranda)  73 evidence (with methods of chemical composition and refractive index measurements), comparison microscopy, and even a subtle nod to courtroom admissibility with the introduction of Lt. Frye. The Flash: Rebirth also provides background information regarding the incident surrounding Allen’s transition to the Flash in a panel in which clues are in the artwork. This depicts the scene in which Allen is simultaneously hit with lightning and doused in specific chemicals, the bottles of which are labeled “Ardrox,” “Ninhydrin,” “Rhodamine,” and “­­Diazafluoren-9-one” (DFO) (Johns & Van Sciver, 2010, p. 134). Their relevance may not be apparent to the reader, but to a forensic scientist, it would be obvious that these are chemicals used for fingerprint processing. In The Flash: Rebirth and The Button Deluxe Edition (2017), additional details on the impetus for Allen’s superhero mission to fight crime come to light. The first crime scene Allen ever saw was that of his mother, who was found murdered at home when Allen was a child. Allen’s father, Harry Allen, was arrested, charged, and imprisoned, but Barry always believed his father to be innocent. Therefore, Barry studied forensic science: I can start to paint a picture of a crime scene before I even complete the tests. But it wasn’t the speed force that gave me the ability to do that. It was time I spent at the lab. I can look around the scene and see the origin of every spot of blood [Williamson & King, 2017, p. 24].

The Flash’s science background, along with his superpowers, make him an ideal detective–superhero.

Connecting the Dots in the Modern Age: Sherlock, Batman, and The Flash The Doomsday Book (1987) crossover marked the ­­100-year anniversary of Holmes’ first appearance in detective fiction (as well as the 50th anniversary of Detective Comics), bringing together Batman and Holmes in a modern investigation with a historical twist. Marked as “…a threat that can be solved only by the greatest detective of our time—and the greatest sleuth of all time” (Barr, 1987, p. 1; emphasis in the original), DC Comics asserts, at the outset, a longstanding debate concerning the hierarchy of fictional detectives. Shifting from a detective’s hunch about a case in Gotham City to a search in 221B Baker Street with only an obscure clue (and a nod to Doyle’s 1903 story The Adventure of the Empty House), the tale features descendants of Watson and Prof. Moriarty and the search for an unpublished story featuring Holmes. A flashback to 1886 provides an opportunity to

74   The DC Comics Universe observe Holmes using his powers of observation and “deduction” to thwart a criminal mastermind’s plan. The case remains ­­open-ended until Moriarty’s kin attempt to reinvigorate the case, advancing it to present day and necessitating intervention by Batman, Robin, and the Elongated Man. Batman saves the royal family and, upon denouement, Holmes thanks Batman for concluding a case that originated a century earlier. In crossovers featuring Batman and the Flash, an important relationship is highlighted between Wayne and Allen based on their knowledge and appreciation for forensic science and the role of careful investigation. In the author commentary in The Flash: Rebirth, Geoff Johns draws attention to the relationship that developed between Batman and The Flash over the years as members of the Justice League: “Barry was known to chat about forensics and technique with Batman for hours after a Justice League meeting ended. Batman never talked to anyone else that long” (Johns & Van Sciver, 2010, p. 153). Connected by a mutual loss of parents, the relationship between Batman and The Flash is reiterated by Allen himself: “Whenever I talked forensics I could see in [the members of the Justice League’s] eyes that I might as well be speaking another language. Except Bruce. We could talk about evidence for hours” (Williamson & King, 2017, p. 28). This kinship, based on the acknowledgment that detection, investigation and forensic science are critical to their characters’ development, underscores the importance of Holmes as an influence and inspiration for these particular DC superheroes.

Conclusion Detectives featured in dime novels, pulp magazines, and classic detective fiction were important influences on the development of the comic book superhero. Serial detectives of dime novels set the stage for what would later become the comic book superhero. The combination of the powerful, avenging detective with the analytical, classic detective produced a superhero determined to fight crime with superior skills of strength, intellect, and observation. Sherlock Holmes has served as an influence for superheroes in the DC Universe, and the legacy of Holmes is apparent in its heroes, specifically Batman and the Flash (Barry Allen). In addition to writers directly acknowledging the inf luence of Sherlock Holmes on their comic book characters, a review of both the text and artwork of comic books featuring Batman and Barry Allen presents subtle clues and direct references to those methods of detection that were perfected by Holmes. Investigation, detection, and forensic science define these characters in their mission to fight crime, and the powers of

From Sherlock Holmes to Contemporary Superheroes (Miranda)  75 observation and reasoning, coupled with scientific knowledge, intuition, and imagination, transform characters like Batman and the Flash into clever heroes that fight crime with both muscle and intellect. Specific comics featuring Batman and Barry Allen as the Flash have combined detection, science, and true crime elements to elevate these superheroes to the dual persona of superhero and hero–detective.

Notes 1.  Either absent (0) or present (1), which is assessed for each of the three superhero conventions (mission, powers, identity). 2.  In The Shadow pulp magazines, the character Kent Allard would occasionally use a secret identity under the name Lamont Cranston, giving The Shadow dual identities for the same individual. 3.  This case may foreshadow the internal struggle of Batman in his later years; his ability to simultaneously be driven to fight crime, yet at the same time think like a criminal mastermind, leads to a crisis of identity. This foreshadowing case is not isolated. In The Return of Doctor Death (1940), Doctor Death remarks to his henchman, “Batman is the only man with the imagination to sense the exact nature of our plans” (Kane & Finger, 2016, p. 105).

References Barr, M. (1987). The doomsday book. Detective Comics #572. DC Comics. Benton, M. (1989). The comic book in America: An illustrated history. Taylor Publishing Company. Broome, J., & Fox, G. (2016). The Flash: The silver age: Vol. 2. DC Comics. Broome, J., & Fox, G. (2018). The Flash: The silver age: Vol. 3. DC Comics. Broome, J., & Kanigher, R. (2016). The Flash: The silver age: Vol. 1. DC Comics. Conan Doyle, A. (1945). The sign of the four in 3 famous mysteries. Classics illustrated #21. Gilberton Company. Conan Doyle, A. (1947). The adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Classic comics #33. Gilberton Company. Conan Doyle, A. (1953). A study in scarlet. Classics illustrated #100. Gilberton Company. Conan Doyle, A. (1961). New adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Dell comics #1169. Dell Publishing Co., Inc. Conan Doyle, A. (1962). New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Dell comics #1245. Dell Publishing Co., Inc. Conan Doyle, A. (1967). The annotated Sherlock Holmes: 2 vol. W. ­­B aring-Gould (Ed.). Clarkson N. Potter. Coogan, P. (2006). Superhero: The secret origin of a genre. Monkey Brain Books. Daniels, L. (1999). Batman: The complete history. Chronicle Books. Detective Comics, Inc. v. Bruns Publications, Inc. et al. (1940, April 29). No. 203, 111 F.2d 432. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Eco, U. (1972). The myth of Superman. Diacritics, 2(1), 14–22. Eco, U., & Sebeok, T. (1983). Dupin, Holmes, Peirce: The sign of three. Indiana University Press. Goodwin, A. (Ed.). (1976). Marvel Preview presents Sherlock Holmes, 1(5). Magazine Management Co. Inc. Goodwin, A. (Ed.). (1976). Marvel Preview presents Sherlock Holmes, 1(6). Magazine Management Co. Inc. Grant, M. [Walter Gibson] (2008). The shadow #15. Nostalgia Ventures, Inc.

76   The DC Comics Universe Hoppenstand, G. (Ed.). (1982). The dime novel detective. Bowling Green University Popular Press. Johns, G., & Van Sciver, E. (2010). The Flash rebirth. DC Comics, Inc. Kahan, B. (Ed.). (1992). The Flash. DC silver age classics showcase #4. DC Comics, Inc. Kane, B., & Finger, B. (2016). Batman: The golden age, Vol. 1. DC Comics, Inc. Kane, B., & Finger, B. (2017). Batman: The golden age, Vol. 2. DC Comics, Inc. Kane, B., & Finger, B. (2017). Batman: The golden age, Vol. 3. DC Comics, Inc. Kane, B., & Finger, B. (2018). Batman: The golden age, Vol. 4. DC Comics, Inc. McKeever, T. (2010). Batman black and white: Perpetual morning. DC Comics. https:// www.comixology.com/­­Batman-Black-White-Perpetual-Mourning/­­d igital-comic/2586. Miller, W. (2016). From Old Cap Collier to Nick Carter; or images of crime and criminal justice in American dime novel detective stories, 1880–1920. In A.G. Srerenick & R. Levy (Eds.), Crime and culture: an historical perspective (pp. 199–210). Routledge. Miranda M. (2017). Reasoning through madness: The detective in gothic crime fiction. Palgrave Communications: Studies in Horror and the Gothic (3). Nanovic, J.L. (1980). Doc Savage, supreme adventurer. Odyssey Publications, Inc. O’Neil, D. (1971). A vow from the grave. Detective comics #410. National Periodical Publications, Inc. O’Neil, D. (1976). Sherlock stalks the Joker. The Joker, 2(6). National Periodical Publications, Inc. O’Neil, D., & Cruz, E. (1975). Sherlock Holmes, 1(1). National Periodical Publications, Inc. Poe, E.A. (1994). The complete illustrated stories and poems. Chancellor Press. Waid, M., & Augustin, B. (1989). Blood secrets. Detective comics annual #2. DC Comics, Inc. Williamson, J., & King, T. (1942). Captain Marvel, Jr., presents Captain Marvel, Jr., in the black market, 1(2), Fawcett Publications, Inc. Williamson, J., & King, T. (1955). The final curtain. Sherlock Holmes #1. Charlton Comics. Williamson, J., & King, T. (1956). All new baffling adventures of Sherlock Holmes #2. Charlton Comics. Williamson, J., & King, T. (2017). Batman/The Flash: The button deluxe edition. DC Comics, Inc.

Of Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn Branding and Controlling Women in Batman Video Games Carl Wilson

In the collective Batman multiverse, nothing stays static for long. Over the 80 years since Batman was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in 1939, comic book characters have changed with the times along with our understanding of their representation and significance. The Batman multiverse has also been transformed through several points intersecting with other media beyond comics, such as the ­­l ive-action Batman movies and television shows with their animated counterparts. While significant research has already been conducted in these areas, the impact of video games tends to fall outside the remit or scope of these studies (see Madrid, 2016; Cocca, 2016; Hanley, 2017). In the past, this may have been due to a lack of space, time, or inclination; however, the Batman video games are increasingly playing a critical part in this ongoing nexus of signification that continues to feed back into the DC canon and wider culture as a whole. Notably, the women in works associated with Batman tend to operate as supporting characters who, with their increasing number of character variations (the redeemed and the irredeemable; the ­­t wo-dimensional and the sophisticated), provide an amplified insight into the shifting tones and the evolving discourse of female figures in media. Yet, they are also useful in unpacking the technological limitations and genre preferences available at the time as well as the imperatives of the commercial entertainment companies with their multiple media products and marketing strategies. These aspects are all interconnected, even if they do frequently appear to all fall under the one ­­Bat-Signal. 77

78   The DC Comics Universe

“Less wench, more hench” DC Comics is a subsidiary company to Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., which itself is a division of Warner Media, LLC. As another subsidiary company to Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment only began to ­­self-publish video games in 2006; before this, they licensed their properties out to video game companies such as Sunsoft, Konami, and Sega. With several degrees of separation from their own creators and custodians, the early Batman games are largely seen as poor ­­spin-off adaptations of the comics, films, and cartoons, offering little other than a compromised version of a story told better elsewhere (see Nix, 2000). Nevertheless, these licensed titles are significant, in that they are shaped by external factors beyond any notion of releasing a quality video game as a faithful adaptation of a beloved comic book character or series. A particularly dispiriting review of Catwoman (1999) for the Game Boy Color offers “no reason for the Catwoman character over just another Batman game (except, of course, to show off Catwoman’s ample … puppies, if you will)” (Nix, 2000). Yet, Jim Balent’s ­­era-defining ­­seven-year run as penciller on the Catwoman comic was due to finish in February 2000, and “Nintendo claimed that 46 percent of Game Boy users were female, a major leap from 29 percent on the Nintendo Entertainment System” (Stuart, 2014). Therefore, while rushing and releasing a ­­female-driven game inspired by Balent’s recognizable art, capable of attracting a variety of different audiences, in December 1999, it did capitalize on the moment using the resources available at the time to result in a standalone Catwoman video game, although it may not have acquired a prestigious title. This has only occurred once again, when the Catwoman movie was released in 2004. Using reedited footage from Warner Bros. Animation’s animated series The New Batman Adventures (1997–1999), Batman: Gotham City Racer (2001) for the PlayStation is another prime example of this ­­c ut-and-shut approach to adaptation. Here we see poorly presented fragments sitting incongruously between ­­player-controlled car chase scenes that do not match vehicles from the appropriated stock footage. Originally in the ­­one-shot comic The Batman Adventures: Mad Love (1994) and successfully adapted for the series finale of the animated show Mad Love (1999), the story as it was first conceived represents a landmark moment in the evolution of Harley Quinn as a character, something which has been entirely drained of context and significance in Batman: Gotham City Racer—a game created by French company Ubi Soft Entertainment SA only targeting “big U.S. brand[s],” such as Batman, so they could be “recognized as a company that was not only ­­European-centric” (Bertz, 2011).

Of Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn (Wilson)  79 When it comes to comics, Batman editor Dennis O’Neil believed that prior to the mid–80s, “continuity was not important in those days. Now it has become very important. … Continuity is something our audience demands” (Pearson & Uricchio, 1991, p. 23). However, as Will Brooker has shown, “those limits end when DC Comics ends and Warner Brothers, the overarching conglomeration begins” (Brooker, 2000, p. 279). Despite the number of video games that feature the Batman multiverse (40+), none of them attempt to faithfully adapt a Batman comic book. The same is true of all Batman ­­l ive-action movie adaptations. Essentially, various Batman universes can be both official and different from each other, provided they adhere to the Batman brand, as permitted by Warner Bros. This emphasis on multiplicity over singular, canonical fidelity explains how there can be a Poison Ivy that is made of LEGO (in the LEGO Batman series), a Poison Ivy that attempts to end the world with Brainiac’s alien invasion in Injustice 2 (2017), and a Poison Ivy that sacrifices herself to save Gotham from the Scarecrow’s fear toxin in Batman: Arkham Knight (2015). Across these depictions, unifying factors are outside narrative consistency and character continuity: an endless parade of pheromonal kisses being blown, Venus flytrap vagina dentata, and tendrils that shift under her verdant ­­f lora-kinetic control. Poison Ivy’s “­­eco-terrorist” brand fits her well enough to make the character recognizable over dozens of videogame representations, even when she is playing opposing roles or is only a few pixels tall, like in her first video game appearance for Batman: The Animated Series (1993) on the Game Boy. One might make the case that it is also the limitations of branding that prohibit Poison Ivy from having her own video game, especially after a limited number of ­­one-shots, such as the Batman and Robin (1997) and the movie ­­t ie-in Batman: Poison Ivy (1997). She only secured her first solo comic series, Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death (2016), 50 years after her debut in Batman #181 (1966). The “brand” is something Brooker describes as being “a smaller, more contained and more controlled network of texts” which “can overlap, intersect and borrow from each other” (Brooker, 2012, p. 153). By focusing on the brand instead of any one Batman universe, gatekeepers ensure the potential for industrial and creative flexibility. The 1993 Annual Report for Time Warner (predecessor to Warner Media, LLC) specifically refers to the Batman movie franchise (produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures) as the gold standard for ancillary marketing excellence (Owczarski, 2009, p. 56). In accordance with this corporate agenda, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment licensed four different versions of The Adventures of Batman & Robin videogame between 1994 and 1995 across four separate platforms (SNES, Genesis, Game Gear, and Sega CD)

80   The DC Comics Universe and covered multiple genres (­­side-scrolling beat-’­­em-up, ­­bullet-hell, platformer, and racing game) but gave them all the same title and art style— not from a comic book but from the concurrent animated series. Owing to fundamental differences in genre, the presentation of Harley Quinn in these games also drastically varies. Game Gear Harley unfeasibly f lies across the top of the screen in a ­­toy-plane, dropping small, ­­f use-lit bombs on the protagonist, while Genesis Harley appears in a sizable, motorized robot that is equally capable of flight and precision bombing runs. The Sega CD game is considered a “lost episode” for the animated series (Hamill, 2018), with Harley Quinn seen playfully throwing popcorn and careening in her ­­clown-red sports car into a funhouse wall. Based on the animated show, these video games’ Harley Quinns bounce off her animated brand. Harley Quinn’s first appearance is in the television show, Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995), which is retitled The Adventures of Batman & Robin (1994–1995) for the second season, with her first comic book appearance in February of 1994. Understanding the multimedia push behind Harley Quinn is vital for considering her appearances; Harley Quinn is prolifically available and readily adaptable only because she can be concurrently associated with texts outside of the video games. The supporting evidence for this is that Harley Quinn only reappears six years later, across a new trio of Batman video games in 2001, and the same year she is given her own ongoing comic series by DC Comics. When Harley Quinn returns in Batman: Vengeance (2001), she is not another boss fight to be overcome or a ­­c ut-scene joke to be skipped; she enacts a fake “damsel in distress” trope where she theatrically performs as victim Mary Flinn in a story unique to the game. She also earnestly attempts to kill Batman—something that the Joker strongly objects to: “You’re my henchwench. You catch him, I kill him. Less wench, more hench, you ­­molly-coddling little twit. Nobody kills The Bat but me.” In much the same way that Catwoman is significantly defined by her relationship with Batman, Harley Quinn’s plot options are tied to the Joker. By this point, however, the Joker has noticed, perhaps reflexively, that Harley Quinn’s character has evolved in a way that cannot merely be dictated by his own diegetic desires or a singular traditional Batman narrative he believes himself to be following. Harley Quinn’s brand identity is evolving.

“Ugly men and beautiful girls” In 2008, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment published LEGO Batman: The Videogame. According to Guinness World Records, with sales of 13.54 million copies, LEGO Batman is the ­­best-selling superhero game ever

Of Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn (Wilson)  81 released (Plant, 2018, p.108). Building on the success of LEGO Batman and Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009), which was developed by subsidiary company Rocksteady Studios, Time Warner’s earnings statement for 2011 congratulated Batman: Arkham City, Mortal Kombat 9 and several LEGO titles for contributing to their $12.6 billion of profits (Vore, 2012). The following year, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment went on to publish LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (2012), continuing their work with subsidiary developer TT Games. Warner then used another subsidiary company, NetherRealm Studios, to make a DC Comics version of their Mortal Kombat franchise called Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013). Concurrent to this, WB Games Montréal developed Batman: Arkham Origins (2013). The next Batman LEGO title, LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, followed in 2014. The Arkham game, Batman: Arkham Knight, developed again by Rocksteady, followed in 2015. The shift from a licensing structure with external video game companies to one that creates its tentpole games ­­i n-house with a network of subsidiary game developers affords one massive benefit: a greater control over the games as they are made and marketed. Being able to draw upon the entire Batman brand also significantly boosts the scope and scale of what is possible. While earlier ­­t ie-ins were firmly affixed to a preexisting marketable element of the Batman media universe such as the animated series or one of the movies, the games published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment do not have this requirement or limitation. They can, however, dig further into their own mythology for added value and intertextual signification. Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009) was written by Paul Dini, creator of both Batman: The Animated Series and Harley Quinn, while Arleen Sorkin continued to provide her voice in the game. The crucial difference is that, whereas the previous games adapted Batman: The Animated Series wholesale, including its art style and characterization, the “Arkhamverse” games borrow only as many aspects as they require to bolster their own version of the brand. Another way in which the brands continue to be reaffirmed while asking consumers to invest their time and money more deeply in a controlled cycle of releases—which now includes sequels, paid DLC (Downloadable Content) and ­­f ree-to-play mobile adaptations—is through the characters’ costumes. Variant costumes are not especially complex or expensive to implement in games, with them largely being ­­re-skins of existing character models; yet they reward the consumer with ­­c ross-promotional advertising and nostalgic connections while drawing upon the circulating discourses of multiple character histories to reinforce the brand name as a prestige product within a Batman ecosystem. With Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013) both Harley Quinn and Catwoman have unlockable skins with “Arkham City” variations. In LEGO

82   The DC Comics Universe Batman 3 (2014), the player can choose to play the game as three variants: a pre–New 52 comic Catwoman, the New 52 Catwoman, and the Batman (1966) television show’s Catwoman. In the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game Infinite Crisis (2015), various costumes could be unlocked for Harley Quinn beyond her traditional outfit, such as “Bombshell,” which is based on the retro 1940s’ DC Comics Collectibles series of statues but was also adapted into a comic in 2015, the same year of Infinite Crisis. Alternatively, in the mobile game DC Legends: Battle for Justice (2016), players can choose to select “Harley Quinn: The Mad Jester,” but they could also unlock “Harley Quinn: Quite Vexing,” who is dressed differently and based on the Harley Quinn from the Suicide Squad (2016) movie, released the same year. In DC Legends: Battle for Justice, the two Harley Quinns even have distinctly separate stances, ­­move-sets and attitudes, demonstrating how elastic her brand has become. Because of this change in licensing strategy, the ­­i n-house video games can also lean more consciously on a fragmented multiverse presentation. The narrative of Injustice: Gods Among Us even features dimension hopping, while Harley Quinn can be bought as a Team Pack for the LEGO Dimensions game series. As Justin Wigard explains, “superhero costumes define and shape the reader’s first perception of a character in a superhero narrative” (Wigard, 2017, p. 147); therefore, a change in costume is a fundamental reflection of a change in the character’s identity. Working on the first game in the Arkhamverse series, lead character artist Andrew Coombes wanted to give Batman: Arkham Asylum “its own unique flavor of Batman”; thus, his “take on Harley is worlds away from the ­­red-and-black checkered bodysuit worn by the Harley of old, yet she is still recognizable as Harley” (Wallace, 2015, p. 32). The Asylum Harley wears a leather corset and a nurse’s hat; she has ­­pig-tailed blonde hair and wears a choker. Where the Traditional Harley exuded a cheeky ­­noir-derived sexuality, this one has ample cleavage and a bare ­­m id-riff. Asylum Harley is aware of this outwardly facing attitude adjustment, too. When she first appears to the player/Batman, she asks: “How do you like my new uniform? Pretty hot, huh?” While Bruce Timm was hesitant to draw the Harley Quinn of Batman: The Animated Series in a way that was overtly sexual (Barba, 2017, p. 158), David Hego, the Art Director at Rocksteady Studios, found himself returning to his interpretation of the simple brief of “ugly men and beautiful girls” (Wallace, 2015, p. 152). Taken too far from the “fool” outfit that previously defined her character and was a vital part of her brand, Wigard considers Arkham Harley to be wearing a “demeaning and sexually objectified costume” (Wigard, 2017, p. 146). Leaning on another feminine trope, that of the mother figure, toward the end of Arkham City comparatively subtle allusions are made

Of Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn (Wilson)  83 to Harley being pregnant (a positive pregnancy test can be found next to Harley’s Asylum costume). Although this thread fails to be picked up in the same way that it is in the Injustice series of games, Harley’s protective actions in Batman: Arkham Knight over those that have become infected with the Joker’s virulent blood could be interpreted as a maternal desire to keep their children alive as “a whole new generation of Jokers.” Fulfilling the role of the grieving widow in the downloadable story Harley Quinn’s Revenge (2012) for Arkham City, the black ­­veil-wearing Harley has become the revengeful leader of the Joker’s goons. Once captured, she laments, “You should have left me to die! Then I could have been back together … with … Mistah J!” While the widow and maternal characterizations of Harley Quinn in Batman: Arkham Knight may be an attempt to explore different sides of female representation in Batman video games, which are arguably made to fit the “hysterical” stereotype, Harley Quinn’s presence in the Arkhamverse games is best represented when she unironically reengages with the “damsel in distress” trope in Batman: Arkham City (2011) tied to a girder, taped around the waist and ankles, in a sacrificial position of subjugated bondage, where the player is offered the button prompt “Gag/Ungag Harley.” While the trials of Wonder Woman have gone some way to normalize such scenes of domination in comic book narratives (see Madrid, 2016 and Cocca, 2016), giving the player agency in this way seems so much more blatantly exploitative, especially as it represents all that the female character has been reduced to being across the Arkhamverse games: an interactive object. Despite the multifaceted potential of video games, there is a moment in Batman: Arkham City that still makes it clear that the player is following a narrative path set by someone who may envision their iteration of the character to be different from the player’s “­­role-playing” perception of them. In the Catwoman DLC for Batman: Arkham City, there is a moment where the player, who is controlling Catwoman, is given a choice. Batman has been trapped under rubble and requires assistance, but this comes with a loss of the loot Catwoman has thus far worked so hard to steal. The supposed moral dilemma is whether to leave the city or reenter the fray and save Batman. Catwoman herself voices that she is sure Batman will not die because “he’s Batman.” Should the player, however, stay in character and leave Gotham to its own devices, the credits roll, with Oracle providing a voiceover update on events: The Joker has won, the city has fallen, and everyone has died. Batman: Arkham City sets the player up to fail by encouraging a canonically but arguably unethical proper decision and then punishes them for it. The game is so sure that the player will regret playing in a confident manner befitting Catwoman that after the credits

84   The DC Comics Universe finish, the game rewinds back to allow the player to make the “correct” choice for the narrative to continue. To understand why the female figures in these video games are designed differently to their earlier video game iterations, the art style should be considered as modern technology allows for a more “realistic” depiction of a culturally idealized female form for a target demographic audience. Additionally, it is worth considering the explicit sexuality as being symptomatic of the game designers wanting to be edgier in their games, moving away from the sanitized aspects of the earlier video game adaptations to embrace the more mature side of the Batman brand. Parallels and resonances with the comic book industry add further context to the video games. Adam Hughes, one of DC’s artists, summarized the argument most succinctly: “SEX SELLS … Anything a comic book cover artist can do to get you to pick up the issue … he or she should do” (Simonson, 2016, p. 13). With Batman: Arkham City, the women “featured prominently in print and online advertising, their sexuality a selling point for the games” (Barba, 2017, p. 159); however, Adam Hughes’ own cover art for Catwoman #74 (2008), for example, already portrayed a Catwoman with the exact same approach to her wardrobe, literally holding a mirrored frame over her breasts while her face is partly obscured. These aspects of the Batman brand do not legitimize the representations of Catwoman and Harley Quinn that may be found in the video games themselves, but the foregrounding of female sexuality (in both positive and negative ways) for the purposes of making a product saleable is an ineluctable part of the history of Batman’s multiverse. Bob Kane, Catwoman’s joint creator, devised his character to “appeal to the female readers” and offer male readers “a sensual woman to look at” when reading Batman #1 in 1940 (Uslan, 2004, p. 4). Catwoman was not intended to be merely a simple object of lust to men and some kind of inspirational figure to women; she was more complex, being “a kind of female Batman, except that she was a villainess and Batman was a hero” (Hanley, 2017, p. 9). Published in 1954, Seduction of the Innocent, featuring Fredric Wertham’s ­­i ndustry-shaping study of sexuality in comic books, contributed to Catwoman’s disappearance until 1966. When Catwoman came back, in Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #70 (1966), it was also not due to the internal narrative logic of the Batman comic universe; Catwoman reappeared because she was now on the ABC hit television series Batman, and DC Comics wished to capitalize on “Batmania.” Catwoman’s function in the television show was similar to that of her ­­good-girl counterpart, Batgirl: “They decided they wanted to go with someone who would appeal to the ­­over-40 males—hence the ­­spray-on costume—and prepubescent females” (Gross, 2018). With the 1966 television series, Batmania “sent

Of Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn (Wilson)  85 comic books sales soaring” (Hanley, 2017, p. 14). Further tying the Multiverse strands for maximum branding resonances, the comic book Catwoman also changed her costume in 1967, “inspired by Julie Newmar’s catsuit from the Batman TV series,” and again in 1998 as her creators were “inspired by the sexy, black second skin worn by Michelle Pfeiffer in 1992’s feature film Batman Returns” (Uslan, 2004, p. 6). The latest Batman video games continue this trend of exploring visual representations of character to then feed them back into the wider multimedia brand for repurposing. With the New 52 reboot of DC’s comic book line in 2011, “while Catwoman kept the black bodysuit, she now sported a separate cowl. … With all of her other history erased, her depiction in the wildly popular Batman: Arkham universe became the primary influence on how Catwoman was portrayed” (Hanley, 2017, p. 198). Reflecting this sexy “new” version of Catwoman, by the end of Catwoman #1 (2011) she was having sex on the page with Batman. This overtly libidinous escalation of character is then bounced back into the licensed video game, Batman: The Telltale Series (2016), where they also have sexual intercourse, although this time it is more tastefully handled. In addition, weeks before Batman: Arkham City was released, DC Comics also released their New 52 version of Suicide Squad (2011). The Harley Quinn in this team wore the new leather and corset influences of the Arkhamverse. Not only was her Batman: Arkham Asylum red and blue color scheme worked into her new comic book outfit, but her split hair coloring, as it is further developed in Batman: Arkham City, also became a part of her redesign for the Suicide Squad movie. More directly, DC Universe Online (2011), Batman: Arkham City, and Injustice: Gods Among Us have all had their universes extended into ­­best-selling comic book runs. In the Arkhamverse adapted comic, Batman: Arkham Unhinged (2013), Harley Quinn wears her new costume while also having flashbacks to when she was in her original costume. In the short story “Three’s a Crowd,” with story credit given to Paul Dini, Harley Quinn goes so far as to reflexively offer, “I miss the good old days … What happened to the fun, the excitement … the romance? Now it all feels like work…. The ­­soul-crushing kind” (Fridolfs et al., 2013, p. 109). At least in DC Universe Online Legends: Volume 1 (2011–2012), the comic version of Harley fares better than in the video game, where, as a part of the “women in refrigerators” trope (Simone, 1999), her digital death solely functions to develop the character of the Joker. If Arkham Harley has come to represent a lack of growth in terms of female representation, then Injustice Harley is her counterpart. The end sequence of Injustice: Gods Among Us features a scene that would be unimaginable for every iteration of video game Harley that has come before her: she marries the Joker, then “years of abuse took its toll.

86   The DC Comics Universe Something in Harley snapped. She used the ceremonial knife to slash Joker’s throat.” By Injustice 2, Harley is in charge of the Batcave and wears the Bat symbol on the back of her jacket. By the end of her narrative, Batman offers Harley Quinn a place in the Justice League, and she plans to be reunited with Lucy, her daughter created within the Injustice comic series. As Batman explains to Green Arrow: “She’s a different person since the Joker died. Mostly.” This aspirational version of Harley Quinn, who is developed in the fighting game genre—ironically, a genre traditionally poor on expositional motivation for its characters—is more in line with the Harley Quinn from the current comics, who has turned away from the Joker and aligned herself with Poison Ivy. Unlike other Harley Quinn’s, this one offers, “I don’t know about ‘genius,’ but I do got a Ph.D.” After 25 years of character development, in Injustice 2 Harley Quinn is not presented as a basic “henchwench” villainess: her brand has expanded to promote the image of a conflicted ­­a nti-heroine. Examining the representation of female characters in comics and film, Jennifer K. Stuller offers that just because an image isn’t progressively satisfying, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t pleasure or empowerment to be found. Conversely, just because a character may have liberatory potential, it doesn’t mean she, or he, shouldn’t be met with critical engagement [Stuller, 2010, p. 6].

By beginning to unpack the cultural discourses that circulate around female figures within Batman video games, Catwoman and Harley Quinn are shown to have adapted and evolved in ways that demonstrate the relevance of video games to their character development, the flexibility and dynamism of their brands, and the Batman universe as a whole. The enduring popularity of these recombinant figures, with their ebb and flow between multiple roles—such as the autonomous femme fatale (or the foolish sidekick) and the sophisticated antihero (or ­­blindly-villainous lover)—is complicated by their revolving ­­c ross-industrial statuses. The emphasis on profitable pleasures can shift based on the dominant cultural form, just as progressive development can be waylaid by emergent industrial opportunities. Batman: The Telltale Series disrupts any canonical expectation of characterization and the “bad girl” brand in the Batman multiverse. While Vicki Vale plays the Lois Lane role across the Batman canon, at the end of this narrative she is revealed to be Lady Arkham, the leader of an anarchist organization and the central antagonist of the story. As with the adult Arkham and Injustice series of games, the age of player engagement, the targeted/marketed demographics, and the suitability of certain types of female representation here intersect—not just in terms of violence

Of Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn (Wilson)  87 but also of emotional maturity and complexity. Yet, despite the increasing sophistication of the Batman video games and the strategies surrounding their creation, the representation of women within these digital worlds has always been more complex than as ­­end-of-level bosses, tantalizing bedfellows, or the optional clothes that they can wear. It may be modulated, partially obscured and refocused over time, but the ­­Bat-Signal has always included cats and harlequins.

References Barba, I. (2017). Problematic fave: Gendered stereotypes in the Arkham video game series. In S.E. Barba & J.M. Perrin (Eds.), The ascendance of Harley Quinn: Essays on DC’s enigmatic villain (pp. 157–167). McFarland. Bertz, M. (2011). Ubi uncensored: The history of Ubisoft by the people who wrote it. Game Informer. https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/12/06/­­u biuncensored.aspx Brooker, W. (2000). Batman unmasked: Analyzing a cultural icon. Continuum. Brooker, W. (2012). Hunting the Dark Knight: ­­t wenty-first century Batman. I.B. Tauris & Co. Cocca, C. (2016). Superwomen: gender, power, and representation. Bloomsbury Publishing. Fridolfs, D., Dini, P., ­­Halpern-Graser, M., Crocker, P., & Hill, S. (2013). Batman: Arkham unhinged. DC Comics. Gross, E. (2018). Yvonne Craig embraces her Batgirl legacy in a recovered interview [speech transcript]. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:­­O K4Hstg6D8J:https://www.closerweekly.com/posts/­­batgirl-yvonne-craig-158218/+&cd=21&hl =en&ct=clnk&gl=uk. Hamill, M. [@HamhillHimself]. (2018, December 8). “Yowza Yowza, Ladies & Germs!”- A “LOST” BATMAN EPISODE. I remember recording for this project, but I never owned a Sega game console, so this is the 1st time I’ve seen this footage. Joker comes in around 8:15 & features the only time I ever referred to Bats as “Guano”! [Tweet]. Twitter. https:// twitter.com/HamillHimself/status/1071387248317337600?s=03. Hanley, T. (2017). The many lives of Catwoman: The felonious history of a feline fatale. Chicago Review Press Incorporated. Madrid, M. (2016). The Supergirls: Fashion, feminism, fantasy, and the comic book heroines. Exterminating Angel Press. Metacritic. (2019). Game Releases by Score. Metacritic. https://www.metacritic.com/ browse/games/score/metascore/all/all/filtered?view=condensed&sort=desc. Nix, M. (2000, February 2). Reviewed on GBC: Catwoman. IGN. https://uk.ign.com/ articles/2000/02/02/­­c atwoman-11. Owczarski, K.A. (2009). Reacting synergistically: Batman and time warner. The Business of Entertainment: Volume 1: Movies. Greenwood Press. Pearson, R., & Uricchio, W. (Eds.). (1991). The many lives of the Batman: Critical approaches to a superhero and his media. Routledge. Plant, M. (2018). Guinness world records: Gamer’s edition 2019. Jim Pattison Group. Simone, G. (1999). Women in refrigerators. LBY3. http://www.lby3.com/wir/. Simonson, L. (2016). DC comics covergirls. Chartwell Books. Stuart, K. (2014). Nintendo Game Boy—25 facts for its 25th anniversary. The Guardian. https:// www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/21/­­n intendo-game-boy-25-facts-for-its25th-anniversary. Stuller, J.K. (2010). ­­Ink-Stained Amazons and cinematic warriors: Superwomen in modern mythology. I.B Tauris & Co Ltd. Uslan, M. (2004). Catwoman: Nine lives of a feline fatale. DC Comics.

88   The DC Comics Universe Vore, B. (2012). Warner Bros. earnings up partly due to Arkham City and mortal kombat. Game Informer. https://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/08/­­w arnerbros-earnings-up-partly-due-to-arkham-city-and-mortal-kombat.aspx. Wallace, D. (2015). The art of Rocksteady’s Batman. Abrams. Wigard, J. (2017). Harlequin, nurse, street tough: From ­­non-traditional harlequin to sexualised villain to subversive antihero. In S.E. Barba & J.M. Perrin (Eds.), The ascendance of Harley Quinn: Essays on DC’s enigmatic villain. McFarland.

Shipping Supergirl Discovering and Defending Lesbian Identity Through a DC Fandom Katherine Pradt

Can a fantastical episodic drama brought out of a comic book become a locus of ­­real-world affirmation, community, and empowerment? Can the essentially passive act of enjoying narrative fiction be transformed into an act of defiance? In fact, that not only can happen—it has. Because of the alignment of values between marginalized communities, accidents of Hollywood casting and storytelling, and the sweeping power of production and dissemination now allowed to millions through digital media, a TV show can attract a following that can transform the show’s mainstream messages into a collage representing its own concerns. Whether these foundationally linked but dramatically different constructs can coexist is a question that rests on the uneasy détente between the corporate media producers—The Powers That Be, in fan parlance—and the fans, who bring their own stories to life within a fictional universe created by those producers. Enter Supergirl, Supergirl, and the Supergirl fandom. Two worlds collided—or, to be more precise, a group of people who are both fans of a DC property and refugees in search of a place to make their own colonized a corner of the DC Universe. This could look like an inspired, imaginative act of cultural creation and preservation or an egregious invasion of another’s intellectual property, depending on one’s perspective. This essay takes the former view. It is the author’s contention that a group marginalized both in media and in society—lesbians—working in a marginalized activity—fanfiction—has created an ­­awe-inspiring collective project that provides a lifeline to a community desperate for representation. The cartoonist Alison Bechdel, creator of Dykes to Watch Out For and the graphic memoir Fun Home, made a pithy and unforgettable comment about the 89

90   The DC Comics Universe lesbian community during a talk at the University of Minnesota in 1990: “We are starving for images of ourselves.” These words encapsulate perfectly and succinctly a basic truth of lesbian existence and, more widely, of queer existence. Even adults secure in their identities want to see reflections of themselves in the wider culture as affirmations of their own existence, and they suffer when that does not happen. This is true tenfold for LGBTQ+ teens, attempting to develop and maintain a self within communities that ignore or gloss over their very being. Because queerness is usually invisible from the outside, queer teens may believe themselves to be completely alone even if, in fact, they do know others who are LGBTQ+ (and those others may believe themselves to be alone as well). Thus, the emergence of an LGBTQ+ identity is often experienced in isolation (Gordon, 2001; Zimmerman et al., 2015). That isolation can now be somewhat ameliorated with the advent of the Internet. While an LGBTQ+ teen’s ­­real-world, quotidian existence may be as solitary now as it was in 1970, the digital world has created the possibility for desperately needed connection (Craig & McInroy, 2014). Online networks offer new ways to communicate with other similarly isolated people, and simple kinds of validation are available to kids. ­­Web-based message boards and forums have become flourishing queer communities; social media is an instantaneous if sometimes treacherous network of peers. No matter what values we hold concerning media and how we want it to affect us, the world created by media is overwhelmingly powerful—and overwhelmingly straight. Examining the recent history of LGBTQ+ characters in fictional media highlights the sorry state of representation: queer characters are few (there are 70 LGBTQ+ characters among the 773 series regulars on scripted primetime broadcast TV [GLAAD, 2021]), trivial (the number of those who are lead characters can still be counted on one hand), isolated (television nearly always portrays LGBTQ+ characters singly or, occasionally, in pairs within a cast of otherwise straight characters), and endangered. The toxic trope of gay and trans characters dying at a scriptwriter’s whim, long known as “Bury Your Gays,” came to a bloody zenith in 2016, when more than a quarter of all recurring queer female characters on broadcast and cable television were killed (at least 25 of 98 [GLAAD, 2016]). The most galling of those meaningless “dyke deaths” may have been Lexa’s on The 100 (2014–present). The dystopian, ­­s ci-fi teen drama had seemed to be getting it right in many ways, and it had become a cult hit among young lesbians. Lexa, the fierce, brooding head of a postapocalyptic tribe, and Clarke, the leader of the titular group of 100 adolescent exiles from a decaying space station, had enjoyed a slow ­­build-up in which they progressed from antagonists to allies back to enemies and finally to lovers.

Shipping Supergirl (Pradt)  91 The story was handled in a natural way, with genuine chemistry allowed to build between the characters, and the nonissue of their both being women was refreshing. Then, after they slept together in season 3, episode 7, Lexa was immediately and pointlessly murdered. She got out of bed, walked through the door and was struck with a bullet meant for her lover. To anyone watching the episode, there could not be a clearer or more gruesome message: queer sex is followed by instant, violent punishment. The young queer and ­­queer-allied women fans did not accept the turn of events with resignation or mute sorrow; instead, they erupted. They orchestrated a brutally effective Twitter campaign, trending the hashtag #LGBTFansDeserveBetter and drawing media attention to their outrage (Donald, 2017). Moreover, their fury begat a new and now annual conference a full year after the incendiary episode: ClexaCon (named for the portmanteau moniker given the ­­Clarke-Lexa couple), a convention for queer women involved in media fandoms. The Clexa legacy, buttressed by the body count of ­­women-loving women (WLW) that continued to grow through 2016, changed something fundamental in the way ­­real-life WLW interact with the media they consume, and that change came to define the fan following of another more recent queer favorite, Supergirl. When the arc of a show does not go where fans want it to, they will fix the development themselves, writing stories or making videos that tell alternate, invisible, or completely reimagined versions of the scripted and produced material (a.k.a. canon). It is here, in the volumes of ­­fan-created material based on the DC Comics property, that we witness a powerful example of an underrepresented community forming a network that fills its own needs for images of itself. The concept of “queering” material that is produced for a mainstream and implicitly heterosexual audience is not new, of course. The Wizard of Oz, to look at one ­­well-known example, is layered with decades of queer meaning in both production and interpretation, despite its having been created to appeal (successfully) to the broadest, straightest population it could reach (Fawaz, 2016). Queering everything from literature to management theory is an academic commonplace and has been an active practice for thirty years (Halperin, 2003). What is different about Supergirl fans’ queering their chosen show is the source—consumers—and its aim, which is not simply to drape queerness over extant media but to ­­re-imagine it from the ground up. The Supergirl fan art community is active, vocal, interconnected, and overwhelmingly queer: and not generically queer, but made up of queer women. It would be impossible to digest (much less document) the entire output of Supergirl’s fan culture. However, the Supergirl fandom and the

92   The DC Comics Universe culture that has grown up around it can be at least partially understood by examining one medium—fanfiction—and a single (albeit enormous) collection it. “Archive of Our Own” is a ­­fan-created project dedicated to the presentation and preservation of fan art in a number of media and in thousands of different fandoms. As of this writing (September 2021), AO3, as it is colloquially known, hosts more than eight million works. Supergirl’s fans alone have created more than 35,000 posts in the six seasons that the show has been on the air. Fanfiction—also styled as “fan fiction” or merely “fic”—is, to give it the simplest definition, fiction written by the followers of a series, movie, book, or other extant creation. These new stories occur within an existing fictional world, featuring characters from that world. Sometimes fanfiction follows from the events that were created by the original work’s author/creator; sometimes it rewrites those events; sometimes it borrows only characters and relationships and places them in an entirely new environment. In a vast majority of fanfiction, romance plays a key role, if not always a starring one, and sexually explicit fanfiction is common. The ubiquity of the theme can be seen in the fact that nearly every work hosted by both AO3 and the older platform FanFiction.net is tagged not with “romance”— some kind of romantic or sexual coupling is all but assumed—but with the gendering of the relationship: F/F (for female/female, denoting the pairing of two women), M/M (male/male, for a gay male pairing), M/F, and beyond (i.e., polyamorous relationships). The featured relationships can mirror those in the original media, or they can be invented by the fans creating derivative works. In fanfic’s lexicon, these couplings are referred to as ships, and the practice of conceiving, discussing, describing, and promoting these ships is shipping (verb and noun). It may seem puzzling that fanfiction, especially that based on a ­­plot-driven action show, is so heavily focused on romance. It is a received fact that romance is dominated by women, both as writers and readers (Thulwell, 2017); it is usually agreed that fanfiction is also dominated by women (Lothian, Busse, & Reid, 2007). That could explain, at least in part, the domination of fanfiction by romantic concerns. In the popular imagination, fanfic is often perceived as synonymous with porn or at least erotica. This is in part because of the popularity (and notoriety) of a specific vein of ­­fan-written romantic/sexual ­­re-imaginings: slash, which pairs male characters in gay relationships. Interestingly, most slash fiction appears to be written by heterosexual women, as demonstrated not only by writers’ ­­self-identification but by the concerns of the stories and the rather improbable sex described as occurring between men. The analogous version involving women is usually called femslash, although the term is not often used by fan writers themselves. Though

Shipping Supergirl (Pradt)  93 slash is often written by straight women, most femslash appears (in the literature survey done for this work, which was necessarily limited) to be written by lesbians. To understand the particular passion of the Supergirl fandom, we must consider what members of fan communities are getting from their fan activity. Fan art is one of the rare outlets that adults in our society have for free, imaginative play; once childhood ends, imaginative experience is expected to be limited to the passive consumption of media, and fanfiction is a way of breaking out of this. Writing fanfiction— and to a lesser but real extent, reading it—makes the daydreams spawned by beloved narrative fictions into something that can be shared and communed over (Barnes, 2016). Fandom creates and encourages a sense of community, which has become vanishingly difficult to find in modern society. This sense of belonging is not based only on a shared taste, which would be a weak affinity on which to found community; a fandom has a camaraderie based on otherness. To create fan art is to participate in a ­­non-mainstream, somewhat scorned activity, and the level of investment that is required could easily be considered obsessive. Fanfiction is routinely denigrated as derivative, uncreative, nerdy (and not in a good way); it is frequently derided and actively discouraged by the creators of the foundational works. The community feeling of fanfiction writers can be described as a shared sense of defiant embarrassment as much as it is a shared experience of creation. Another rarely discussed benefit of fanfiction is the way it encourages the imaginative exploration of sexuality in a way that few other activities in our lives do. As oversexualized as contemporary American culture is, there are almost no outlets for genuine investigation of individual sexual desire. In fanfiction, however, romance can lead to explicit sex, as it never does in broadcast media. The writers’ wish fulfillment is certainly a part of this, but it may be more accurate, and certainly more interesting, to look at the sexual explicitness of F/F fiction as resulting from a freedom that conventional media does not have. In fanfiction, the narrative does not artificially end when the characters fall into bed, as it does in literary fiction or mainstream film and TV. It is only convention (and more prosaically, the content limitations prescribed by the FCC) that prohibits story from proceeding from romance to sex; it certainly is not the lack of power that sex has in human existence, or the unimportance of the events that transpire between people in bed. On the contrary, sex is intensely revelatory of emotional and personal truth, and the specifics in a sexual encounter have as much narrative power as a kitchen table conversation, a courtroom exchange, or a car chase. Fanfiction’s focus on sex is not uniquely or necessarily queer. The freedom to be uninhibited about sex, however, does have a particular weight for

94   The DC Comics Universe LGBTQ+ people, particularly women and girls, and it has become part of the common ethos observable among the Supergirl fandom. Models for queer adolescent girls to learn about sex are essentially nonexistent as sex education in American schools, as cursory and controversial as it is, emphasizes contraception and safer sex, and little to no thought or attention is given to sex as a locus of pleasure (Fine & McClelland, 2006; Oliver et al., 2013). What does such a curriculum offer to a young woman who is sexually active (or wants to be) with other women? Where does she learn about the sex that she wants to have? While sexually explicit material might seem to indicate an adult creator and audience, many Supergirl fanfictions offer strong evidence that, in many cases, both writers and readers are young. Writers make references in authors’ notes to exams and classes, which readers echo in comments; they create alternate universes (AUs, fics that use characters and relationships from the show but in utterly different circumstances) in which the Supergirl dramatis personae is in high school or college. As these AUs receive large numbers of reads (a statistic easily visible on most posts), one can be reasonably sure that they have a similarly youthful audience. Most tellingly, descriptions of sex show unmistakable similarities in vocabulary and mechanics from story to story and author to author, demonstrating that they are learning from each other about sex that they have probably never had. Certainly, not all Supergirl fan creatives are adolescents, and even some ­­school-age AUs may be written by older fans. Other Supergirl fiction, however, shows not only a more mature worldview but a set of shared and loosely related preoccupations that surface again and again, making the collection a cultural document as well as entertainment. Similar plots and situations come up over and over in all fanfiction, which is part of the game: the ­­fake-dating AU, the coffee shop, the ­­memory-loss gambit, and so on. Fanfiction is a genre rife with tropes. However, some concerns repeating in Supergirl fics are specific to a lesbian sensibility and to the need for representation of the lived events in lesbian lives. Plots involving parents, especially mothers, being hostile to their daughters’ sexuality are common; coming out stories are also a staple, with many variations—happy and unhappy—of the basic theme; unsurprisingly, the “falling in love with her best friend” story is told many times in many ways. Supergirl stories also establish a set of community norms and values. The circle of friends from the broadcast show is transformed into a circle of LGBTQ+ friends, reflecting the structure of most queer people’s lives. Being out in the workplace is also frequently addressed, as indeed it is in the show—although in the series, the question concerns being out as an alien and/or a superhero. Over and over, the Supergirl universe proves itself to be remarkably well suited to contain the narratives of queer women.

Shipping Supergirl (Pradt)  95 On a literal level, the show makes the parallel between coming out of the closet and emerging as a superhero an explicit one. In the first season, Kara Danvers (Supergirl’s ­­m ild-mannered alter ego) and other characters often refer to her emergence as Supergirl as “coming out.” In the pilot episode, Kara’s attempt to tell her friend Winn that she is Supergirl is misconstrued as an attempt to reveal that she is a lesbian. Moreover, the story arc of Kara becoming Supergirl—or, more appropriately, Kara’s true power and heroic nature emerging from hiding—is a quieter but deeper and more complete reflection of a coming out narrative. Kara’s struggle to hide her true nature in deference to the wishes of the people closest to her, and her ultimate realization that she cannot be happy unless she is able to express her full self, are obvious analogs to the ­­real-life experience of being closeted and coming out. The character’s ongoing maintenance of a (deceptive) ordinary human identity is unnervingly similar to the experience of a queer person who has come to a realization of identity but remains in life circumstances that require living in the closet. Kara is marked by her otherness, her alienness: not only is she from another planet and has suffered the loss of her home, family, and entire planet; she has abilities that give her great power but set her apart and make her, in some ways, a threat. Many of the show’s queer fans must also have had a life experience that has cost them intimate relationships in exchange for the freedom and power of a fully realized existence. There are other reasons for Supergirl’s queer following. The show was also blessed with good timing, introducing both explicitly and implicitly lesbian material in the show’s second season, after the Great Lesbian Bloodbath of 2016. Alex Danvers, Supergirl’s human foster sister and a central character in the show, went through a painfully real coming out process by realizing that she was a lesbian following the appearance of and her attraction to police detective Maggie Sawyer (an out lesbian transposed from the comics, where she appeared first in Superman and then in other series, including Gotham Central, Batwoman, and DC Bombshells; beginning with Detective Comics #856, Sawyer was a romantic interest of Batwoman’s). A Supergirl producer, in response to questions about the slew of WLW’s deaths on TV, made it clear that his show was not planning to bury its lesbians. “They’re not dying, either of them,” he told The Hollywood Reporter (Bucksbaum, 2016), which made it easier for queer women to become attached to Alex and Maggie. Another character introduced in season two was Lena Luthor, billionaire businesswoman and sister of the archvillain Lex Luthor. The friendship that sparked between Lena and Kara Danvers immediately became a tease for queer fans. Whether the show plays up the homoerotic

96   The DC Comics Universe subtext purposefully or not, the chemistry between the actors playing Lena and Kara far exceeds anything that either has mustered with a male love interest. This presages another fascinating quirk in the Supergirl fandom, which becomes evident on a closer study of how the stories are distributed among character relationships. Alex is canonically lesbian, and the storyline has given her romantic life as much or more attention than those of other characters. Interestingly, however, the relationship between Alex and Maggie is not the most popular focus of fanfiction, nor is Alex’s subsequent involvement with psychiatrist Kelly Olsen. Stories that instead feature the pairing of Kara and Lena, known colloquially as “Supercorp,” outnumber Alex/Maggie (“Sanvers”) stories nearly three to one (AO3, 2021), and dwarf the output of stories that deal with Alex and Kelly. Fans have seized on the relationship that does not explicitly exist in the show: Supergirl’s relationship. Why is it so important to the show’s queer fans that the lesbian narrative includes Supergirl? One reason is, of course, that Supergirl is important. Supergirl is not only at the center of the show and is not merely a powerful female figure; she is, according to the canon itself, the strongest being on the planet. She is not a hero among many in a fictional universe lousy with heroes; she is the hero, the champion of Earth. Additionally, her backstory, her secret identity, her lonely alienness, the sense that she is ever in danger, are all resonant with the experience of being a lesbian in a heterosexual world. Of course lesbian fans want her to be a lesbian and willfully perceive her as one. Even if Supergirl/Kara were not engaged in a flirtatious exchange with Lena Luthor, she would be an obvious focus for queer women’s hunger for images of themselves. In “Fanfiction as Imaginary Play,” Jennifer Barnes observes that fanfiction “ref lects both emotional engagement with and resistance to the source material” (2016, emphasis mine). The emphasis is added here because this idea is both crucial to understanding fanfiction and a truth rarely understood outside the world of fandom itself. The practice of writing fanfiction is not an obsequious form of gratitude; it is transformative. It wrests control of media away from its creators and into the hands of its consumers, and it does so in the service of the consumers’ emotional needs. For example, in season 3, Maggie Sawyer’s character had to be written off the show (the actor playing her did not want to return to a series regular role), and the writers chose a puzzling and culturally ­­tone-deaf way to do it. The relationship arc was compressed enough in their first season together: the characters met in season 2, episode 3; they got together in episode 8; and Alex proposed marriage in the season 2 finale (episode 22). The breakup arc, however, was dizzying. Their first real conflict was

Shipping Supergirl (Pradt)  97 introduced in season 3, episode 3, and they broke up in episode 5. The issue over which the pair split was believable enough (one desperately wanted children, and the other definitely did not). The audience was expected, however, to swallow the notion that a couple who was engaged to be married had never discussed so fundamental an issue but that their relationship had otherwise been perfectly healthy. Fans were predictably scornful, bemused, and hurt that the show’s single queer relationship had been so carelessly jettisoned, and they expressed their feelings vocally on social media and fan sites (LGBT Fans Deserve Better, 2017). The writers had hurtled the characters toward marriage and then jerked them apart, making the relationship seem immature, ­­i ll-considered, and ultimately trivial. Fanfiction, however, has actively worked to heal this wound. Years after Maggie Sawyer was last seen on Supergirl, Sanvers stories are still being written and read. The manner in which the cast and production staff has handled the fan investment in the Kara/Lena relationship has also been wobbly. Officially, of course, the production has nothing to say about a plot development that has never actually happened and almost certainly will not. In the media, though, producers and actors have juggled the question awkwardly or even insultingly (Smith, 2017). Despite this discouragement from The Powers That Be, Supercorp roars on, adding between three and four hundred stories a month to the AO3 collection. Finally, the central queer character continued after her first relationship and breakup in relative isolation from other LGBTQ+ people. The first episode of season 4 did see the introduction of a trans character, Nia Nal, and later, in episode 15, of Kelly Olsen, who would become Alex’s ongoing love interest by season’s end. Still, that Alex Danvers appears to have so few ­­non-straight friends is baffling. The lived reality of most LGBTQ+ people is community, and Alex’s lack of LGBTQ+ peers can be explained only by the producers’ unwillingness to display that reality on mainstream TV (or their ignorance of it, which is hardly better). Fanfiction, again, has repaired this problem. In the worlds created by fan authors, the series regulars—James Olsen, Winn, even Kara’s mother and aunt—become a queer supporting cast. Even among the fans of a relatively ­­gay-positive show, clearly, there remains an urgent drive to rewrite the canon, because only with significant amendment can that narrative reflect and sustain the lives of a marginalized minority. Some fans produce fanfiction because it is an exercise in engagement with a beloved story. Supergirl fanfiction answers a deeper call. The practice of fanfiction is not merely a pleasant diversion; it is a survival technique, a way to correct the record, fight invisibility, and create community memory.

98   The DC Comics Universe

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Batgirl of Burnside The Normalization of Diversity in the DC Universe Hafsa Alkhudairi

In Batgirl of Burnside, Cameron Stewart and Babs Tarr introduce diversity without overt tokenism or overemphasis. Diversity is here portrayed as a natural and normal part of the narrative. Although the main protagonist is White and female, which is typical of superheroines in general, all the characters are highlighted tastefully, empowering them to have a personality and a life outside of their interactions with Batgirl, Barbara Gordon. Since the story takes place while Gordon is completing her PhD, it is easy to imagine diversity as the status quo. The characters are seamlessly included in every part of Gordon’s life, stretching from being her colleagues at school to her roommate’s coworkers. Their differences are assimilated, and they are not “othered.” Furthermore, the assimilation of diverse characters extends into her heroic life; The villains are not ­­power-mongering White men, femme fatales, or cultural stereotypes, but they do not tend to be ­­well-rounded, which is problematic. According to Sherry Arnstein, during her time as a special assistant to the assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, in the paper A Ladder of Citizen Participation, “There is a critical difference between going through the empty ritual of participation and having the real power needed to affect the outcome of the process” (216). Tokenism exists in that space in between; It is to include someone who does not match the rest of the group’s demographics to create an illusion of inclusion. Tokenism can extend to friendship groups, universities, fictional characterizations, and pop culture shows and books. Sadly, such tokenism is the reality of most diverse characters in comics; they tend to be portrayed as the single signifier of their genders, sexualities, ages, ­­able-bodiedness, neurodiversity, or religions. Even then, 100

Batgirl of Burnside (Alkhudairi)  101 characters tend to be stereotypes or idealistic versions of those diverse groups. Historically, the inclusion of a minority character, tokenism or not, was considered radical because they did not exist seamlessly in the comic universe. At a time where all characters were White, DC introduced their first Black superhero in 1972 (Mackay, 2007). Although these Black token characters could have been considered innovative at the time of their introduction, these standards no longer satisfy the contemporary audience. Currently, these groups and characters’ diversity can also be overexaggerated and become a generalization. Their narratives are sometimes so reductive that the characters could be considered fan service; in other words, a way to placate fans rather than developing rounded and nuanced people. The overexaggerated and generalized version of a minority character is most often burdened to represent their community. These characters lack normalcy because they are not examples of human variations. In his essay about Black characters in superhero comic books, Marc Singer, associate professor of English at Howard University, notes that “the potential of superficiality and stereotyping here is dangerously high” (2002). Although his argument remains specific to Black characters, Singer reinforces the idea that most diverse characters are not nuanced, misrepresenting their background through being characterized as diverse, despite an emphasis on stereotypes that no longer reflect these groups of people. However, Singer suggests that contemporary comic books and their writers are less inclined to create superficial or stereotypical characters, instead emphasizing “more nuanced depiction” and “show complex considerations” of a minority character’s identity (2002). Minority characters are developing agency and are stepping away from tokenism, shallowness, and simplification, i.e., the “lack of depth of character, insight, or serious thought” (Lexico Dictionaries, 2019). Although the number of diverse characters in comics has increased, and their depictions have become more layered since 2002, Singer’s analysis of minority characters’ identity in comics still holds. The increased number of diverse characters in comics means that their identities are being represented either as ­­f ully-fledged nuanced characters or as part of the demographic distribution of background characters. Although Batgirl of Burnside by Cameron Stewart, Brendan Fletcher, and Babs Tarr revolves around Barbara Gordon during her PhD, she isn’t only finishing her studies, she is also fighting crime, and checking her social media while being physically surrounded by diverse people (2015). Despite how the accusations against Stewart retracts his credibility in creating female characters and makes his writing suspect, some of these characters are unique and nuanced, representing the complexity of diverse characters (Grunenwald, 2020). Some of these are refreshingly unique and

102   The DC Comics Universe nuanced, representing the complexity of diverse minority characters, such as race, gender, age (to an extent), sexuality, disability, and neurotypicality. Although the representation of disability could be considered a weakness in the narrative, Gordon’s neurodiversity is apparent through her intelligence and her past trauma. Still, Batgirl’s lack of disability is explained away owing to a miracle cure, which could be considered a disservice to her and her fans with disabilities. Although the book does show her struggle and strength as a person with disability, one of the key diversities wins for the representation of the group. As ­­p op-culture journalist Jill Pantozzi has expressed, “Every hero has a defining moment that makes them who they are. Batgirl didn’t. Oracle did”—referring to Batgirl’s identity as a person with a disability and, as such, a strong representative character of how people can be heroes with or without a disability. However, this controversy was aimed mostly at the New 52 reboot with Gail Simone as a writer, famous for coining the “women in refrigerators” trope, colloquially known as “fridging.” The basis of the trope is violence against women— often concluding in murder—for the sake of furthering a male character’s narrative and portrayal. Barbara Gordon’s paralysis is a result of fridging. In The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, John Higgins, and Brain Bolland, the Joker shoots Gordon to prove to her father, Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon, that even the sanest man can go crazy (1988). Hearing and understanding the fans’ objections, in her run, Gail Simone incorporated the concerns of fans with disabilities with a “miracle” cure an advantage that heroes in the DC Universe have (Cocca, 2016). Simone ensured that the character still suffered from ­­Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and still had the experiences of a person with disability to ensure that Oracle’s fans would not be completely dismissed (Cocca, 2016). In addition to Batgirl’s lack of disability, the most apparent types of diversity in the graphic novel are visual ones such as race, religion, and gender. The minority groups represented ensures that diversity in comics ref lect diversity beyond comics. The use of people from different backgrounds, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality is more fluid. The diversity in the narrative and the harmonious existence of the characters helps fulfill the missing representation of minorities because the characters have a life outside of Gordon’s narrative. They are assimilated into the narrative instead of othered, and introduced a variation of normalcy.

Existence In Batgirl of Burnside, diverse characters exist in every page, reinforcing how prevalent people of different races are in the United States.

Batgirl of Burnside (Alkhudairi)  103 According to the U.S. census, 39.3 percent of Americans are of ethnic origins, and 50.8 percent are women (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). Furthermore, 4.5 percent of Americans identify as ­­non-heteronormative (Statista, 2019). These numbers are increasing yearly and reveal a significant change in the American demographics since the beginnings of comic books. However, the demographics inside the comic book universe seems to have stalled comparatively: the percentage of diverse characters have not met those of the world beyond comics (Cocca, 2016 and Phillips & Strobl, 2013). Despite low percentages, the number of diverse characters increases yearly as readers’ demographics change, when comparing the numbers from online Facebook fandom statistics year after year (Schenker, 2016/2017/2018). The fandom’s change in demographics indicates a need to meet the new demographics’ expectations and reality. Hence, presenting a multicultural and diverse cast, Batgirl of Burnside delivers a sense of reality and of meeting the expectations of readers’ demographics. In a series of scenes surrounding the main villain of the series, Gordon (as Batgirl and herself) fights in the middle of a concert (Stewart et al., 2015). During the fight, images cover the different audience members’ reactions to how the events unfold (Stewart et al., 2015). Although not all aspects of diversity are apparent—as all diversity cues available to the reader are visual, there is a more or less equal divide of gender and an admirable mix of different races or ethnicities. These people are background characters and are not meant to be our focus, but the presentation of ­­non-homogeneity expresses forethought and effort from the creators, especially the artist. The inclusive design of the background characters shows an effort to incorporate the world beyond comics into the comics universe as well as an ambition to offer readers a representation of themselves. Reflecting the readership and the reality beyond comics constitutes a push toward the normalization of diverse characters and their existence in superhero narratives without the burden of solely representing their whole group. Still, diverse characters do not merely exist as background characters, supporting Batgirl’s narrative, but they continue beyond the protagonist’s life. Although the main protagonist is White and female, the characters are highlighted tastefully, empowering them to have a personality and a full life outside of their interactions with Gordon. These characters are integrated fluidly into the narrative without sacrificing their own characterization. According to Nickie Phillips, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at St. Francis College, and Staci Strobl, associate professor in the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at City University of New York, in Comic Book Crime, the inclusion of minority characters has increased; still, they remain subpar and problematic as they are not of substance or

104   The DC Comics Universe quality (2013). Despite an increase in representation, minority characters are not as fully fledged or nuanced as their White, male, heteronormative counterpart, especially when they remain secondary/supportive. However, as mentioned before, and as supported by Singer, nuanced minority identities are increasing. Batgirl of Burnside does not dismiss its diverse characters; the narrative allows the characters’ agency and a chance to develop beyond their interactions with Gordon—as herself or Batgirl. The most interesting example is when Gordon moves into her new apartment with both her new and former roommates surrounding her (Stewart et al., 2015). The narrative introduces the two most important people to the character and the plot right away. These women are both of color and have jobs and presence outside of Gordon, her alter ego Batgirl, and her PhD. Her former roommate, Alysia Yeoh, speaks about attending and planning protests and the subsequent backlash she faced, whereas her new roommate, Francine Charles, who she met through physical therapy, works as a coder at Hooq, a dating application similar to Tinder (Stewart et al., 2015). Despite, their importance to the plot in terms of how useful their jobs are to solving some of Batgirl’s problems. They are not side characters but secondary characters with their own loves, hates, storylines, and experiences; moreover, their jobs imply their independence from Gordon/Batgirl. Their independence gives their characterizations value outside of the protagonists needs and wants—they are nuanced enough and successful enough to be needed in the narrative beyond Gordon. The characters are part of the society they live in, contributing to its development and being normal. Hence, the diverse characters in Batgirl of Burnside exist beyond the protagonist, presenting themselves as a normal part of the comic book universe and not as a unique representation of their minority group.

Environment As a college student, Barbara Gordon is exposed to people from different minority groups during her studies. Batgirl of Burnside emphasizes diversity by presenting people from different racial, gender, age, and religious backgrounds at the university that Gordon attends. Although other types of diversity do exist within the university environment, the one surrounding Gordon is of the obvious sort. However, if the rate of diversity she is exposed to is consistent with the rest of the disciplines within the university, the university seems to be impressive. On average, national universities in the United States of America tend to be around 0.49 on an index scale ranging from 0.77 for Rutgers University—Newark in Newark, New Jersey, and 0.11 for the University of Texas—Rio Grande Valley

Batgirl of Burnside (Alkhudairi)  105 in Edinburg, Texas, understanding that the closer to 1, the more diverse the university (“Campus Ethnic Diversity: National Universities,” 2018). The index indicates all national universities include at least the most minimal amount of diversity, and no university is completely diverse. In terms of representation in Batgirl of Burnside, the characters surrounding her indicate that she is attending one of the universities with a higher diversity rate. Hence, the narrative’s presentation of diversity surrounding Gordon is easy to normalize. In a meeting with her professor, a White male, Gordon is accompanied by Nadimah, a research assistant who is visibly Muslim and wears a headscarf (Stewart et al., 2015). Nadimah presents her work, and they assess her theory and algorithm (Stewart et al., 2015). Her brother, Qadir, soon enters the room followed by Frankie (Stewart et al., 2015). This series of events depicts the manner in which Gordon surrounds herself with people of different backgrounds naturally, despite Frankie not being part of her university group. The only person who does not have a diverse background is her advisor; yet, he is older than the others, presenting age as a factor of diversity. Nadimah described him as “ancient” despite being only 32 years old, revealing how young the group is in comparison (Stewart et al., 2015). Her group reinforces the idea of the university’s diversity of gender, religion, and age. Furthermore, each character adds to Gordon’s education in some way: the professor supports her thesis, Nadimah reinforces her ideas, and Qadir attempts to help her with her missing algorithm (Stewart et al., 2015). From the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Eve Fine, associate scientist and director of curriculum development and implementation, and Jo Handelsman, director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, wrote a brochure called “Benefits and Challenges of Diversity in Academic Settings” that includes many references to studies on this subject (2010). The brochure indicates that universities and students alike benefit from diversity as people from minority groups tend to offer new ideas, challenge the old ones and raise questions and concerns when needed (Fine & Handelsman, 2010). Hence, the different characters adding value to Gordon’s studies provide a realistic exploration of the contemporary university environment. Such diversity of characters should be part of the fabric of reality in the comic universe because it reflects the world beyond that universe. Moreover, it reflects the normalcy of diversity in universities. The rate of diversity outside Gordon’s university life is consistent with her life within, stretching from her colleagues at school to her roommate’s coworkers, integrating seamlessly in every part of Gordon’s life. Even Frankie’s work associates are evidence of this. Their differences are assimilated, and they are not “othered.” Such assimilation provides a chance for

106   The DC Comics Universe better work and results from those who worked in diverse teams (Konrad et al., 2014). However, minorities work better in teams where they are not the sole diverse representation (West et al., 2008). Workplaces need diversity to be more successful, yet they require more than tokenism in their representation to be able to work efficiently and effectively. Frankie inviting over a group of colleagues into the apartment she shares with Gordon to work on a Hooq programming issue portrays the value of the group, adding depth to their presence (Stewart et al, 2015). Their strengths complement each other. Although Frankie introduces them as Max and Phil, the latter, who seems to be of Asian descent, is the only one whose background is mentioned, which is Forensic Data Recovery for the police (Stewart et al., 2015). Although Max probably does compliment the team’s work, Phil’s introduction could be a segue into the rest of the narrative as he worked on one of Batgirl’s cases. Yet, it could be also related to an emphasis on how he is also a representation of diversity in his workplace. Still, Frankie’s need for help and using these characters’ help shows the difficulty of the problem and the need for new, different, and fresh perspectives to help solve the app’s problems. Additionally, she calls in a team of diverse people—including two from minority groups—alongside herself and Phil, to work better and more efficiently. Hence, as with the university’s environment, the realism of the series of events brings to light the normalcy of diversity and reflects everyday life for many readers, especially those from minority groups.

Villains In Batgirl of Burnside, even the villains are diverse. They are not the ­­r un-of-the-mill, evil, White men bent on revenge or accumulating power. However, those that are Anglo might yell out “don’t tell my moms,” implying their being raised by a lesbian couple (Stewart et al., 2015). Furthermore, the villains do not follow any cliché narratives such as that of the femme fatale or any racial or religious stereotypes. However, these villains shake up the statistical averages of the comic book industry. According to details concerning Black and female characters, they are less likely to be cast as villains than White, male characters (Ritvik, 2018 & Hickey, 2014). These studies conducted focused on female and Black characters because they are more visible than most groups. Although this could be considered a positive move, eliminating prejudices and bigotry toward such minority groups, the lack of minority villains indicates a lack of creative genius or ambitions for power relating to these groups. Further, it reinforces the White, male privilege as well as a lack of agency of minority

Batgirl of Burnside (Alkhudairi)  107 groups—especially if their villainous representation is a clichéd reiteration of stereotypes rather than a creative reimagining. However, Stewart, Fletcher, and Tarr give minority villains a role typically reserved for White, heteronormative males with a twist. The four main villains of the first volume are Oracle, Riot Black, Dagger Type, and the Jawbreakers Yuki & Yuri Katsura (Stewart et al., 2015). Of these, Riot Black could be considered the least interesting because he fits the idea of a ­­power-hungry, male villain. However, he has a computer brain and is possessed by Oracle at the end of the volume (Stewart et al, 2015). Oracle is an algorithm believing itself to be Barbara Gordon and Batgirl, employing the application Hooq to trap Frankie and collect data on people in an attempt to eliminate the human version (Stewart et al., 2015). The use of Oracle as a villain could be considered disrespectful to her fans; however, the storyline addresses Barbara Gordon’s authenticity, expressing readers’ fears of losing the character’s growth (Stewart et al., 2015). As a character, Oracle forces Gordon to defend herself and the writers to present their ideas (Stewart et al., 2015). On the other hand, Dagger Type could be considered ­­gender-f luid. The character appears at first in a glittery suit with a female body, then proceeds to present themself as a male in ­­B atgirl-like costume without the long hair (Stewart et al., 2015). Finally, the Jawbreakers are ­­a nime-inspired villains of Asian descent (Stewart et al., 2015). All the villains are different than those in most comic books; their diversity shows that no one group of people can have villains, and their purposes, privileges, and experiences can diverge and evolve from the status quo. These representations ensure that the narratives of both heroes and the villains are not dominated by one group of people. Although their representation as villains is just as important as that as heroes, the issue with minority villains involves the role of diversity in the narrative. If they are the sole representative of their unique set of diversity, the burden of representing the people of their minority group falls upon them. In general, “there are few representations of heroic minorities, leaving the impression that when minorities are represented in media, they are to be feared” (Phillips & Strobl, 2013). The lack of diverse heroes is problematic because some minority groups are underrepresented in comics, yet they are portrayed as villains. This villainous representation can imply that the minority group represented should not be trusted and is inherently evil; therefore, some of the villainous representations are a disservice to these groups, if not balanced out by a heroic or neutral character of the same background. Although most characters have two sides, Dagger Type is the best example of diversity with ­­one-sided representation. Whether ­­gender-fluid or ­­gender-unspecific, which is great for representation in general, most are

108   The DC Comics Universe the only representation of someone breaking gender norms. They dress as Batgirl both in female and male forms as well as ensure that their clothes are glittery (Stewart et al., 2015). In addition, they take boudoir photos of themselves dressed as a ­­non-glittery female version of Batgirl (Stewart et al., 2015). Yet, when Dagger Type try to out themselves as Batgirl on a stage with a huge number of attendees, they present themselves in a glittery male version of the Batgirl, and the crowd uses the pronouns he/ him (Stewart et al., 2015). Although the character was addressed as such, and their last appearance is in a male suit, their ­­gender-bending acts could make Dagger Type a representation of a minority group; however, no other character represents the same group or presents any ­­gender-bending characteristics. Moreover, if the character was meant to represent transgenderism or ­­nonbinary-ness, then the sole representation of the character being villainous is a disservice to the whole group. The need for both heroic and villainous representation is to ensure a balance, eradicating any bias toward a minority group. However, the lack of indication of gender gives space for interpretation and removes the responsibility of representation from the character. Likewise, it allows space for the character to act as villainous as possible without tarnishing the reputation of a singular minority and causing fear toward that group. Still, the inclusion of the ­­gender-bending Dagger Type is important to the comics industry to introduce normalcy to their existence within and beyond the comic universe. Hence, despite the drawbacks of minority villains, it still presents a variation to the average villain in superhero comics, inducting the minorities into the narrative without stripping away their normalcy.

Conclusion Diverse characters lack normalcy in contemporary comic books. Despite being protagonists, parts of a larger superhero group, or villains, they and their identities are still invisible. They are not created as characters that exist in the fabric of the comic universe’s reality or as characters that exist beyond the scope of the narrative. When it comes to side characters from minority groups, they are even more invisible and fulfill their roles and have no existence outside of it, whether they are geniuses or just guides to the neighborhood. Many minority side characters tend to be attacked or killed after being used. Phillips and Strobl note that “[o]ne of the most striking observations about race and ethnicity in contemporary American comic books is the virtual invisibility of racial and ethnic minorities as characters” (2013). No matter their status in the narrative,

Batgirl of Burnside (Alkhudairi)  109 in contemporary comics, most diverse characters’ identities are unclear, making them invisible because their diversity is skin deep. Despite the increase of nuanced and developed characterization, Batgirl of Burnside’s normalization of diverse characters could be considered unique to this narrative and should be regarded as the origin of the visibility of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and other expressions of identity in contemporary superhero comics.

References Arnstein, S.R. (1969). “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 216–224. Cocca, C. (2016). Superwomen: gender, power, and representation. [Kindle edition]. Bloomsbury Academic. Fine, E., & Handelsman, J. (2010). Benefits and challenges of diversity in academic settings. University of Wisconsin–Madison. https://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Benefits_ Challenges.pdf. Grunenwald, J. (2020, June 18). Multiple women accuse Cameron Stewart of sexual misconduct. Retrieved from https://www.comicsbeat.com/­­c ameron-stewart-sexualmisconduct-allegations/. Hickey, W. (2014). Comic books are still made by men, for men and about men. FiveThirtyEight. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/­­women-in-comic-books/. Konrad, A., Prasad, P., & Pringle, J. (2014). Handbook of workplace diversity. MTM. Lexico Dictionaries, Powered by Oxford English Dictionaries. (2019). Shallowness. https:// www.lexico.com/en/definition/shallowness. Mackay, B. (2007). Hero deficit: Comic books in decline. The Star. https://www.thestar. com/news/insight/2007/03/18/hero_deficit_comic_books_in_decline.html. Moore, A., Higgins, J., & Bolland, B. (1988). Batman: The killing joke. DC Comics. Oxford Dictionaries. (2019). Tokenism. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ tokenism. Phillips, N., & Strobl, S. (2013). Comic book crime: Truth, justice, and the American way. New York University Press. Ritvik. (2018). The state of Black characters in comics. Ritvikmath. http://ritvikmath.com/ BlackCharactersInComics/. Schenker, B. (2016/2017/2018.). Facebook fandom archives—Graphic policy. Retrieved from https://graphicpolicy.com/tag/­­facebook-fandom/. Singer, M. (2002). “Black skins” and White masks: Comic books and the secret of race. African American Review, 36(1), 107. doi: 10.2307/2903369. Statista. (2019). LGBT—American adults who identify as homosexual, bisexual, or transgender 2012–2017. https://www.statista.com/statistics/719674/­­a merican-adults-whoidentify-as-homosexual-bisexual-or-transgender/. Stewart, C., Fletcher, B., Tarr, B., Koh, I., Wicks, M., Fletcher, J., & Hitch, B. (2015). Batgirl of Burnside. Batgirl, Vol. 1 (First Edition). DC Comics. U.S. Census Bureau (2019). QuickFacts: UNITED STATES. https://www.census.gov/ quickfacts/fact/table/US/RHI825217. U.S. News (2018). Campus ethnic diversity: National universities. https://www.usnews. com/ ­­best-colleges/rankings/­­national-universities/­­c ampus-ethnic-diversity. West, M., Tjosvold, D., & Smith, K. (2008). International handbook of organizational teamwork and cooperative working. Wiley.

From Boy to Man The Power of Shazam and Idealized Self-Image William Battle

What can a superhero’s appearance tell us about their character? For Batman, his modern, ­­a rmor-plated costume reinforces the vulnerability that comes from his lack of superpowers. For John Constantine, his trench coat and street clothes show that he is meant to be an ordinary man, which contrasts with the extraordinary situations he ends up in. Cyborg does not wear a costume, instead showing his conflicted dual nature as half man, half machine with pride to the world. If a superhero’s costume could be considered to be pulled from their subconscious, an example of literal ­­w ish-fulfillment, then the superhero’s appearance would not just say something about the hero, but about the other identity behind it. This is most true of Captain Marvel, or as some versions of him are known today, Shazam. There are elements of Captain Marvel and his supporting characters personalities that are not directly spelled out to the reader but instead implied through the decisions made by the artists in designing their costumes and heroic appearances. With his first appearance published in December 1939 (­­cover-dated February 1940), just 20 months after Superman and nine months after Batman, Captain Marvel is one of the earliest true superheroes to hit the newsstands. Originally published by Fawcett, the publisher’s characters were licensed by DC in 1972. Ever since then, Captain Marvel and his supporting characters have been published as part of the DC multiverse in various forms, the newest series starting in December 2018. Before the DC’s New 52 initiative in 2012 heavily reimagined the characters’ costumes, relationships, origins and even names, the DC versions of Captain Marvel and friends had gone relatively unchanged since their being published by Fawcett. DC even gave the Fawcett characters 110

From Boy to Man (Battle)  111 their own world in the Multiverse, Earth Five, where the continuity of the Fawcett stories stays intact to this day. As these versions of the characters have lasted over 80 years it makes sense to focus on the Earth Five incarnations of the Marvel Family in the first instance. This is not to ignore interesting elements from DC’s various Earth Prime/One incarnations of the character; however, the Earth Five versions are considered by many the core, true versions of Captain Marvel and the “Marvel Family.” No matter the version, almost every published appearance of the character share a few things in common. Billy Batson is always a boy who has experienced homelessness, aged between 10 and 14. He meets a wizard at the Rock Of Eternity who gives him the ability to call down magic lightning and become a superhero imbued with the powers of Solomon, Hercules, Achilles, Zeus, Atlas, and Mercury when he calls out the name Shazam. Over the course of the stories the Marvel Family grew. Billy Batson ends up meeting his estranged sister Mary Bromfield, who gets her own version of the powers of Shazam and takes on the name Mary Marvel. Billy also shares his powers with his mortally wounded friend Freddy Freeman, who then must call out the name Captain Marvel to become the superhero Captain Marvel Jr. There are other characters who are considered part of the classic Marvel Family, including two talking animals, three other Billy Batsons and a powerless Uncle Marvel. Still, Billy, Mary, and Freddy are the core family unit and so deserve the bulk of the attention. One of the most intriguing parts of the powers of Shazam are the transformative effect their have on their users. When Billy calls the Wizard’s name and is struck by the magic lightning, his body is transformed into that of an adult along with gaining access to his various superpowers. When Mary and Freddy do the same, they gain powers equal to Billy, wear similar looking costumes, but retain their teenage bodies. When asked about this discrepancy, ­­long-time artist C.C. Beck said only that “Mary and Freddy looked the same and … Junior’s costume was blue … because the Fawcett management ordered them to. We workers in the art department had nothing to say about such affairs and I had no voice in such matters.” (as cited in Hamerlinck, 2001, p. 143). Intentionally or not, this explanation disregards the semiotics of this choice and what it connotes to the reader about the characters. For characters who are considered by writers like Mike Kunkel as the “very core children’s ­­w ish-fulfillment” (as cited in Smith, 2017), one has to consider what the differences in their transformations imply about the characters and their wishes.

112   The DC Comics Universe

Billy Batson Maybe it was the publication of Action Comics no. 1 (cover date June 1938), which established the primary conventions of the superhero genre—the selfless ­­pro-social mission, the superpowers, the codename, the costume, the origin, ­­science-fictional science, and the urban setting [Coogan, 2011].

As Billy is the first to receive his powers and acts as the core of the Marvel Family it makes sense to start with him and his alter ego, Captain Marvel. From a consumer and genre perspective, Captain Marvel’s appearance makes a lot of sense. It’s undeniable that Captain Marvel follows on from genre conventions set in place by Superman’s debut a year earlier. In the foreword to The Shazam Archives Volume 1, Richard Lupoff describes how Fawcett’s shift into comics publishing would be built around “a costumed ­­super-hero who would stand toe to toe with Superman” (1999) and so Captain Marvel came to be. They both were ­­d ark-haired Caucasian men who fought crime wearing bright colors, a cape and a logo on their chest. They both had super strength, super speed, and even alliterative alter egos. Even the covers of their first issues echo each other. On the cover to Action Comics #1, Superman famously lifts a green car aloft in a feat of strength. When designing the cover to Captain Marvel’s first appearance in Whiz Comics #2 (Parker, Beck, 1939), artist C.C. Beck shows Captain Marvel not only lifting a green car full of criminals but casually throwing it flying headfirst into a brick wall. In this, Captain Marvel’s creators seem to be actively trying to ­­one-up the hero that inspired them. The plan worked, because the height of its popularity, Captain Marvel was far outselling Superman on the newsstands, in fact, “the ­­best-selling comic book title (Captain Marvel Adventures) sold more than fourteen million copies [in 1944]” (Lavinie, 1998, p. 34). Despite their similarities, several elements set Captain Marvel apart from The Man of Steel. The biggest one of these is, of course, the nature of their alter ego. Superman was created as an adult with an adult alter ego, Superman and Clark Kent will always be the same age, height and build as each other. On the other hand, Billy Batson is a boy with the power to become a grown man. According to Zack Smith, “As the story goes, in 1939 Roscoe Kent Fawcett commanded his crew to create a character like Superman, only with an identity of a boy aged 10 to 12” (2017). This lets the creators tell stories about not only an adult superhero but also about a child the same age as their target reader and have them be one and the same. One would assume this was intended to make the character more relatable to young readers. “A child sees Billy as a peer,” (Cremins, 2017, p. 13) something that is a lot less likely for the adult Superman. This is another

From Boy to Man (Battle)  113 compelling reason for why Captain Marvel showed such newsstand dominance over his main rival over at DC. Captain Marvel’s costume was designed specifically to set him apart from Superman and other more fantastical superheroes. When asked about the design, artist C.C. Beck explained the thought behind many of the elements: While Superman’s costume was essentially the ­­old-time circus strongman’s outfit of tights and long cape, Captain Marvel’s was an ­­operetta-style soldier’s uniform. He wore a sash, a ­­jacket-like top, tight pants (not tights), and had a small, ­­braid-trimmed cape flung over one shoulder when he first appeared. Such a costume was often worn by drum majors, doormen, or ushers. It wouldn’t have been out of place even on the streets in those days [as cited in Hamerlinck, 2001, p. 30].

Despite the bright colors or ­­l ightning-bolt emblem, Captain Marvel’s costume was designed to be recognizable and relatable to 1940s readers. The relative mundanity of Captain Marvel’s costume is even reinforced to the reader in the first issue. In Whiz Comics #2, Billy’s mission is halted by a big, brutish doorman. That doorman is wearing a bright red and yellow outfit, complete with yellow sleeve marks that match Captain Marvel’s own. Captain Marvel is meant to be a believable hero, one who is based in reality and takes his cues from the world around him. The first issue takes time to make Captain Marvel look as much like a part of the world of the narrative rather than an entity who stands apart from it. This idea of taking inspiration from the world around oneself is key to this theory of what the form Captain Marvel takes tells us about Billy Batson as a character. When Shazam bestows power on to Billy, he does not tell him he will become an adult. He does not tell him he will get a red costume with a cape, or boots. In Whiz Comics #2, after demonstrating his control of the magic lightning, telling Billy he is worthy and explaining what the powers of Shazam are, the wizard’s exact words are “By speaking my name you can become the mightiest man in the world—Captain Marvel!” (Parker, Beck, 1939). Shazam says that Billy is to become his successor, implying he already wields the same powers, but he wears a long wizard’s cloak and only bears a passing resemblance to the man Captain Marvel will become. It seems that the powers of Shazam and Captain Marvel himself do not come with a specific form a user will take when they use them. The reader is shown they are transformative, but they are also deeply magical and mystical, so few hard and fast rules easily apply. When other characters gain the powers of Shazam, their transformations differ in various large and small ways. No one becomes the spitting image of the wizard Shazam, and no one looks identical to Captain Marvel either. In fact, the only thing all of these transformations have in common is the act of transformation itself.

114   The DC Comics Universe The author argues that calling out the magic word gives the user the powers of the six deities they are invoking and transforms the user in a way that normally bestows on them an emblem of the magic lightning. Beyond that, the transformation appears to vary depending on the user and what they have been told the transformation will do. Again, Billy is told he will “become the mightiest man in the world” by the wizard (Parker, Beck, 1939), so it seems Captain Marvel’s appearance tells readers a lot about what being a mighty man means to Billy Batson and in turn what it says about Billy’s ­­self-image. The reader is told a few things about Billy Batson in his first appearance, things that remain true in nearly all versions of his story. Two of the biggest parts of Billy’s character before his transformation are that he is experiencing homelessness and is an orphan. In Whiz Comics #2, it is revealed that Billy sleeps in the subway station and sells newspapers to survive. The wizard Shazam also explains that Billy was left in the care of his uncle, Ebenezer Batson, after his parents’ deaths, but Ebenezer kicked Billy out to get access to Billy’s inheritance. The American National Center on Family Homelessness says that “the impact of homelessness on the children, especially young children, is devastating” (Bassuk, DeCandia, Beach, Berman, 2014) so Billy is leading anything but an easy childhood. When framed in this way, Billy’s transformation from boy to man is easy to understand. As a child experiencing homelessness, Billy is in a clear position of vulnerability and he was put into that position by an adult. It is also adults who buy his newspapers and give him the money to keep living. Adults are the ones with power in Billy’s life, so when he is given the ability to transform into someone more powerful, that someone is always going to be an adult to Billy Batson. Once one understands why Billy becomes an adult the next question is why Captain Marvel looks the way he does. One must consider where Billy may have got the idea for that outfit, as well as what inspired the way his face looks. As mentioned earlier, the outfit was designed from the beginning to be similar to outfits that were around and worn in the 1940s. Billy’s previously mentioned interaction with the ­­red-and-yellow clad doorman in Whiz Comics #2 is even more telling when looked at in this light. As a child experiencing homelessness looking for places to sleep, a doorman is one type of adult Billy would interact with more than most. Yet again, they represent someone in a position of power over Billy, being able to choose whether he sleeps in the warmth of a building or outside in the cold. The inclusion of this character and interaction in the same issue Billy first transforms conveys to the reader that when manifesting Captain Marvel, Billy has pulled some costume elements, particularly the color scheme, from people like this and applied it to his ideal powerful self, actively or otherwise.

From Boy to Man (Battle)  115 Most of the rest of the elements seem to be inspired by the rank of captain he was bestowed by the wizard, Shazam. The sash, the ­­f lap-fronted jacket, the cape, and the sleeve markings are all elements of American naval uniforms from the 1940s and earlier. When told he would become an entity called Captain Marvel, Billy has equated the rank of captain with the concept of a naval captain and used that to inform the design of his costume. The costume out of the way, one needs to consider where Captain Marvel gets his face. C.C. Beck is credited as saying he based Captain Marvel’s face on actor and Double Indemnity star Fred MacMurray “who was known as a pretty ­­down-to-earth guy” (as cited in Hamerlinck, 2001, p. 28). While this may have worked for Beck as a point of inspiration, there is no narrative reason for Billy to idolize MacMurray or even that he exists in the world of Captain Marvel. Later appearances and adaptations have offered more compelling explanations of Captain Marvel’s visage. In Alex Ross and Mark Waid’s seminal Kingdom Come, Billy appears as an adult, having “grown into the spitting image of the Marvel of old” (Waid, Ross, 1996). This would imply that instead of being an imagined ideal ­­g rown-up, Captain Marvel is simply a superpowered version of Billy as an adult. In this way he doesn’t invent a face, he simply gains the face Billy will get himself in around 20 years’ time. There is another strong candidate to explain Captain Marvel’s appearance and it is notably the explanation that seems to inform Geoff Johns most recent run with the character in the backups of Justice League (Johns, Frank, 2011) and in Shazam (Johns, Eaglesham, 2018). That is the idea that Billy bases Captain Marvel’s face on that of his absent father. For a more classic interpretation of the same concept, however, one must turn to Jerry Ordway and Peter Krause’s The Power of Shazam #1 (1995). In this issue, Captain Marvel runs into Billy Batson’s cousin, Sinclair Batson. When the two meet, Sinclair is struck by the familiarity of Captain Marvel’s face and voice. He says that Captain Marvel is a “dead ringer for [his] uncle Charlie” (Ordway, Krause, 1995) The graphic novel that preceded the series (Ordway, 1994) established that Billy’s father was called C.C. Batson (after Beck) and that the first C stood for Charles (or Charlie). Freud said that “God is, psychologically, nothing more than an exalted father” (1969, p. 39). In this way, Captain Marvel is an exalted version of Billy’s father; he is an idealized version of the father Billy barely knew, the father who Billy can call on any time he likes to help solve problems he cannot solve alone. Put all together, it seems that Billy bases his idea of strength and power from the people he sees around him. He is a child in a dangerous situation who sees adults as the ones with the power. He either wants to

116   The DC Comics Universe grow up as fast as possible, or he wants the father he lost back to help him deal with life’s ups and downs. Either way, a holistic reading of Captain Marvel’s character design tells the reader a lot more about Billy Batson, his issues and desires than thinking of his costume as some simple ­­golden-age silliness ever could.

Freddy Freeman Freddy Freeman did not make an appearance until Whiz Comics #25 but when he did, he changed the rules of Captain Marvel storytelling forever. He was introduced in a ­­multi-part crossover story with Fawcett’s own Bulletman and was injured during a battle between Captain Marvel and the villainous Captain Nazi. This really hit home very early in the superhero genre the collateral damage that could ensue from the types of high action fights that were filling the shelves. Also, for the very first time, Captain Marvel was taking on the Shazam role and bestowing power upon another. Freddy Freeman was a young boy, just like Billy, but the incident had broken his back, left him without the use of one leg and on the brink of death. In the issue, Captain Marvel rushes Freddy to where he got his powers, the Rock of Eternity. There, Captain Marvel literally takes Shazam’s seat on the throne and shares a portion of his power with Freddy. Freddy comes to and calls out Captain Marvel’s name in surprise. Even more surprising is the fact that saying Captain Marvel’s name transforms Freddy into the superhero Captain Marvel Jr. The biggest difference between Captain Marvel and Jr. is that Jr. retains his teenage body when he transforms. To understand why, one must examine what the reader is shown of Freddy Freeman before his transformation. When the reader are introduced to Freddy in Whiz Comics #25, he is a regular boy who lives in the same town as Billy Batson going fishing with his grandfather. He helps his grandfather rescue Captain Nazi from the lake, before the villain kills his grandfather and breaks Freddy’s back. From that point until he is given powers, Freddy is unconscious and possibly not going to survive the night. The first and last thing Freddy sees before and after transforming is Captain Marvel standing over him. In terms of his costume, Captain Marvel Jr. wears a slightly simplified version of Captain Marvel’s costume in blue. Freddy knows that his powers are based on Billy’s and so he seems to have “chosen” a costume based on the source of them. The author would argue the costume is simplified because Freddy does not have the same life experience that inspired the form that Captain Marvel’s costume would take. Growing up in a

From Boy to Man (Battle)  117 town protected by Captain Marvel, Freddy would associate being a superhero directly and almost entirely with Captain Marvel. From a color theory standpoint, Jr.’s blue and yellow costume not only reflects the limited color palette of golden age comics, but also “lack[s] the red boldness of those seeking or destined to be front and center” (McLachlan, 2016). The cooler blue reinforces Freddy’s position as a secondary Captain Marvel, compared to Captain Marvel’s costume, that “combine[s] the exciting bold passion of red with the energy and ostentatious nature of yellow … [and] ­­accent-wise, Shazam’s white cape conveys his purity” (McLachlan, 2016). It would seem that because Freddy is given his powers in a life or death situation, after having lost the use of one of his legs, this is why he does not physically transform beyond becoming ­­able-bodied and healthy. In the moment he is given powers he is not told he will become the mightiest man in the world like Billy was. He is being given powers to save his life and that’s exactly what they do. Captain Marvel Jr. takes the form of what a dying, paralyzed boy would want most, to just be healthy and normal again. The abbreviated, ­­fast-moving nature of Golden Age storytelling means that the original telling of Freddy’s origin offers very little to justify this, but Ordway and Kraus’ The Power of Shazam #7 gives an explicated explanation that fits exactly with the author’s own theories. Captain Marvel asks the wizard, Shazam why Freddy does not turn into adult and Shazam responds that “Freddy’s subconscious has projected an idealized form based on his appearance before the accident” (Ordway, Krause, 1995). The creators of this reboot seem to have drawn similar conclusions from what is implied in the ­­Golden-Age stories as the author. The forms heroes transformed by the powers of Shazam take are idealized versions of themselves.

Mary Bromfield The final member of the core Earth Five Marvel family is Billy’s biological sister, Mary. Mary has a different surname to Billy because unlike her brother, Mary was raised by loving, wealthy parents as their own instead of being left on the streets to fend for herself. Now that it has been firmly established that the powers of Shazam turn the user into an idealized version of themselves based around what they are told before they first use those powers, it must be established how Mary changes and work out what this conveys to readers about what Mary considers her ideal self. In the original Golden Age stories, Mary was the last of the trio to gain her powers. In Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (Binder, Swayze 1942), after discovering that she is Billy’s sister, Mary is the only member of the trio who is not gagged by a gang of crooks. The first time she transforms it

118   The DC Comics Universe is by accident when she uses the word Shazam in a sentence, and then she uses those powers to save Billy and Freddy. Unlike Billy and Freddy, Mary is not actively bestowed her powers. Later in the issue, Shazam explains that he always knew Mary would reconnect with Billy, so he made a version of the powers of Shazam for her based on a group of female deities, ready for her to use when the time was right. In the original story, Mary’s appearance doesn’t change at all except for gaining a version of Captain Marvel’s costume, feminized with short sleeves and a skirt. This idea of Mary not physically changing beyond gaining a costume is reused in Jeff Smith’s Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil (1989) limited series, even though this version ­­de-ages Mary to be around five or six. It makes sense that Mary does not age much if at all when becoming Mary Marvel. She does not need to save herself from dying, she does not want to be a strong ­­g rown-up to help her survive on the mean streets, or replace the parent she lost. When readers are introduced to Mary, it is as someone who has been brought up by loving adoptive parents, the Bromfields. She is a happy, ­­well-adjusted young woman who seemingly wants for nothing, so the powers give her nothing beyond the abilities themselves and a costume based on Mary’s assumption of how someone with those powers dresses. Mary has had the least traumatic experience of any of the Marvel family, so she will be the happiest with her ­­pre-superpowered appearance and this is reflected by the relative lack of transformation Mary experiences when she uses the powers of Shazam.

The Shazam Family: Reborn In 2011, DC used their ­­l ine-wide crossover event, Flashpoint (Kubert, Johns, 2012), to introduce radically different versions of Billy, Freddy, Mary and even the power of Shazam itself. In the alternate universe of the event, the three original members of the family were joined by Eugene Choi, Darla Dudley and Pedro Peña. Together with Billy, Freddy and Mary, each of the six children were bestowed an aspect of the wizard Shazam’s powers, instead of the full set. When they all called out the name Shazam at once, they transformed and combined into a single character, Captain Thunder. Visually, Captain Thunder is almost indistinguishable from the classic versions of Captain Marvel beyond a scar on his face and a white circle behind the ­­l ightning-bolt emblem on his chest. This incarnation has only ever appeared in two issues, Flashpoint #4 (Kubert, Johns, 2011) and #5 (Kubert, Johns, 2011), which makes the internal psychology and logic of this transformation difficult to decipher. ­­I n fact rather than being based on character psychology, this choice in

From Boy to Man (Battle)  119 transformation seems to have been chosen as a callback to the very earliest days of Captain Marvel’s creation. Before penning Captain Marvel’s debut in Whiz Comics #2, writer Bill Parker’s original idea was a “group of six heroes, each with a different power” (Polowin, 2003) of the Shazam acronym, before exec Ralph Daigh decided they should be combined into a single character with the name Captain Thunder, soon renamed to Captain Marvel. In Flashpoint, writer Geoff Johns pays tribute to this history by bringing Parker’s original idea to life, if only briefly. This ­­short-lived incarnation gave life to a new version of the Marvel—now Shazam—Family that would return Billy and Mary and Freddy to their first ongoing series since the 1990s and Billy his first film appearance since the age of the film serial. In the ­­u niverse-wide New 52 relaunch that followed, a new Billy Batson appeared in the ­­back-up stories of Justice League (Johns, Frank, 2012). This new Billy met a new version of the Wizard at a new Rock Of Eternity just as in Whiz Comics #2 and was given the power to transform into a magically empowered form, this time simply called Shazam instead of Captain Marvel. The wizard tells Billy that he must “say it with purpose. With belief. With good intentions. With thoughts of your parents and your family. Say it and you will be transformed into your greatest potential” (Johns, Frank, 2013). Unlike earlier versions, the idea of family is at the core of the new mission statement behind Billy’s powers. It is also made explicitly clear that the body he transforms into is drawn from Billy’s “greatest potential.” Shazam’s new costume shares the red, gold and white color scheme from his classic costume, but with none of the naval, military or formal dress elements that informed the classic design. The ­­f lap-fronted fabric jacket is replaced by a ­­form-hugging ­­spandex-like superhero body suit. The classic, short cape is replaced with a full length, hooded cape that seems to draw more from hooded, magical characters of western fantasy and anchors Shazam’s role as “magic’s champion” (Johns, Frank, 2013). In this version of the story, Mary and Freddy are joined by Eugene, Darla and Pedro as Billy’s foster family. Despite the presence of loving foster parents in the form of Rosa and Victor, as foster children, the entirety of this new Shazam family have experienced similar separation from their parents as Billy always has. This goes some way to explain why, in the climax of Shazam Vol. 1 (Johns, Frank 2013) and in its film adaptation Shazam (Sandberg, 2019) they all take on adult bodies when the powers of Shazam are shared with them. In their superpowered forms, their body shapes do vary, but this seems tied more to the idea of each taking on creator’s idea of their “greatest potential” based on their bodies as children rather than any personal ideas of what their ideal body may be as an adult. Unlike Billy, they do not choose to transform for the first time in their

120   The DC Comics Universe comic debut and are instead transformed by Billy. Unless the reader is meant to infer that Billy chose his foster siblings’ superpowered forms, the only narrative conclusion that makes sense is that the magic lightning has much stricter rules in this version and will only bestow upon the holder the strongest and fittest form their genetics will allow, also known as their “greatest potential.” Each of the Shazam family wears a version of Billy’s costume in a different color, apart from Mary who shares the color red with Billy as she did in her first appearance. The narrative reason for them sharing similar costumes continues from their golden age versions. They know that Billy is the source of their powers and so manifest costumes based upon his. Another aspect of the characters and the power of Shazam that has changed in the move to the Shazam Family is each member of the family is the guardian of one of the powers that makes up the letters of the word Shazam. This is not explicitly stated in the Justice League (Johns, Frank, 2012) ­­back-up stories or the 2018 ongoing series that followed it, but Geoff Johns assigned powers to each member of the family during Flashpoint (Kubert, Johns, 2012) and these choices are reflected in their actions in their continued appearance. Eugene controls the wisdom of Solomon and demonstrates this by being able to communicate with technology. Pedro possesses the strength of Hercules and is shown performing numerous feats of strength. Mary is said to carry the stamina of Atlas, and Freddy shows the power of Zeus by flying most of the time he is transformed. Billy Batson leads the family using the courage of Achilles, and Darla uses the speed of Mercury to seemingly move faster than the rest of her family. The change to more explicit rules for the body the powers of Shazam give the user as well as each user being tied to a certain aspect of the Shazam powers changes the focus of the character design and storytelling for Shazam family. The focus has shifted far more to how the powers affect the user than how the user’s desires or personality are reflected by how they use the powers they have been given. The modern Shazam family is the version that DC are invested in currently and there is room for the characterization to develop, but it is clear that characterization is not the driving force behind their heroic character design. All the while, on Earth Five in DC’s multiverse, Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. remain, protecting the world from the Monster Society of Evil has they have been since 1939. These seemingly simple version of the characters retain their appeal through the ages not just because of their ­­w ish-fulfillment stories or young heroes, but because the characters and their personalities stay at the heart of the stories. These are heroes not defined by their powers or by the villains they fight, but by their own hopes, dreams and personalities.

From Boy to Man (Battle)  121 It’s important to look beyond the explicit text of a comic and work out what messages about the characters or the are being communicated in subtle, deeper ways. This is especially true of the Golden Age of DC, where the storytelling was so much more compressed and there was so much less room for deep characterization. The fact that these deeper readings are possible for such seemingly simple, childish characters like the original versions of the Marvel family are credit to the talent of their original creators. It also helps to see why DC have not only adapted and rebooted the characters as many times as they have, but also why they keep the original versions around on their same earth. This is the true power of the DC multiverse, giving spaces for the original versions of talented creators works to live on beyond their time and revisited, rather than erased.

References Bassuk, E.L., DeCandia, C.J., Beach, C.A., & Berman, F. (2014). America’s youngest outcasts: A report card on child homelessness. Retrieved from http://apo.org.au/node/52181. Beck, C.C. (1992). The Shazam! archives (Vol. 1). DC Comics. Binder, O., & Swayze, M. (1942). Captain marvel adventures #18. Coogan, P. (2011). Reconstructing the superhero in ­­a ll-star superman. In M.J. Smith & R. Duncan (Eds.), Critical approaches to comics: theories and methods (pp. 203–220). ­­Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. Cremins, B. (2016). Captain marvel and the art of nostalgia. University Press of Mississippi. Freud, S. (1969). O futuro deu uma ilusão. Trans. Octavio de Aguiar Abreu, J. Imago. Hamerlinck, P. (2001). Fawcett companion: the best of FCA. TwoMorrows Publishing. Johns, G., & Eaglesham, D. (2018). Shazam! #1. DC Comics. Johns, G., & Frank, G. (2012). Shazam! DC Comics. Johns, G., & Kurbert, A. (2012). Flashpoint. DC Comics. Lavinie, Michael L. (Summer 1998). Comic books and graphic novels for libraries: What to buy (PDF). Serials Review 2 (24). p. 34. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-10-02. McLachlan, B., & Hanson, A. (2016). Superhero color theory, part I: the primary heroes. Retrieved from http://comicsalliance.com/­­s uperhero-color-theory-primary-heroes/ http://comicsalliance.com/­­superhero-color-theory-primary-heroes/. Ordway, J. (1994). The power of Shazam. DC Comics. Ordway, J., & Krause, P. (1995). The power of Shazam #1. DC Comics. Ordway, J., & Krause, P. (1995). The power of Shazam #7. DC Comics. Polowin, N. (n.d.). Shazam & Johnny Thunder. Retrieved July 31, 2019, from http://www. proudrobot.com/hembeck/shazam2.html. Safran, P. (Producer), & Sandberg, A. (Director). (2019). Shazam! [Motion picture]. Warner Bros. Pictures. Smith, J. (1989). Shazam!: The monster society of evil. DC Comics. Smith, Z. (2017). An oral history of DC’s Captain Marvel/Shazam: The Fawcett years, part 1. Retrieved from https://www.newsarama.com/­­35699-an-oral-history-of-dc-s-shazamcaptain-marvel-the-fawcett-years-part-1.html. Waid, M, Ross, A. (2008). Kingdom come. DC Comics.

The Cultural Context of Green Lantern Superhero Commodity Rebirth, Renewal, and Rhetorical Extensions Garret L. Castleberry

Green Lantern as Generational Superhero Archetype The commoditization of superhero properties in comic books ensures that characters maintain a likelihood of existence so long as they remain creatively popular and financially prosperous. The public sphere has become a ­­razor-sharp lynchpin of fanboy scrutiny toward inauthentic companies peddling rehashed books, which steal to sell rather than borrow to benefit. Fans legitimize the comic culture with evolving systems of textual worth (Brown, 1997). Staple characters like Superman or ­­X-Men no longer standardize ­­name-brand necessity. The comic book culture is ­­self-empowered by the currency of top writers, strong characterization, and the continuity that accompanies quality stories (Brown, 1997). Dedicated fans and readers sieve the offerings—more competitive each year—straining out imitation works from gold standard books, including the resurgence of a sidelined character by one of the industry’s juggernaut writers in the last five years. ­­Word-of-mouth currency heralded Geoff Johns the 2004–current redux of the Green Lantern franchise for DC Comics. Further, Johns’ work exemplifies rhetorical tools necessary for creating a successful modern superhero mythology, canonized with decades of continuity. However, in an effort to dissect the significance of the Green Lantern for a wider audience readership, excavating the history of the character is necessary to establish a worthwhile argument. 122

The Cultural Context of Green Lantern (Castleberry)  123

The Complicated Legacy of Green Lantern as “New Deal” Propaganda Green Lantern initially debuted for DC Comics in July 1940. Under the creative guise of artist Martin Nodell and writer Bill Finger, 1 the first Green Lantern title was held by the character Allen Scott (Dougall, 2004). A ­­Blonde-headed everyman, his green ring and lantern initially conveyed ­­magic-based powers, as did an often used motif of Golden Age heroes attempting to mask general comparisons to the archetype, Superman. In Comic Book Nation (2003), historian Bradford Wright 2 recanted a detailed historical tracing of Green Lantern’s earliest societal storylines. Scott’s Lantern debuted in mid–1940s, before joining the Justice Society of America team in the pages of All Star Comics #3 (Dougall, 2004; Wright, 2003). As members of the JSA, this Golden Age ­­super-team demonstrated a consistent ability to fight crime in the pattern of reinforcing Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. In multiple stories, Green Lantern represents the common man and/or the Roosevelt administration by taking on crooked mortgage and loan operations, shipping tycoons, and loftier international Rooseveltian villains, mirroring the Good Neighbor policies of the day (Wright, 2003). Although his legacy would change hands, and characters would receive creative revisions, one ideal mainstay of this superhero legacy is a foundation of redemptive violence. Wright asserted, “[T]he Green Lantern redresses [the situational] imbalance of power with his fists, demonstrating that legal protection works best when backed by a healthy dose of righteous violence” (p. 23). While these tropes of physicality remained intact, comic book history would mirror an evolutionary changing of the guard.

The Silver Age Reboot of American Idealism Tensions between adherence and rebellion also ref lect a strong emphasis on characterization by DC’s editing staff, contributing to Green Lantern’s staying power over the years. During Dennis O’Neal’s famous ­­13-issue run Green Lantern/Green Arrow (O’Neal, 2004) in the early 1970s, Jordan inhabits the role of moral student under the tutelage of Green Arrow’s leftist, civil activist ideologies. Each chapter focuses on an area of ­­1960s-era American societal unrest as the hero journeys across America via pickup truck, righting the wrongs perpetrated by religious cults, racist slumlords, Native American haters, and ­­old-fashioned communists (O’Neal, 2004; Moore, 2003). This progressive quest provided substantial depth to Jordan’s humanity and his perception of moral justice. Jordan’s

124   The DC Comics Universe growth would endure other permutations before coming to an abrupt end during a pivotal character arc in the mid–90s.

Green Lantern as Cultural Stereotypes Several other iterations of Green Lantern emerge over the next quarter century. Late in 1968, DC introduces the ­­short-tempered Irishman Guy Gardner as the newest Green Lantern (Dougall, 2004). Naturally, this version embodies Irish American stereotypes such as bright red hair, cocky fortitude, and Blacksploitation “Hero for Hire” Luke Cage/Power Man (DeFalco et al., 2009). DC introduces its first African American superhero in the form of a “backup Green Lantern, John Stewart” (Duncan & Smith, 2009, p. 59). The torch is passed on again in the early 1994, as DC institutes yet another Green Lantern in Kyle Rayner. As a modern Green Lantern, Rayner’s civic identity is that of a ­­c artoonist-cum-artist (Dougall, 2004). Rayner sports a West Coast, ­­g runge-emo haircut. Such ­­youth-like spirit and liberal arts sensibilities set Rayner apart from the traditional ­­blue-collar superhero mentality. Rayner represents an effort to invite younger readers who have grown tired of the ­­now-graying Hal Jordan. However, Rayner remains a polarizing figure among superhero fans and readers. Neither Guy Gardner nor John Stewart ever capture the reader spirit or narrative characterization that sustained Hal Jordan’s popularity. This audience identification with Hal Jordan centralizes his role as the preeminent Green Lantern and protagonist of Geoff Johns’ ­­f ranchise-igniting Green Lantern: Rebirth (2004–05). In examining Jordan’s characterization as Lantern, it is critical to define what makes Jordan and Green Lantern a superhero as well as how the mythic symbolism of comic book melodrama sets the stage for the analysis of Green Lantern: Rebirth, in an effort to understand the esthetic, liminoid responses of audiences.

Qualifications and Contradictions of Defining a Superhero While the establishment of Green Lantern as an accepted superhero may appear necessary to those less familiar with the character, drafting a rigorous definition of the underlining superhero genre tropes associated with superhero ideology may itself be a task worth of heroes. Jewett and Lawrence (2002) situated the prototypical American hero as a loner built out of the Western myth:

The Cultural Context of Green Lantern (Castleberry)  125 Tales of the American monomyth typically begin and end in ­­E den-like settings. We see small communities of diligent agrarians, townspeople, or members of a work group together in harmony. Then a disruption occurs, one that calls into question the effectiveness of the institutions designed to cope with such challenges. Because those institutions and their leaders conspicuously fail, the mythic vision dictates with clarity that a superhero must act before any likeness of Eden can be restored [p. 22].

The authors compare this scene to the African plains of The Lion King or the serene bridge aboard the Enterprise on Star Trek. However, this prototypical setting could suffice for Superman’s Metropolis or Smallville— and even the oblique peacefulness of Earth’s atmosphere—amid Sector 2814. 3 Once an evil disruption to the status quo appears, it is up to the frontier vigilante/outsider to swoop in, demonstrating superior strength and wherewithal, to thwart evil so that the community may return to tranquility. Lawrence and Jewett posit a familiar setting of action and attribution in their theory of heroism amid constant struggle for preservation. However, these scholars contend that once peace is restored, the vigilante recedes, riding off into the sunset. Nearly 10 years later, DC introduced their newest renaissance man,4 writer Geoff Johns, fresh off revitalizing the Justice Society of America tier of characters into a ­­well-received, modernized interpretation. Johns was assigned to revamp and restart the ­­long-dimmed Green Lantern series. Still, the fan culture remained split over the troubled fate DC allowed Silver Age Jordan to suffer in the mid–90s. While the theme of character resurrection was nothing new, 5 its prior response before Rebirth generally ran negative among the comics community. First, continuity6 is important to fans and in turn important to publishers; second, Johns has the ability to craft a narrative that, exciting the fan community and the publisher’s bottom line, extends a specific rhetorical space worthy of observation and analysis as it pertains to the history of the comic book medium, fanboy culture, and the post–9/11 zeitgeist of rebirth.

Elastic Continuity as a Rhetoric of Retcon Function in Rebirth Green Lantern: Rebirth is not only the return of Silver Age, White, male protagonist Hal Jordan but also a rejuvenation of other Lanterns’ Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner. Additionally, Rebirth services to reassemble the intergalactic GL Corps, reestablish the Guardians of the Universe, and ultimately a yin/yang reintroduction of ­­a rch-nemesis Sinestro. Johns’ narrative—weaving in Rebirth—is distinguished in that the heroes,

126   The DC Comics Universe villains, and supporting players are tied closer together in purpose/origin/ motivation, allowing their life stories to intersect one another’s respective narrative path (Duncan & Smith, 2009). However, in signifying the updated tropes of each, Johns updates and reworks origins; this is otherwise known as “deploying retroactive continuity”—a fundamental rhetorical tool for most superhero narratives. Duncan and Smith (2009) acknowledged the significance of continuity both “to express the intertextual link among separately published comics narratives” and as a central motif of comics’ serial nature, “as more and more comics are added to a series, and … related to one another, continuity continues to grow in complexity” (p. 191). The need for a writer to reboot or retcon certain elements in an effort to simply, reaffirm, and/or pursue new creative imaginings, accomplishes the form’s serial nature while paving new paths for superhero narratives. As Rebirth begins, a spaceship driven by Earth’s current Lantern Kyle Rayner bursts out of the sun, returning from a secret mission to retrieve Hal Jordan’s corpse. The spaceship immediately crashes into a desert landscape—the wreckage eerily resembling the Silver Age origin story in which the alien Abin Sur crashed into the desert before passing his ring onto Hal Jordan. Johns simultaneously deployed a narrative homage to his origins while telling his present story, also laying groundwork for years of future stories. In their essay/chapter “I’m not Fooled by that Cheap Disguise,” authors William Uricchio and Roberta Pearson (1991) comment on the elastic continuity in superhero narratives as it relates to reader/audience identification: “The merest reference to the origin events activates an intertextual frame which insists upon the [character’s] motivation and key traits/attributes while permitting for variant elaboration … [and] restaging” (Uricchio & Pearson, 1991, p. 196). Such “elasticity” proves central to Rebirth since Johns’ secondary narrative goal is to reestablish the Green Lantern’s status quo. However, such rebirthing employs a rhetorical lens as Johns’ narrative style simultaneously pays homage to the past while telling stories in the present and laying groundwork for the future. Similar steps are repeated as the Green Lantern universe is split open to include setups of key characters from Green Lantern’s historical canon, Green Arrow, and Jordan’s Silver Age love interest Carol Ferris, among others.

Tensions and Elastic Flexibility—Rebirthing the Serial Status Quo Just as the status quo is maintained through the resurrection of Jordan and Sinestro, Johns reestablishes past stories and character relationships. Uricchio and Pearson (1991) explained:

The Cultural Context of Green Lantern (Castleberry)  127 Over the years, a process of uneven accentuation and development [of elasticity] has selectively foregrounded or downplayed certain aspects of the key components [of ­­super-heroes and their environments]. This process accounts for both the character’s containment and refraction, the elastic treatment of the character’s key components allowing his narrative undulations and, thus, his longevity [Uricchio & Pearson, p. 195].

In the case of Jordan, people and places in his life become flexible tools to be adjusted for the best possible story. Jordan’s former love Carol reappears at Ferris Airfield, the air force base where Hal and Carol grew up watching their pilot fathers. Carol represents an emotional anchor, married but unmarred by age, despite the clear insinuation Jordan has been dead for several years (Johns, 2004). Johns even explains that Jordan’s ­­g ray-streaked hair had always been a hidden symbol of the Parallax infection—one of several steps taken to remove any sign of aging (Morse, 2005). In Rebirth, Jordan’s relationship with the Justice League offers a mixed history of themes as explored through a dialog between Batman and Martian Manhunter (Johns, 2004). Batman doubted Jordan’s righteous intentions as fragments of Coast City mysteriously reappear. Martian Manhunter saw the reemergence of Coast City as an attempt at redemption, while Batman purveys his distrust. John Stewart interrupted Batman, asserting that Batman resents Jordan because Hal is a “man without fear” (Johns, 2005d, p. 27). The significance of Stewart’s comments concerning the relationship between Batman’s central motif, fear, and Jordan’s lack of fear highlights an additional dialectic tension. Acknowledging the dual nature of Jordan’s return, Batman laments, “The real Hal Jordan is back. And he’s bringing the past with him” (Johns, 2004d, p. 28). Indeed, past actions heroes, contextualized in previous stories of Green Lantern and Justice League, provide an elastic continuity for writers and readers that is central to the emotional tensions and operatic dramas necessary to sustain superhero narratives over long periods of time. Upon his return in the final chapter of Rebirth, Jordan is physically protested again by Batman (Johns, 2005e); in response, Jordan drops Batman to the ground with one sharp blow to the jaw (Johns, p. 3). Punching Batman in defiance, Jordan physically and metaphorically reestablishes his ideological stronghold of physical might over the agency of fear, regardless of motivation. This action demonstrates the emotional layers and tensions provided by the inclusion of elastic threads of continuity (Uricchio & Pearson, 1991). Over the years, Johns repeatedly communicates his personal preference for the Silver Age heroes like Jordan and the potential changing of the guard from Batman’s popular grim and gritty reputation to the current Silver Age renaissance occurring at DC.7 Johns not only reached into the Silver Age but also established his

128   The DC Comics Universe own foundational plot threads for the future of Green Lantern’s mythology. The villain Black Hand played a small role in the first issue of Rebirth. This throwaway villain from Lantern’s past is brought back as a plot device for demonstrating Jordan’s unstable condition as the Spectre. In this single page, Johns establishes past continuity, employing it to propel the emotional and physical action of the present story, while laying a foundation for future plot threads. Johns completed Hand’s role within the confines of six pages, deliberately reestablishing a villain whose part would expand in Green Lantern over the next six years, culminating in DC Comics largest event, the ­­L antern-centric Blackest Night (2009–10). Johns recognizes the McGuffin that exists as history between heroes and villains (Uricchio & Pearson, 1991), creating specific environments that provide these emotional tensions between characters. Additionally, Johns’ recognition and execution of the superhero McGuffin of rich relationship history serves the ultimate goal of DC Comics through the continued serialization and commoditization of their properties.

The Need for Superhero Reboots: Rebirth as a Modern Comic Book Rite of Passage Jordan’s redemption in Rebirth signifies an important postmodern rule of thumb for comic book superheroes: brand endurance. This is polysemic in that the characters are as important to their fantasy universes as they are, as commodities, to corporate continuance of capital gain. The polysemic synergy of consumer commodity relies on the narrative quality of characters to abide by certain rules of seriality. In his essay “Two of a Kind,” Lou Anders ascribed the interlocked nature between Batman and the Joker (Anders, 2008), positing the latter as the single figure able to comprehend Batman’s methodology (i.e., superhero code) and challenge his twisted morality: “Just like Batman, the Joker has something to prove. Their motivations are locked as opposite poles of a magnet” (Anders, 2008, p. 32). Anders demonstrates the significance for Joker’s existence as ­­m irrored-other and balancing beam for Batman’s sanity. Jordan’s Green Lantern requires his consistent ­­a rch-nemesis to exist in the guise of former Green Lantern’s Sinestro. Sinestro highlights the strengths of Jordan’s superhero willpower by exhibiting an unabashed use of his yellow, ­­fear-infused power ring to the point of suppression and fascism. By wielding this, Sinestro’s actions create a demonstrative contrast of how pivotal Jordan’s willpower must be employed for good. When Jordan loses the willpower to resist permanent conflict resolution, he breaks the cycle between hero and villain. Jordan

The Cultural Context of Green Lantern (Castleberry)  129 becomes the evil Parallax following destruction of the aforementioned Coast City, and his new persona breaks Sinestro’s neck in 1994’s Emerald Twilight storyline (Marz, 1994). In a parallel metaphor, Jordan breaks the superhero code, becoming irreparable and thus irredeemable to the superhero community.8 The writers are forced into a situation wherein Jordan’s character must face an inevitable death or renounce the narrative code of existence under which superhero stories and consumer/readers operate. This storyline of the Gimmick Age9 represents a duality of problems with comic book storytelling in the 1990s. The only viable solution would service through the comic book framing of an inevitable retcon.

Geoff Johns as Rhetorician of Retcon and the Liminoid Functions of Commoditization Geoff Johns began an early career in entertainment that included working as personal assistant to Superman: The Movie (1978) and Lethal Weapon franchise film director, Richard Donner. Johns gained entrance into comic book storytelling with ­­lesser-known properties like Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E before experiencing popularity with DC’s updated version of the Justice Society of America. Since his emergence as a critical and fan favorite, Johns’ superhero writing duties have included but are not limited to: JSA, Teen Titans, Flash, Green Lantern: Birth, Green Lantern Vol. 4 (ongoing), Action Comics, and a plethora of ­­mega-events.10 His writing also translated into TV work for Cartoon Network’s Justice League Unlimited and three episodes for WB/CW’s (almost) Superman soap opera, Smallville (2001–2010). Johns’ narrative style 11 is notorious for communicating deep characterizations. In the former industry magazine Wizard’s 2009 ­­fan-favorite article, Kiel Phegley asserted in 2008: From revitalizing the Justice Society as the training camp for generations of future heroes to reigniting interest in Hal Jordan as the one, true Green Lantern, Johns proved the master of unravelling confusing continuity and spinning it into unparalleled character work [Phegley, 2009, p. 50].

Johns at once employs a quality and quantity that cohesively blends with comic book commodities. Barry Brummett (2008) avouched the power of Johns’ style: “Capital creates systems of meaning for commodities that hold together both markets and societies. A number of scholars observe that markets and cultures are becoming the same thing—style is a major instrument of both commodification and culture” (Brummett, 2008, p. 56). The allure of Johns’ narratives, his ability to engage retcon as

130   The DC Comics Universe a rhetorically stylistic device for meeting the consumer qualification of comic continuity and seriality, while reinterpreting and tweaking character origins to update and tell his own stories, postulates his status as master comic book rhetorician. Johns also executed meticulous planning toward future ideas and series, creating a caveat inhabiting past, present, and future content into his narrative tropes. According to this new theory of a rhetoric of retcon, or rhetcon, Johns’ style is reflexive—postmodern in its blend of nostalgia for the Silver Age, breaking rules of the superhero form,12 bludgeoning readers with post–9/11 deconstructionist retcons, and ­­shock-and-awe serial cliffhangers. Rhetcon is a strategy that maximizes reader potential and consumer profitability. Johns extends relatability to multiple generations of readers, inviting nontraditional fans into the community in which they are actively able to experience flow.

The Rebirth of a Commodity: Entering Liminoid Capitalism “Increasingly, comic book companies see themselves in the ­­character-licensing business (at the very least) and perhaps even more specifically in the filmed entertainment industry”—(McAllister, Gordon, & Jancovich, 2006).

Kenneth Burke (1973) purported that art cannot exist in a capitalist system without offering propaganda (Burke, 1973). In the case of modern comic books, though, this cannot be further from the truth. Rebirth not only resurrected Hal Jordan but also the Green Lantern series. Green Lantern #1 arrived in the spring of 2005 and has recently celebrated the shipment of its 50th issue. In coinciding with Green Lantern, DC Comics launched a secondary title, Green Lantern Corps, which follows the entire galactic peacekeeping police force of Lanterns. In tandem, the popularity of these books has spawned consumer interest and revved up character interest. Multiple waves of Green Lantern–based collectibles have been distributed, including multiple series of ­­high-dollar action figures, buttons, and pens detailing Lantern symbolism, ­­T-shirts, and ­­life-size Green Lantern power rings. Corresponding these successful marketing ventures, DC/Warner released a feature length animated movie Green Lantern: First Flight in the summer of 2009 as a ­­tie-in to the current book success as well as a testing tool for the larger viewing audience. In accordance with the success of First Flight, as well as Green Lantern’s surge to the top of the comic book charts in 2009,13 WB has been in methodical production to crossover Green Lantern’s appeal to the largest audience yet, via a studio tentpole franchise of Green Lantern movies.

The Cultural Context of Green Lantern (Castleberry)  131 Clearly, the lack of “propaganda element” in DC/WB’s setup of Green Lantern as the superhero icon is foolhardy. However, despite the linear tracing of marketing/advertising and franchising potential, Martin Campbell’s (2011) rushed and ridiculous Green Lantern failed on multiple fronts creatively and financially. Although Geoff Johns—who served as Chief Creative Officer during DC’s foray into expanded universe franchising— helped introduce Green Lantern to moviegoing audiences, Johns’ writing style appears to be the Ace contributor propelling Green Lantern’s cultural moment. Brummett (2008) averred that “there is a connection between the values inherent in style’s social categorizing and style’s centrality in capitalism” (p. 56). Brummett’s observation closes the gap between esthetic sensations of artistic style and the trend toward commoditization in late capitalism. Hollywood exists as a ­­bottom-line first industry, and Warner and DC aim to profiteer from their characters being distributed among audiences/consumers. However, audiences choose their participation, acceptance or rejection; liminoid decisions so far vote that Green Lantern functions as an artistic esthetic with the capability/culpability to excite a ­­consumer-flow experience (Turner, 1988).14 The argument pontificates centralizing Geoff Johns’ authorship of and audience response to Green Lantern: Rebirth as the perennial consumer culture rhetorical pillar of superhero flow—both eliciting a flow esthetic akin to Turner’s treatment of the term. Under a system of capitalism, it is neither possible nor realistic for consumer audiences to lay down possessions and live out a sequestered lifestyle of rural isolation, sans the Burkean model of retirement 15 (Foss, Foss, & Trapp, 2001). On the contrary, consumers enact a liminoid exercise of high/low culture participation, making an effort toward ­­cope-ability, engaging in a ­­brand-market society of superhero commodity culture. Brummett maintained that “the idea of branding demonstrates the integral link … between commodity and culture, for ‘the brand is … catalyst, the filament of platinum that makes culture and marketing combine’” (Brummett, 2008, p. 58). The answer lies not in the rejection of capitalistic systems of somatic pleasure but in the identification toward these systems, so that audience involvement can remain a democratically informed choice or selection of esthetic.16

The Signification of Rebirth A concluding thought toward the significance of Rebirth as a necessary exemplar of rhetorical analysis looks to the title and central theme of rebirth. Why is it important to return Hal Jordan to the status quo of comics’ continuity? Why is Green Lantern—a historically ­­s econd-tier hero—the choice character to carry the torch of significance? Burke

132   The DC Comics Universe communicated a systematic cycle of humanity in which people perform repetitious stages of ­­g uilt-purification-redemption.17 This constitutes human consciousness’ willingness and/or need to purge wrongdoings in an effort to ­­s elf-cure the soul. Following this theme of guilt or villainization, ­­self-victimization by way of death, and ultimate purification via redemption or rebirth, the master theme of Rebirth serves as a human metaphor for the ritual processes of cleansing the self. The symbolism of rebirth is at once personal, religious, and societal. Jordan’s return to the status quo and ­­youth-like state rehabilitates the Western ideological obsession with youth or immortality. Sans the plastic surgery commodity culture of a society reimagining itself as a posable androgynous action figure, Johns’ post–9/11 superhero narrative holds a mirror up to a fragmented America trying to identify itself: a culture scrambling to maintain a sense of youthful normalcy, ideological dominance via [p]re(d)emptive violence, and perhaps the nostalgia of simpler times, when might made right. The lesson of Rebirth reifies the Western cultural belief in oneself, individual fortitude, and the willpower to overcome wrong, no matter the cost. Such a message of ­­a lpha-rightness reinforces any societal ­­self-doubt lingering around 2004–05, especially at a time when privileged White males needed to maintain a status quo of ­­w illpower-fueled, aggressive leadership. The fantasy message of Rebirth allows the status quo to resume; a White male super(power)hero maintains a youthful focal point while enduring the distrust of the surrounding society. Johns’ myth seeks a return to Silver Age ideology of superheroes and of black and white politics of Cold War America. The superhero flow of Rebirth attempts to soothe the aching politics of post–9/11 America, the absence of governmental faith, the questioning of heroic motivations, and the need for a ­­long-lasting commodity that returns the status quo of ideological tranquility at the small price of a monthly endowment at the local comic book store. The theoretical implications of the post–9/11 psyche in America is an important theme in discerning messages of comic book/graphic novel storytelling in the first decade of the 21st century. Like the heroes that assuaged active duties military and the rising American youth culture in the mid–20th century, the superhero zeitgeist—from roughly ­­Spider-Man’s 2002 debut to present onslaught of connected universes and media franchises—situates such a character as a cultural signifier forever linked to consumer preferences that coincide with an era of mass mediated trauma and a collective desire for secular saviors.

Notes 1.  Bill Finger biography is a mysterious conspiracy of creative tragedy. Many in the creative industry credit Finger with handling the bulk of Batman’s creative conception,

The Cultural Context of Green Lantern (Castleberry)  133 including an array of his most popular rogues (Porter, 2008). Unfortunately, Finger worked as a ­­for-hire artist, and many of the writers/creators in early comic history were never given actual credit for their creations. While Bob Kane eventually took sole credit for the creation of Batman and died a millionaire, Finger struggled financially his entire life, before meeting a medically challenged early death (Porter, 2008). 2.  During the early years of comic book distribution, many writers and artists worked on a ­­for-hire basis. At the time, comic book companies were not yet acquainted with the practice of printing the names of writers and artists in their books. Subsequently, many books and ­­re-printings do not afford proper authorial citation and thus cannot be attributed beyond their title (Wright, 2003). As Wright (2003) performed much of the historical heavy lifting for Golden Age Green Lantern stories, his name shall remain associated to their creation unless otherwise documented. 3.  According to Green Lantern mythos, the Guardians of the Universe long ago divided the universe into “3600 territorial units,” with each sector “shaped like a triangular wedge” pointing to the center of the universe. Subsequently, the segment including Earth that exists under Jordan’s authorial care is designated Sector 2814. 4.  Geoff Johns is “literally” a comic book renaissance man by way of his narrative style, explored in the latter half of the essay. 5.  Notable character deaths/resurrections prior to Rebirth included: Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix of ­­X-Men, Superman, Supergirl, ­­Spider-Man’s former love interest Gwen Stacey, Wonder Woman, and Hal Jordan’s longtime friend, fellow hero, and Rebirth costar Green Arrow. Notable death resurrections to take place after Rebirth include but are not limited to: Captain America, Captain America’s sidekick Bucky, Batman, Batman’s sidekick Robin [Jason Todd], Thor, and Green Arrow’s young protégé, Red Arrow. Characters to be killed and resurrected by Johns himself include but are not limited to: Superboy, Barry Allen: The Silver Age Flash [to be resurrected by Johns in 2009], and a plethora of supporting characters, none of which include the army of undead superhero/supervillain zombies, e.g., Black Lanterns resurrected for Johns’ Green Lantern/DC Universe 2009–2010 Magnus opus, Blackest Night. 6.  Duncan and Smith (2009) defined continuity as “the relatedness among characters and events said to happen in the same fictional universe…[which] can pose a problem for creators trying to deal with decades of backstory” (p. 233). The definition provided by these authors aver to the dissonance dividing personal creativity and corporate commodity, nostalgia and audience identification, new ideas and established histories, myth and fantasy. 7.  The success of Rebirth has led to a narrative resurgence in the avocation of Silver Age characters with updated characterizations, including 2009’s top selling Flash: Rebirth. 8.  Coogan, Reynolds, and Jewett and Lawrence all prescribed to the philosophy that the superhero cannot kill. Thus, any exception to this mythic trope would sever the ideological nature of the character (Coogan, 2006, Reynolds, 1994; Lawrence & Jewett, 2002). 9.  Duncan and Smith (2009) defined the Golden Age as “the comic book era of earliest mass popularity, roughly dated 1938–1945” (p. 317). The Golden Age produced most of the ­­genre-specific superhero tropes associated with characters, from which future writers and artists would borrow. 10.  Johns’ limited and/or miniseries works include: Infinite Crisis, 52, Final Crisis: Rogue’s Revenge, Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, Flash: Rebirth, Superman: Secret Origin, Adventure Comics, Blackest Night, and others (n. a., 2010). 11.  Barry Brummett (2008) asserted that “style orders people in social organization through aesthetics” (p. 45). Comparatively, comic books serve as the ultimate esthetic style in that fans perform agency in the consumption, collection, and organization of comics and their continuity. 12.  See Johns’ Rebirth ­­follow-up Sinestro Corps War, in which the Green Lanterns are permitted to inflict lethal force on their enemies (Johns, 2008). 13.  From August 2009 to December 2009, Green ­­L antern–centered books took the top sales spot each month (n. a., 2010). In September, Green Lantern and books associated with the Green Lantern event storyline “Blackest Night” landed consistently in the top 10 comics by units sold. In October, the Green Lantern books astonishingly held the Top 6 spots

134   The DC Comics Universe (Mayo, 2009), November had the Top 2 spots (George, 2009), and December held six of the Top 10 (n. a., 2010). 14.  Turner viewed the liminoid as different from the betwixt and between of the liminal in that there must exist the selection of choice involvement, i.e., liminoid is about choice (Turner, 1988). 15.  Foss, Foss, and Trapp (2001) accredited Burke’s retirement process as a philosophical ­­self-sequestering amid an ­­electricity-less farm in upstate New York. 16.  Of course, Burke (1997) auspiciously noted that “there is a kind of aesthetic negativity whereby any moralistic ­­t hou-shalt-not provides material for our entertainment, as we pay to follow imaginary accounts of ‘deviants’ who, in all sorts of ingenious ways, are represented as violating these very Don’ts” (Burke, 1997, p. 13). This concept of predatory consumerism of commodities, as culturally medicinal esthetics, centralizes the rhetoric analytic focus of the comic book medium in chapter four. 17.  Foss, Foss, and Trapp best summarized Burke’s ramifications of hierarchical order in the ­­g uilt-purification-redemption cycle: “The rhetoric of rebirth involves movement through three steps—pollution, purification, and redemption. Pollution is the initial state of guilt, an unclean condition of sins and burdens; purification is the step of cleansing or catharsis, where the guilt is sloughed off; and redemption is the stage of cleanliness in which a new state—whether physical, spiritual, or psychological—is achieved” (Foss, Foss, & Trapp, 2002, p. 209).

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The Cultural Context of Green Lantern (Castleberry)  135 Johns, G. (2005d). Green Lantern: Rebirth #5. DC Comics. Johns, G. (2005e). Green Lantern: Rebirth #6. DC Comics. Johns, G. (2010). Green Lantern: Blackest night, vol. 1 (Hardcover Edition). DC Comics. Johns, G., & Gates, S. (2008). Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps secret files #1. DC Comics. Johns, G., & Tomasi, P. (2008). The Sinestro Corps war, vol. 2. DC Comics. Jurgens, D. (1993). Death of Superman. DC Comics. Jurgens, D. (1996). Zero hour: Crisis in time. DC Comics. Jurgens, D., Kesel, K., Stern, R., Simonson, L., & Jones, G. (1993). The return of Superman. DC Comics. Lang, J.S., & Trimble, P. (1988). Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow? An examination of the American monomyth and the comic book superhero. Journal of Popular Culture, 22(3), 157–172. Lawrence, J., & Jewett, R. (2002). The myth of the American superhero. William B. Eerdmans. Marz, R. (1994). Emerald twilight. DC Comics. Marz, R. (1996). Final night. DC Comics. Mayo, J. (2009, November). Sales estimates for October 2009. Comic Book Resources. http:// www.comicbookresources.com/?id=23873&page=article. McAllister, M.P. (2006). Blockbuster meets superhero comic, or art house meets graphic novel? The contradictory relationship between film and comic art. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 34(3), 108–114. Miller, F. (1988). Batman: Year one. DC Comics. Moench, D., & Dixon, C. (1993). Broken bat. Batman: Knightfall, Vol.1. DC Comics. Moore, J.T. (2003). The education of Green Lantern. Journal of American Culture, 26(2), 263–278. Morse, B. (2005). Green Lantern: Rebirth—The director’s commentary. Wizard, 166, 56–68. O’Neil, D. (2004). Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Vol. 1. DC Comics. Phegley, P. (2009, May). Fan favorites: Favorite writer, Geoff Johns. Wizard, the magazine of comics, entertainment, and pop culture: Special platinum edition (pp. 50–53). Wizard Entertainment. Porter, A.J. (2008). The dubious origins of the Batman: Who did what—and does it really matter? In D. O’Neil (Ed.), Batman: Unauthorized. BenBella Books. Putz, M.J. (1999). Comic book culture: Fanboys and true believers. University Press of Mississippi. Reynolds, R. (1994). Superheroes: A modern mythology. University of Mississippi. Rogers, V. (2009, August 31). Comic industry insiders see plus for Marvel in Disney merger. Newsarama. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/­­0 90831-marvel-disney-reaction. html#comments. Shooter, J. (1984). Marvel super heroes secret wars. Marvel Comics. SuperHeroHype. (2009). Update #3: Disney to acquire Marvel for $4 billion! http://www. superherohype.com/news.php?id=8645. Swartz, J. (2009, August 31). Disney gets new comic heroes with $4 billion web. USA Today. http://content.usatoday.com/community/comments.aspx?id=36108458.story&p=2. Turner, V. (1988). The anthropology of performance. PAJ. Uricchio, W., & Pearson, R.E. (1991). “I’m not fooled by that cheap disguise.” In R.E. Pearson & W. Uricchio (Eds.), The many lives of the Batman (pp. 182–213). Routledge. Wright, B.W. (2003). Comic book nation: The transformation of youth culture in America. Johns Hopkins University.

Teleporting Off the Page The Wacky Life and Truncated Career of Ambush Bug Joseph S. Walker

When he first appeared in DC Comics Presents #52 (cover date December 1982), Ambush Bug (created by Keith Giffen) was a ­­r un-of-the-mill villain, a thief in a green bodysuit whose teleportation power proved no match for Superman and the ­­t hen-current incarnation of Doom Patrol. By the time of his second appearance, in issue #59 of the same title, he had been invested with a new attitude of manic irreverence well suited to a comic romp ­­g uest-starring the marginally competent Legion of Substitute Heroes. This ­­w ise-cracking persona proved popular enough for the character to be repackaged as an aspiring hero—first in backup stories in the publisher’s flagship Action Comics, then in two miniseries of his own along with specials and ­­one-shots. The Bug’s adventures were of a piece with other DC publications of the 1980s, which deliberately introduced humor and absurdity while remaining part of the mainstream DC Universe. However, as mainstream comics became increasingly grim and mature in the wake of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, it became increasingly difficult for such titles to find a place on DC’s schedule. A handful of cameos aside, the Bug essentially disappeared from DC by the early 1990s. What makes the DC Universe a universe is not the seemingly eternal central triumvirate of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman but the practically limitless and ­­e ver-shifting cast of their fellow heroes— sidekicks, villains, pets, cops, coworkers, aliens, and civilians—who provide substance and context that give their shared reality a population and adventures as well as meaning. Some of these figures define or personify specific aspects of DC’s landscape; Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus, for example, represents the dreaming side of DC, while the Spectre, frequently 136

Teleporting Off the Page (Walker)  137 described as the embodiment of God’s vengeance, can be seen as marking how far the DC narrative can go in truly exploring religion. More obscure than either of these, and far less frequently seen, is Ambush Bug, the only character in DC’s world (most of the time, at any rate) who knows that he is in a comic book. As a figure of unrestrained parody who increasingly shades into the tragically absurd over the course of his abbreviated career, Ambush Bug essentially exemplifies the DC Universe’s ability to mock itself—an ability which becomes, over time, increasingly difficult to sustain. Ambush Bug is not, of course, the only character in comic book history to break the fourth wall by acknowledging his own status as a drawing on a page “speaking” through word balloons. There have been a substantial number of such figures, even if we discount those in educational or nonfiction comics; the stylized version of Scott McCloud, for example, who in Understanding Comics (1993) speaks directly to the reader and offers his own form as an example of his dissection of comic book devices and vocabulary. Within the more familiar superhero universes, we might look to Marvel’s Deadpool—a character whose hyperviolent adventures are punctuated with winking asides to the reader and ­­self-conscious critiques of comic book conventions. On the DC side, many of Grant Morrison’s works have played with ­­self-aware characters, most explicitly in his groundbreaking, late 1980s run on Animal Man. Here, Morrison gradually imbued the formerly obscure hero with greater and greater levels of ­­self-awareness, culminating in a famous splash page in issue #19, in which Animal Man turns to the reader and exclaims “I can SEE you!” (1990). Subsequent issues showed Morrison himself descending into the book as a character to discuss existence with his creation, even as Animal Man struggled with the implications of recognizing his own fictionality. Ambush Bug balances Deadpool’s irreverence with Animal Man’s existential angst; the difficulty of maintaining such a position may account for the relative scarcity of his appearances, despite his cult status among a certain percentage of DC’s readers. Although he was created more than 30 years ago, his major appearances in the DC Universe have been limited. The Bug debuted in DC Comics Presents #52 (cover dated December 1982) and returned in issue #59 seven months later. A single appearance in issue #16 of Supergirl (February 1984) was followed by his first starring roles in three backup stories within Action Comics (#560, #563, and #565). May 1985 saw a ­­one-issue return to DC Comics Presents (issue #81), followed in June by the first issue of his ­­four-issue miniseries Ambush Bug. This was successful enough to lead to the ­­one-shot Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer (December 1985) and, beginning in July of 1986, the ­­six-issue miniseries Son of Ambush Bug. After this, however, the Bug virtually disappeared

138   The DC Comics Universe from the DC Universe, with only a handful of ­­one-panel cameos and a Secret Origins story (#48, April 1990) before the Ambush Bug Nothing Special (September 1992) seemed to exile him from DC reality permanently. He did not make another significant appearance until the first issue of Ambush Bug: Year None, cover dated September 2008. Although this miniseries was scheduled for six issues, the sixth issue was “lost” and never published, and a final issue was given the number #7 and published almost a full year after #5. It marked, as of this writing, the last significant appearance of the character. The writer and artist Keith Giffen is credited as the creator of Ambush Bug; with the sole exception of the appearance in Supergirl, he has been the artist—and usually a writer—for every major appearance of the character listed above. Beginning with the Action Comics backup stories, Robert Loren Fleming has been credited with the dialog in all the Ambush Bug stories. Most have also been worked on by Bob Oksner (inker), Anthony Tollin (colorist), and John Costanza (letterer), whereas the legendary Julius Schwartz was the editor on all the appearances prior to Year None, which was edited by Jann Jones. These names are worth highlighting not only because of the importance of crediting creators, but also because they become part of the narrative in many of the Ambush Bug stories, with the Bug himself frequently speaking to them directly. Little of Ambush Bug’s hidden potential or eventual character is evident in his first appearance in DC Comics Presents #52. The story, by Paul Kupperberg, teams Superman with the New Doom Patrol, Kupperberg’s ­­t hen-current, and ultimately failed, effort to revive the team. The main conflict in the story arises from the inability of the Negative Woman, a member of the New Doom Patrol, to control her powers; Ambush Bug is a secondary villain in the story—essentially a distraction to be dealt with before the main plot can be resolved. The story does establish his appearance (a green bodysuit, in places overlaid with circuit patterns, with orange antennae) and his powers; he produces miniature electronic flying “bugs,” and he is able to immediately teleport himself to any location where one is (in later appearances the “bugs” would be largely forgotten, and the Bug would acquire the ability to teleport himself essentially anywhere). He is, in this first appearance, not simply a villain, but seemingly motivated entirely by his desire to be one; he murders Metropolis’ DA live on camera, then says, in his first speech, “Heya, all you people out in televisionland! My name’s Ambush Bug and I’m a bad guy!” (1982, p. 9). Only his madcap energy and the giddy joy he takes in his actions here significantly foreshadow the later development of the Bug’s character, and they are undiminished by his defeat. On the last page of the story, the imprisoned Bug (in one of his very few appearances out of costume,

Teleporting Off the Page (Walker)  139 as a nondescript, bald, White man), giggles to himself that he will be out soon, as one of his bugs appears outside the window of his cell. One minor element in the story hints at an interest in the kind of metanarrative highlighting of comic book existence, which would later define the Bug’s stories; his attack occurs during a parade through Metropolis, with a balloon of Superman that distinctly evokes the style of fan and artist Fred Hembeck and others in the shape of independent comic book characters Cerebus, Judge Dredd, and Elfquest’s Skywise. It is his second appearance, in DC Comics Presents #59’s “Ambush Bug II, or Just When You Thought it Was Safe to Start Reading DC Comics Presents Again,” that firmly establishes Ambush Bug as a comic figure with a special interest in undercutting familiar comic book conventions; significantly, the writing credit for this issue goes to Keith Giffen. As the story opens, an escaped Ambush Bug, watching Superman fly past, speaks the familiar opening of the George Reeves TV program (“Look! Up in the sky!”), replacing “It’s Superman!” with “It’s party time!” and adding “You didn’t really think you’d seen the last of Ambush Bug, did you?” (1983, p. 1–2). He teleports onto Superman’s back just as the hero is beginning to travel forward in time on “a little errand in the 40th century” (1983, p. 4). Stopping in 2983 to rid himself of the Bug and finding that the Legion of ­­Super-Heroes is out of town (“Don’t ask when this fits into Legion continuity,” we are told in a caption), Superman entrusts him to the care of the Legion of Substitute Heroes—a team defined by minor powers and questionable competence. Returning after completing his mission, Superman finds that the Bug has easily escaped and is in the process of creating utter chaos in the futuristic city he assumes to be Disneyworld. The story becomes a comic romp, with Superman an exasperated Margaret Dumont suffering through the Bug’s gleeful anarchy and the Substitute Heroes’ bumbling efforts to help. At one point, for example, the Bug ties Superman’s stolen cape around the neck of a ­­one-eyed alien and throws him off a skyscraper, dubbing him “­­Superman-Two” and assuring him that the cape will allow him to fly: “You’re supposed to flap your arms … or something” (1983, p. 10). The next page shows the alien plummeting toward the ground and screaming—but dutifully flapping his arms. Significantly, the Bug (who is eventually captured when Superman puts a “do not push” sign on a button activating a Phantom Zone projector [1983, p. 22]), in this defining appearance, no longer speaks of a desire to be a “bad guy.” Though he remains destructive and even violent, he seems to be motivated purely by a desire to cause mischief, repeatedly laughing out loud and exulting about the fun he is having. The emphasis on lighthearted humor marks the issue as part of a distinct trend within some DC publications that ran through much of the 1980s, namely of comics that

140   The DC Comics Universe resisted a growing trend toward darker storytelling (exemplified most strongly in the early 1980s by competitor Marvel in, for example, Chris Claremont’s frequently tragic ­­X-Men and, beginning in 1980, Frank Miller’s ­­noir-inspired take on Daredevil). Although DC certainly had its share of grim titles, particularly in the latter half of the decade, a number of DC comics also seemed designed, as the slogan on some ads said, to make comics fun again: Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew was about a team of ­­f unny-animal superheroes; Blue Devil frequently used humor and slapstick in the stories of the titular hero; and ‘Mazing Man recast the superhero book as a gentle sitcom centered on an eccentric Brooklyn “hero” who was three feet tall and had no powers other than unflagging optimism. A popular DC digest series regularly featured reprints of humor comics from previous decades, such as Funny Stuff and Sugar and Spike. Keith Giffen would ultimately bring this emphasis on humor, and even whimsy, to the very core of DC continuity with his popular take on Justice League beginning in 1986. While the Bug’s second appearance was thus a landmark turning point in defining his character, his next role, in a single issue of The New Adventures of Supergirl, is a clear anomaly. This remains the only significant appearance of the character without the creative input of Keith Giffen, though the story, “­­Bug-Out,” is once again credited to Paul Kupperberg. The Ambush Bug seen here is subtly out of step with his normal characterization, even in terms of visuals, with the circuit patterns on his costume more pronounced (Giffen, when drawing the character, would soon drop the circuits completely). The character is still a comic figure, but the comedy in the story arises more from his obtuse misunderstandings (for example, believing through much of the issue that Supergirl is actually Superman under some curse) than from deliberate hijinks. The issue does, however, mark a significant and decisive turn in the Bug’s overall story as he is now determined to be a superhero rather than a villain: “I get to do the same neat stuff as before, only now it’s legal!” (1984, p. 13); unfortunately, he enacts this desire by inflicting beatings on “criminals” such as litterbugs. Aside from his turn to heroism, the most notable aspect of the Bug in this story is that, encountering Supergirl’s secret identity Linda Danvers, he immediately sees through her: “I liked you better with the blonde hair and blue tights!” (1984, p. 23). Here we have an example of the Bug’s ability to violate the normative rules of superhero stories—one that foreshadows much to come. The Supergirl appearance was followed by three Action Comics backup stories starring the Bug that fixed most of the key elements of Giffen’s Ambush Bug in place. The visual style employed by Giffen is highly distinctive and would characterize most of the Bug stories to come. He

Teleporting Off the Page (Walker)  141 uses no gutters between his panels, which are usually rather narrow and divided from each other only by black lines. The drawings within these panels are highly detailed and make strong use of shadows and dark colors, with many such tight ­­close-ups of characters that only part of their face is visible. The overall effect on most pages is somewhat disorienting and even claustrophobic; the compositions are dark, and it takes some work to distinguish individual panels from each other. This puts the visuals somewhat at odds with the comic content of the stories, though it does suggest something of the existential angst that would become more important in the Bug’s later appearances. Here, however, the comic impulse continues to dominate the actual narratives. Freed from Arkham Asylum, Ambush Bug starts a detective agency. In the first of the Action stories, Clark Kent is sent to interview him; the Bug immediately identifies him as Superman and collapses in laughter: “You mean to tell me—HAHAHA—that there are actually people—HOHOHO—who—GASP GASP—fall for that stupid disguise?” (1984, p.3). We also get the first mention of Ambush Bug’s real name, Irwin Shwab, and an element of his origin: “He was raised by an Admiral ­­solid-state television” (1984, p. 4). In the third Action story this would be expanded upon by having Shwab find the Ambush Bug costume, which had been rocketed away from a doomed planet, and then bitten in space by a giant radioactive spider. The Bug continues to be an incompetent superhero, at one point “arresting” a Buick for a parking violation. Most crucially, however, the final page of the first story both hints at the character’s darker undertones, with the Bug declaring his intention to commit ­­hari-kari at the end of his sixth episode, and features his first explicit, undeniable breaking of the fourth wall. The story’s final panel shows the door of Kent’s office as, inside, he sarcastically invites the Bug to commit ­­hari-kari immediately; the Bug replies, “You really think if I was gonna slice my bod open, Giffen would hide me behind this door?” (1984, p. 8). The second Action story, “$ellout,” moves still further in this direction, with narrative coherence breaking down almost completely. It opens with a bearded figure in a suit who identifies himself as “Peabody, of Peabody, Dicker, and Pending,” an advertising firm. Despite frequent interruptions from the ­­off-panel Dicker (who disagrees with much he says) and Pending (who hesitates to take action), Peabody says that he is presenting advertising ideas for an Ambush Bug miniseries, while “Mr. Bug” is busy soliciting guest stars. Peabody and his ­­never-seen cohorts would become regular features in the Ambush Bug stories, as would another character introduced here—a homeless alcoholic who claims to be the Bug’s guardian angel. The bulk of the story consists of Ambush Bug trying and failing to convince Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or the Teen Titans

142   The DC Comics Universe to appear in his miniseries. Not only is the character fully aware that he is in a comic—and that sales are vital to his continued ­­well-being—but he is also apparently well versed in comic knowledge; he has no trouble finding his way to the Batcave and happily reminds Superman of some of his more ludicrous Silver Age adventures (“Remember the time you turned into a caveman?” [1984, p. 2]). One entire page of the story, consisting of white speech balloons in black panels, purports to be the creative team hatching story ideas in Julius Schwartz’s office during a blackout. Ambush Bug’s growing popularity was attested to by the fact that he appeared on the covers of all three issues of Action Comics, though his strip was a backup feature. He was then ­­cover-billed as Superman’s costar in his third appearance in DC Comics Presents #81’s “All This and Kobra, Too,” in which a piece of red kryptonite causes the two heroes to switch bodies, tormenting villain Kobra to the extent that he directs a lackey to “plot a course out of the DC universe!” (1985, p. 23). The Ambush Bug miniseries, which saw its first issue released in the following month, marked the pinnacle of both the Bug’s standing within DC’s pantheon and the artistic fulfillment of his potential. The first issue saw the Bug gain a sidekick in the form of an abandoned cabbage patch doll he dubs “Cheeks, the Toy Wonder.” In what probably stands as the most traditionally coherent superhero story he ever starred in, the Bug and Cheeks take on a group of ­­r ight-wing, ­­Reagan-worshiping terrorists. Cheeks “dies” when Ambush Bug leaves him to defuse a time bomb (which explodes with a ­­f ull-page sound effect of “Ding” because, a caption explains, the letterer’s wife was sleeping), but the Bug’s guardian angel assures him that this is all right because “dead heroes sell.” The second issue of the miniseries sees Ambush Bug battle a ­­Godzilla-sized koala bear and introduces one of his major foils: Jonni DC, Continuity Cop. Drawn as a woman with a DC logo for a body, Jonni DC is charged with maintaining the continuity of the DC Universe and sees the Bug as a threat because he is the only character in the universe who knows that he is in a comic book. It is the third issue of the comic, however, which marks the most important vision of Ambush Bug’s place in the DC Universe. Abandoning narrative coherence almost entirely, “The Ambush Bug History of the DC Universe” opens with the Bug sitting next to a pile of globes representing the many Earths which existed in DC’s continuity at the time. Addressing the reader, he argues that the DC Universe has become “too organized! You see, the folks who run the industry decided that in order for people to take comics seriously, they’d have to have internal logic and make complete sense.” The problem, he says, is not that too many characters exist (“they’re all good—even Matter Eater Lad”) but that the mania for order has led to many being forgotten or discarded.

Teleporting Off the Page (Walker)  143 To correct this, he says, “we’re going to have to play their game: the Continuity Game!” (1986, p. 1). The balance of the issue consists of brief vignettes, parodies and profiles highlighting many of the characters and concepts that DC had cast aside. In one, the Bug, in the role of investigative reporter, seeks to discover “Whatever Happened to Binky?”—the teen who had been DC’s answer to Archie. In another he visits ­­Bat-Mite, who laments that Batman has changed: “All of a sudden, he’s this creature of the night, his cape’s thirty feet long, and he’s got no sense of humor” (1986, p. 9). ­­Half-page profiles appearing throughout remind us of characters like Egg Fu (a horrifyingly racist Wonder Woman villain), Quisp (a ­­water-sprite who palled around with Aquaman), and Mopee (a “heavenly helpmate” responsible for the lightning bolt that created the Flash). The argument implicitly being made here is not only that comics should be fun but that DC is making a mistake in emphasizing rigid continuity and turning its back on the more absurd and outlandish elements of its history. It is an argument that can still be discerned in the final issue of the miniseries, when the ­­g uest-starring villain Scabbard realizes, a few pages in, that he is in the wrong book, requiring the Bug and his creative team to improvise for the remaining pages; this ultimately results in the creation of the Bug’s nemesis Argh!Yle!—a sentient sock in a metal mask who came to Earth with the Bug’s uniform and hates Ambush Bug for leaving him behind. Unfortunately, this was exactly the wrong moment to be making such an argument. The Ambush Bug miniseries came out at the same time as another that would have a much ­­longer-lasting impact on DC: Crisis on Infinite Earths, the ­­12-issue series that sought to resolve all of DC continuity into the history of a single universe, with all the other worlds of the Multiverse being destroyed. In the wake of this, there was less room for the Bug’s gleeful celebration of the ridiculous and excessive. The following year would see the release of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen—two massively influential works that drove the industry as a whole, and the DC Universe in particular, still further in a “grim and gritty” direction which allowed little space for parody or ­­h igh-spirited fun. The Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer, released at the end of 1985, was already moving in a darker direction, with an undead Cheeks, the destruction of Ambush Bug’s building, and Jonni DC gleefully killing off characters who no longer fit DC’s plan. Son of Ambush Bug (1986) still offers laughs, but by now the basic shift in the Bug’s character, in response to the new DC Universe he finds himself in, is undeniable. The cover of the first issue encapsulates the new Ambush Bug neatly. Where the cover of the first issue of the initial miniseries had shown him in an imitation of Superman’s uniform, with a gleeful

144   The DC Comics Universe smile, the cover of Son of Ambush Bug #1 has him standing on a plain white background, surrounded by a dozen hyperbolic blurbs (“first issue spectacular!” and “Fleming and Giffen Have Done It Again!,” for example). Rather than sharing in this exuberance, the Bug is rubbing his head and looking downcast, with rumpled antennae; the “S” from “Ambush” in the logo has fallen on his head; Cheeks hangs limply from his other hand; he is wearing his costume, but over it he wears a plain pair of black slacks and a ­­button-down shirt, with one half untucked. The overall impression is not of a hero, but of a weary everyman beset by outside forces; indeed, this is the persona that the Bug now assumes. Throughout the series, the Bug rarely appears only in his costume, almost always wearing rumpled street clothes over it. Still ­­self-aware but no longer manic, he suffers through a host of indignities, at one point being sent to hell several times in one issue. Narrative coherence is almost entirely abandoned, with the series leaping between brief vignettes and parodies only loosely threaded together. The creators frequently interact with the Bug but as often as not do so only to deepen his torment. The Bug has gone from Groucho Marx to Samuel Beckett; his awareness of comic book existence now provokes not joyful exuberance but simply a weary endurance of endless absurdities. The series culminates with Ambush Bug being found guilty of “contempt of comics”; after serving a period in exile, he is banished from the DC Universe. His costume is confiscated, and he rides away on a train— his only comfort being reunited with fellow exile Cheeks. A caption tells us that Giffen and Fleming are too emotional to finish the story; thus, a final page showing the train going into the sun and resulting in an “A. Bug + Cheeks” tombstone is drawn crudely by “Keith’s little son, Kyle Giffen.” The final page of the series, aping how broadcast TV channels used to end their day, simply shows several panels of the American flag with the words of the National Anthem. Despite this exile and death, Ambush Bug has continued to make occasional cameos in the DC Universe, and Giffen has made efforts to recapture his full spirit—first in 1992’s Ambush Bug Nothing Special and then in the 2008 miniseries Ambush Bug: Year None. If anything, however, these efforts only emphasize the Bug’s distance from what has become the mainstream of DC’s contemporary publications. There is a particularly bitter air to Year None, which follows closely on the heels of Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis—a book which brought rape and mental torture to the mainstream DC Universe and depicted most of its central heroes as essentially psychopaths. At the end of Year None, the Bug is once again exiled. He finds comfort in having, at least, the “home version of the DCU game” but then reads the box in dismay: “Kill and maim your favorite DC characters in new and exciting ways” (2009, p. 23).

Teleporting Off the Page (Walker)  145 Of course, we might recall that the Bug himself kills in his first appearance; clearly characters, like universes, can change. If Ambush Bug, in the final analysis a standard bearer for the idea that comics should be fun, has been out of step with the darkness of the DC Universe for much of the past few decades, it does not mean that he will always be. As long as there exist readers who cannot help laughing at the idea that nobody recognizes Superman when he wears glasses, Ambush Bug lives on.

References Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1984). Police Blotter. Action comics #560. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1985). Black Beauty. Action comics #563. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1985). $ellout. Action comics #565. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1985). All this and kobra too. DC comics presents #81. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1985). Ha ha ha ha ha ­­w ipe-out. Ambush Bug #1. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1985). Versus the koala who walks like a man!! (Awwww, cute). Ambush bug #2. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1985). The Ambush Bug History of the DC Universe. Ambush Bug #3. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1985). Whoops. Ambush Bug #4. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1986). Ambush Bug stocking stuffer. Ambush Bug stocking stuffer #1. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1986). How come you do me like you do do do. Son of Ambush Bug #1. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1986). Hell again Hell again, jiggety jig. Son of Ambush Bug #2. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1986). Who put the ‘pop’ in poppycock? Son of Ambush Bug #3. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1986). ­­M ind-slaves of the caption king! Son of Ambush Bug #4. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1986). Witless for the prosecution. Son of Ambush Bug #5. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1986). Walking papers. Son of Ambush Bug #6. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (1992). Ambush Bug nothing special. Ambush Bug nothing special #1. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (2008). Hey, you sank my ­­battle-ax! Ambush Bug: Year none #1. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (2008). Five million Elvis impersonators can’t be wrong! Ambush Bug: Year none #2. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L. & Giffen, K. (2008). A Ton of Bricks, A Jug of Whine—And Thou! Ambush Bug: Year none #3. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (2008). The Guignol age of comics. Ambush Bug: Year none #4. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (2009). Meet the new boss! Ambush Bug: Year none #5. DC Comics. Fleming, R.L., & Giffen, K. (2009). 1 year late. Ambush Bug: Year none #7. DC Comics. Giffen, K., & Levitz, P. (1983). Ambush Bug II, or just when you thought it was safe to start reading DC Comics Presents again. DC comics presents #59. DC Comics. Kupperbetg, P. (1982). Negative woman goes berserk! DC comics presents #52. DC Comics. Kupperberg, P. (1984). ­­Bug-out! Supergirl #16. DC Comics. McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics: The invisible art. Tundra Publishing. Morrison, G. (1990). A new science of life. Animal Man #19. DC Comics.

Ratoon, Remontant, Revenant, or Recorporation Death, Melancholy, and Mourning in DC’s The Saga of the Swamp Thing Jeffrey Mccambridge

You see, throughout his miserable existence, the only thing that could have kept him sane was the hope that he might one day regain his humanity … the knowledge that under all that slime he was still Alec Holland. But if he’s read my notes he’ll know that just isn’t true. He isn’t Alec Holland. He never will be Alec Holland. He never was Alec Holland. He’s just a ghost. A ghost dressed in weeds. I wonder how he’ll take it?—Jason Woodrue, The Saga of the Swamp Thing (Moore, 1984, 2.21.21).

Ouroboros is the Greek name for the serpent that—as its name implies—consumes its own tail. 1 First recorded in the funerary texts inscribed across the walls of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in the 14th century bce, the Ouroboros was itself ironically reborn in countless inscriptions, doodles, and works of art across medieval Europe, finding popularity and a rich life/afterlife in alchemical texts.2 Its literary rebirths are ironic because the Ouroboros is said to represent destruction followed by revival, the end that consumes its own beginning in the act of its own rebirth. Carl Jung described the Ouroboros as “the dragon that devours, fertilizes, begets, and slays itself and brings itself to life again” (Jung, 1960, pg. 357). The Ouroboros is a paradox, a closed, circular system that also represents infinite potentialities, beginnings, and endings; it is a system that both consumes itself—­­s elf-termination—and stretches into infinity. As such, the Ouroboros represents both the joys of new life and the 146

Ratoon, Remontant, Revenant, or Recorporation (Mccambridge)  147 mourning of death, and yet, in the iconography of the single entity of the serpent both new life and new death remain potential, or implied, and are not actually being pictured in the figure of the ­­s elf-consuming serpent. Ideally, the serpent forms a perfect circle when it takes its own tail into its mouth, but from this position, in a literal sense, it is impossible for the serpent to fully ­­s elf-consume and as such, the autophagal serpent is always shown midway through its consumptive project. This is why each image of the Ouroborus illustrates the consumption and neither the act of creation (birth/rebirth) nor the completion of destruction (death), the moments before and after the ­­self-digestion. Instead, assuming it survives the consumption, it is eternally digesting its body sections, unable to fit itself entirely inside its own mouth and doomed instead to devour its own growth, which sounds rather like limiting potential as opposed to engendering it. Per Jung’s interpretation, though, in consuming its body and tail, the serpent is in fact consuming its own past and not merely its corporality. Superimposing the serpent’s straightened body on a linear timeline, the head then comes to represent the present that both looks into the future (rather than backward, toward its origins, as is the case with the circular Ouroboros), while the tail begins at the serpent’s birth and is aimed backwards toward its ­­pre-birth past (and paradoxically into the serpent’s ­­f uture-oriented mouth when ­­self-consuming), resting closer to the origin of the coordinate plane (0, 0) when charted.3 However, rather than representing the consumption, or loss, of the past, H.G. Baynes writes that “the uroborus symbol represents our psychic continuity with the immemorial past, back even to the life of the Mesozoic swamps, before ever the sun had warmed the blood of living creatures to the idea of mating, with its decent loyalties” (Baynes, 1940, pg. 221). For Baynes, the past is not actively being consumed but is instead being accessed through the Ouroboros’ autophagal appetites. In this sense, the Ouroboros serpent is, in fact, not looking toward the potentials of the future but limiting and exploring the finite potentialities of the past in the ­­ever-present now. This may be indicated by artists in the serpent’s face most often facing the left margin (leftward movement on the coordinate plan indicating reduction and negative movement—movement toward zero, or toward birth and ­­pre-birth). True to its cyclical motif, the Ouroboros is a repetition, but like all repetitions, what is repeated is the simulacrum of the original and not the original itself. It is something familiar, perhaps physically indistinguishable even, but also something entirely new that operates according to established guides (Deleuze, 1994, pg. 1–5). The Ouroboros frozen in each inscription and etching is always already at an undisclosed point in its birth/life/death cycle, promising new creations and new destructions,

148   The DC Comics Universe infinite potentialities stemming from infinite origins that cannot be represented within the limits of the page. If the Ouroboros’ head represents the future that consumes its own past, it also represents the head that is no longer familiar with its past, now digested, now lost in the face of irrecoverable loss through the transformative digestive process, now carrying that past inside of itself both literally and figuratively but altered at its foundations. It is also a head that is consuming the record of countless pasts. It is this reading of the Ouroboros’ tragic ­­consumption-based quest that frames the motifs of loss, lamentation, and mourning in DC’s The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Created by Len Wein in the early 1970s, Swamp Thing is a rustic southern horror series that follows the conflicts of the “­­muck-encrusted mockery of what once had been a man” as he battles swamp creatures, shadowy organizations within the U.S. government, crystal monsters, demons, dream monsters, clockwork people, synthetic ­­Un-Men, the many incarnations/reincarnations/recorporations of Anton Arcane, and even a mindless version of himself that grew from his disembodied arm (Wein, 1973, 1.1.15; 1.5.9).4 In the first volume of the series, Dr. Alec Holland and his wife, Dr. Linda Holland, create a ­­bio-restorative 5 formula in a secret laboratory in the rural Louisiana Bayou. When Alec refuses to sell the formula to the gangster Ferret, a stooge of the enigmatic leader of the criminal Conclave organization and its shadowy leader, Mr. E (Nathan Ellery), Ferret and his goons plant a bomb in the lab. Seconds before the explosion, Alec discovers the bomb but as he reaches to diffuse it the beakers containing the ­­bio-restorative formula shatter, covering him with his secret formula just as the bomb’s timer reaches zero and detonates, igniting the formula that is now coating Alec’s body. On instinct, he runs from the lab and dives into the nearby swamp, or as the series narrator graphically describes the harrowing ordeal: Imagine pain—so intense it defies description—as countless unclassified chemicals seep deep into throbbing, ­­f ume-enveloped flesh…. Imagine what such terrible suffering can do to the fragile mind…. As it drives the stricken body forward, clawing desperately at the cool night air in hopes of some small comfort…. Imagine relief—as the smoldering ­­man-shape reaches the soothing waters of the ­­ever-present bog … then disappears soundlessly beneath its bubbling surface [Wein, 1972, 1.1.12].

The issue’s panels cut immediately to Linda at Alec’s funeral. Within a few days of the funeral, Ferret and his goons will have murdered her as well. At the funeral, Matt Cable assures Linda that the bomb destroyed all traces of Alec’s body—words of comfort offered at Alec’s funeral by a family friend and their ­­government-appointed guardian. Days after the murder of Alec Holland, a cryptid emerges from the Bayou swamps:

Ratoon, Remontant, Revenant, or Recorporation (Mccambridge)  149 Rain: some say it cleanses the ­­a ll-too-impure earth—others proclaim it the sorrow of the gods, regretting the tragedy their golden hands have wrought…. The tragedy that has long been known as man! But those who dwell in this timeless land care not for idle opinion. They are contented to bask in the teeming torrent … until something suddenly disturbs their repose … something that claws its way out of the grasping mire … and into the light once more! Something that pulls itself upright on unsteady legs, searching its cloudy mind for a fragment of memory … then pauses, studying its gnarled, misshapen hands … examining the clusters of root, the crumbling chunks of moss … and in that frightening ­­m ind-shattering second—knows what it has become! A ­­muck-encrusted shambling mockery of life … a twisted caricature of humanity that can only be called…. Swamp Thing! [Wein, 1972, 1.1.14–15].

The narrator reflects a moment later that the “travesty” (i.e., Swamp Thing) breathes and thinks. This becomes an important declaration of sentience, life, and independence in the ­­moss-monster throughout the series, and it is the Swamp Thing’s capacity for thought that grants him his many identities. Like the Ouroboros, who repeats its origins but repeats them differently each time, the issues of The Saga of the Swamp Thing tell and retell the ­­muck-monster’s origins, emphasizing the motifs of rebirth. Later, the series would reveal that the Alec Holland ­­muck-monster is only one incarnation of the Earth Elemental, creatures who appear in every age with similar origins and appearance. The core of the Swamp Thing narrative is Alec Holland’s quest to lose his encrusting muck and be the man that he knows himself to be underneath, as if shedding a suit, and the emotion of the story is communicated through his melancholic lamentation of this change in condition from man to swamp creature. As a noted botanist, Dr. Alec Holland never directly questions the differences between plant and human cells in his ­­post-transformation state, perhaps because the truth of his transformation is either elusive or simply too frightening to confront head on. While likely an unconscious feature of the writing, it is noteworthy that the Swamp Thing routinely encounters other monsters who were once human, none of whom are able to revert to their human forms and the failures of reversion are an important motif throughout the story, from the Patchwork Man in 1.3 to the series antagonist, Anton Arcane, who continually makes new [temporary] bodies to inhabit in his quest to possess Swamp Thing’s superior body. While there are many warning signs that the Swamp Thing can never revert into Alec Holland throughout the first volume of the series, one of the most emphatic hints is in issues 19 and 20, where the Swamp Thing battles a mindless version of himself that grew from his disembodied arm (which was cut off and fell from a cliff in the fifth issue). When the arm landed it began to grow according to the patterns encoded in its DNA,

150   The DC Comics Universe coding that gave it the physical form but not the mental substance of the Swamp Thing. The unexpected amputation of the Swamp Thing’s arm in issue 5 revealed no bones, no human tissues hidden by his evergreen epidermis. It showed that his entire body was plant fiber with a vaguely human form and not a man encrusted with ­­swamp-muck. Issue 1.22 testifies that “His is a body made of slime, of fetid moss, of creeping roots that writhe and grow even as he stands unmoving at the sandy arroyo’s edge” (Wein, 1975, 1.22.1). In the issue that follows, “Rebirth and Nightmare,” the Swamp Thing goes to Alec Holland’s brother Edward, also a knowledgeable botanist, who is able to devise a way to recreate the conditions that lead to the creation of the Swamp Thing and thereby reverse the process, ­­u n-transforming the Swamp Thing into Alec Holland—or ­­re-transforming the Swamp Thing into a human—through fire and chemicals. While the trauma of both transformations haunts the newly human Holland, and while he has unexplainable pains reminiscent of the pains of regrowing his severed arm that leave his ­­post-re-transformation status in question, Alec remains Alec at the end of the issue. The issue ends promising a new Swamp Thing adventure, but the series was cancelled and the first volume ends here on these notes of uncertainty and rebirth. the Ouroboros–like cycle is interrupted on a foreboding note. The second volume of the series begins an undisclosed amount of time later as if the ­­t wenty-third and ­­t wenty-fourth issues of the first volume, where Edward Holland transforms his brother into human form, never happened. Edward is never mentioned again, nor is the Swamp Thing’s temporary ­­human-reversion, as if the human episode were merely a fantasy or a dream. It is perhaps not coincidence then, that in the opening panels of the second volume, the Swamp Thing has been having recurrent nightmares. The content that repeats in his nightmares is his own origin story—he dreams about the creation of the ­­bio-restorative formula, the painful experience of the explosion that was a Hell that “even Dante dared not dream” (Pasko, 1982, 2.1.5). In the narration, the murky waters of the swamp are “some obscene amniotic fluid…. Nurturing a thing that should not be … and giving birth to a grotesque” (Pasko, 1982, 2.1.5–6). The allusion to Dante’s Hellscape in his famous Inferno and its association with dreams recalls the epigraph to Freud’s famous Interpretation of Dreams, which begins with Virgil’s Latin: flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. The line, which Freud provides untranslated, is often rendered: “if I cannot move heaven, I will raise Hell” (Aeneid 8.312). The Swamp Thing can neither reach nor access the heavens [i.e., humanity] and instead battles (1) his own internal hell, that is, attempts to reconcile himself with his condition, and (2) the external hell of swamp monsters and demons. But in raising Hell, the Swamp Thing remains uncomfortably outside of it, as if

Ratoon, Remontant, Revenant, or Recorporation (Mccambridge)  151 perpetually trapped in liminality, not a part of Heaven, Hell, or the realms of man and instead residing in the swamps, which also reject him (hence the continual battles with other swamp creatures). Like Dante’s pilgrim, invoked by the Swamp Thing’s writers, the Swamp Thing is traveller in the otherworlds, a mere guest and ­­passer-by. Desperately seeking cathartic purgation, the ­­Virgil-less Swamp Thing fails to navigate his Purgatorio. The absence of Edward Holland and his botanical expertise means the first twenty issues of the second volume largely echo those of the first volume regarding the Swamp Thing’s motivations. Like the Ouroboros, the second volume continues the cycle of the Swamp Thing delaying his quest to find the man hidden inside as he battles vampires, demons, and government agents whose bodily pain is transferred to “empath receptors” (Pasko, 1982, 2.5.15). And like the Ouroboros, who consumes his own history, the Swamp Thing begins the second volume as if newly reborn, haunted by a past that he has consumed but cannot access. Where the second volume diverges from the first and from itself—while staying true to its own motifs—is in the ­­t wenty-first issue, where Dr. Jason Woodrue performs an autopsy on the [assumedly] deceased Swamp Thing (Sunderland operatives shot him in the head in the closing frames of the prior issue). Over the course of his autopsy, Woodrue—a minor ­­plant-based DC villain—discovers in the Swamp Thing fibrous and tuberous objects that match the approximate size and location of organs found throughout the human body, but that seem to lack any functionality—at least any functionality analogous to their human counterparts. Woodrue discovers ­­pod-like structures where he expected to find lungs but finds that the fibers are “too course to allow molecules of oxygen through” and that “[t] hese things suck and blow … and they don’t do anything else. They don’t work. They’re not lungs” (Moore, 1984, 2.21.7). Woodrue reflects: And every morning I set to work hauling organs that couldn’t work out of a body that had never needed them. The ­­bio-restorative formula had turned Holland into a plant … except that it couldn’t have. It didn’t work on human tissue. The Swamp Thing had organs like those of any living creature … except that they did not, could not, and had not been designed to function [Moore, 1984, 2.21.8].

That the ­­bio-restorative formula had zero effect on human tissue had already been established by Sunderland scientists who had exhumed Linda Holland’s body and found that her body’s tissues had also been saturated with the formula in the course of their brief work. Despite the presence of the ­­bio-restorative formula in her system prior to and at the time of death, her body showed no signs of transformation into a ­­swamp-monster like her husband. It is never speculated in the series that the heat from the explosion changed the chemical composition of the ­­bio-restorative formula.

152   The DC Comics Universe By chance—or perhaps divine providence—and at his wit’s end and in a state of frustrated exhaustion, Woodrue opens a textbook to the wrong page and begins reading while trying to puzzle out the Swamp Thing’s useless anatomy. In reading the undesired page, Woodrue recalls Professor James V. McConnell’s infamous studies on the transfer of memories through cannibalism in planarian flatworms.6 Immediately recognizing the gravity of his breakthrough, Woodrue concludes that Dr. Alec Holland had in fact died in the explosion that destroyed his laboratory in the first issue of the series. On legs carried by impulse, reflex, and reaction rather than conscious thought, Holland’s body, perhaps already dead, ran to the soothing waters of the swamp, where the ­­bio-restorative-coated flesh was consumed by the microorganisms natively living in the swamp. In consuming the charred bits of organic material from Holland’s bones, the microbes ingested both the formula, which was designed to alter DNA and accelerate plant growth—perhaps even its evolution—and absorbed an imprint of Holland’s consciousness as it existed in the traumatic moments of his death, “a powerful consciousness that does not realize it is no longer alive!” (Moore, 1984, 2.21.11). The clump of swamp goo vaguely recalled the human anatomy Holland had learned and taken for granted, creating a body for itself in the calm swamp waters as millions of microbes congealed together, forming a unified whole that awoke with an impression of Holland’s memories.7 The physiological discoveries about the Swamp Thing revolutionized the character and series—giving the title as well as the character another ­­O uroboros-like rebirth—but Woodrue’s report and ref lections do not stop with the Swamp Thing’s physical body. “He’s just a ghost,” Woodrue reflects. “A ghost dressed in weeds” (Moore, 1984, 2.21.21). According to Hauntology, a ghost or phantom is a unique phenomenon because it represents the impossible. The ghost is familiar—being recognizable as the deceased person—but also something new because it isn’t that person, whose body lies in the ground. The ghost is a displacement, a figure out of time who is trapped both in the past—usually the moment of death—and the ­­u n-aging present. Like the spectral figure of the ghost, who laments his condition as he seeks to redress grievances, Woodrue says of the Swamp Thing that throughout his miserable existence, the only thing that could have kept him sane was the hope that he might one day regain his humanity … the knowledge that under all that slime he was still Alec Holland. But if he’s read my notes he’ll know that just isn’t true. He isn’t Alec Holland. He never will be Alec Holland. He never was Alec Holland […] I wonder how he’ll take it? [Moore, 1984, 2.21.21].

To this point in the story the Swamp Thing’s primary motivation, as Woodrue notes and as indicated above, has been to unlock the

Ratoon, Remontant, Revenant, or Recorporation (Mccambridge)  153 man trapped beneath the moss, a phrasing echoed in the repetition of “­­muck-encrusted monstrosity” and other similar adjectival compounds identifying the Swamp Thing. For much of the series, the Swamp thing was essentially Frankenstein’s Monster, controlled by a brain in a foreign, composite body, trying to find his original body. To this point the Swamp Thing suffered from a melancholic lamentation of his condition, which he saw as both a loss and a transformation. The Swamp Thing’s discovery of Woodrue’s notes—which were intentionally placed where he was likely to find them—signal the Swamp Thing’s transition from melancholia to mourning in a Freudian sense. In “Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud writes that melancholy is engendered when an object or person is lost, and that sometimes it’s unclear exactly what has even been lost even though the feeling of loss is keenly felt by the melancholic (Freud, 1959, pg. 155). For Freud, melancholia occurs when the ego interprets the loss as an attack and becomes “poor and empty” because the ego has identified with the “forsaken object” (Freud, 1959, pg. 155, 159). For Freud, melancholia and mourning are difficult to differentiate though both indicate a similar and complex mental economy. One key difference, though, is that there is no treatment for mourning, which is a natural mental process characterized by profound grief that is felt in the wake of the loss of a loved one—or an abstract with similar significance (Freud, 1959, pg. 153). Freud makes an important observation about mourning that is of particular interest when reading The Saga of the Swamp Thing, and that is that the mourner refuses to adopt new objects of love from the fear of violating the relationship they experienced with the person they lost, and in doing so, they carry the lost love within themselves (Freud, 1959, pg. 153). This is perhaps best reflected in the Swamp Thing’s continual attempts to avoid Cable and Arcane, and other friends who wish to help him. One of the Swamp Thing’s most consistent personality traits is that he will abandon friends when they are not looking. In “Rams: Uninterrupted Dialogue—Between Two Infinities, the Poem,” Jacques Derrida nuances Freud’s descriptions of loss and mourning by writing that there is a universal law—“a sad and invasive certainty”—that characterizes all friendships: that one friend must outlive the other and watch the other die (Derrida, 2005, pg. 139). In death, the dialogue between friends is irrevocably interrupted and becomes internalized. For Derrida, death is the end of the world—the world of the friend and friendship—and also the creation of another world—that is the world inside the surviving friend who now carries the memory of the deceased and continues their dialogue. The carrying of the friend’s world through memory is an eloquently succinct description of the Swamp Thing’s relationship with Alec Holland, whom he has never actually met and yet Alec Holland haunts his every

154   The DC Comics Universe thought (as well as his many dreams and nightmares featured throughout the series, not to mention the times that Alec Holland’s spectral projection is seen in the comic’s frames). Signaling the shift from melancholia to mourning, while rooted and unresponsive, the Swamp Thing dreams that he is Alec Holland at the Hollands’ wedding, but something is wrong with Linda and she disappears beneath the ground, as if buried. After having been given a “­­mud-suit” by Matt Cable so his wedding clothes do not get dirty in exhuming/rescuing his ­­bride-to-be, Abigail Cable insists that Alec remove the suit, but when he tries to disrobe he discovers that the suit is empty—Alec is gone and only the “­­mud-suit,” which is shaped like the Swamp Thing, remains (Moore, 1984, 2.22.8). When the issue returns to the Swamp Thing’s dream, he is carrying a catatonic Linda and approaches a cookout where giant planarian worms are preparing to make a picnic of Alec Holland’s body. The worms—who are Aryan and ask if the Swamp Thing is Jewish before allowing the interaction to go too far—invite the Swamp Thing to their feast, but before he can join in and claim a part of Alec for himself, the worms eat all but the bones. When the Swamp Thing complains that “there’s nothing left,” the friendly ­­planarian-Aryan worm corrects him by saying they have left him the best part, the humanity, and advises him not to lose it (Moore, 1984, 2.22.12–13). While the Swamp Thing had been carrying Linda to this point, he finds himself unable to carry both Alec Holland’s humanity and the unresponsive Linda, still in her bridal dress. The Swamp Thing leaves Linda behind, now alone at the picnic table—the friendly ­­planarian-Aryan group apparently uninterested—so he can carry the skeleton; despite his size and strength, the Swamp Thing is unable to carry both. Like Freud, who said the living carry the dead within themselves and jealously defend their attachments to the lost loved one, the Swamp Thing is forced to carry the symbols of his loss.8 As the Swamp Thing continues through the dream, carrying the skeletal remains of Alec Holland, he meets his many antagonists throughout the series, each of which trying to take a few pieces of Holland’s remains to patch up their own damaged humanity (Moore, 1984, 2.22.16). The Swamp Thing cries that they have taken enough from him and beats them to pieces, but after the battle he is left with nothing more than the spinal column and skull, which begins talking to the Swamp thing and tells him that he cannot stop to rest and must continue forward. As Derrida writes, the world of Holland is preserved inside the Swamp Thing’s memory, where the dialogue continues, only here the Swamp Thing is annoyed with the words emanating from the skull, which insists on its own importance, telling the Swamp Thing: “I’m important. I’m what keeps you going. You could let go of Linda, but you couldn’t let go of me. Oh, I know I’m a little beaten up and battered, but I’m still worth

Ratoon, Remontant, Revenant, or Recorporation (Mccambridge)  155 all the effort, aren’t I? After all, without me there’d be no point in running, would there?” to which the Swamp Thing unceremoniously responds “No” (Moore, 1984, 2.22.19). As the Swamp Thing lays down, Holland’s humanity/skull commands the Swamp Thing to get up and keep running, telling him that the race he’s running is the human race and if he lays down he is disqualified, meaning he’s no longer human. After laying down, the Swamp Thing puts the skull on his chest and immediately begins to grow around it while also rooting himself into the Swamp. In doing so, he both internalizes the small, remaining bit of Holland’s humanity while finally becoming a part of the swamp rather than haunting it. Literally taking Holland’s [minimized] world into his body he also separates himself from the ­­a ll-too-human melancholic condition that served as the emotional leitmotif of the previous issues of the series and signals the beginning of the Swamp Thing’s mourning. It is likely that the skull, the foundation of the head, represents Alec Holland’s intellect, while the ribs, forming the barrier that protects the chest and heart, would have represented Alec Holland’s emotions. Freed of the burden of Alec’s emotions, the Swamp Thing now embraces what he believes to be his identity, a rooted plant. In the height of dramatic irony, the Swamp Thing mourns Holland’s death as his own. Or, as the narration states it, the Swamp Thing is now “swamped…” (Moore, 1984, 2.22.20). The Swamp Thing is no longer melancholic, a form of depression, but instead finally grieving the loss of a woman he never actually loved, a wife he never married, and of Alec Holland, his life that he never lived. The Swamp Thing’s mourning is entirely natural, except that it isn’t; paradoxically he is haunted by his own ghost that isn’t his—the spirit of Alec Holland—but he is not and has never been Alec Holland. Instead, to adopt the phrasing of Derrida, the Swamp Thing is carrying the worlds of loves he has never loved and mourning deaths he has never experienced and yet has keenly felt. The healing process for the Swamp Thing’s mourning happens several issues later in “The Burial” (2.28), which begins with the Swamp Thing digging a hole in the mud as Alec Holland’s ghost looks on (Moore, 1984, 2.28.4). In this issue the Swamp Thing also snaps at Abigail Cable for calling him Alec, replying that he’s not Alec and that Alec is dead. After digging the hole deep enough so that the Swamp Thing is convinced that the dead he buries within will stay dead, stay buried, he waits for Holland’s ghost to return in order to bury it, but instead is greeted only by a newly risen vision of himself, the Swamp Thing, who quietly points toward the swamp (Moore, 1984, 2.28.17). Defeated, feeling as if he’s dug an “empty grave … to fit … a vanished body,” the Swamp Thing realizes that the body may not have actually vanished and that he is not trying

156   The DC Comics Universe to bury the discorporate memory—that is, the spectral Holland over his shoulder—but instead the physical remains (Moore, 1984, 2.28.17–21). Tracing the place that the spectral vision of the Swamp Thing had indicated earlier, the Swamp Thing searches the murky waters of the swamp and finds the lonely bones of Alec Holland, stripped clean by the years and by anything feeding on the “spoiled flesh” and buries the remains, planting one of his own roots as a marker (Moore, 1984, 2.28.21–22). The issue ends with the Swamp Thing walking into the horizon, knowing that the spirit of Holland is smiling but not looking back. Like the Ouroboros who buries its tail in its mouth and gut, the Swamp Thing has reconciled his ­­past-that-is-not-his-past by destroying it and being reborn. In the following issues, it is Abigail Cable who is haunted, both literally and emotionally.9

Notes 1.  oura [οὐρά] “tail” + bora [βορά] “food, meat, or prey.” 2.  While these arcane texts are not referenced by name, Anton Arcane tells the Swamp Thing “I am old, my boy, frightfully old—but I have learned many things in my time upon this earth—occult enchantments—supernatural lore!” (Wein, 1973, 1.2.11). 3.  It should be assumed that only the Ouroboros’ first birth can be localized at the origin of the coordinate plane and that subsequent rebirths happen further along the ­­X-Axis. 4.  Variations of “­­muck-encrusted” and “­­moss-encrusted” appear throughout the first volume as descriptors of the Swamp Thing. 5.  Throughout the series the name of the formula is rendered both as a hyphenated and as a closed compound. 6.  Professor McConnell, a noted biologist, animal psychologist, and science fiction author and editor, conducted experiments in the 1950s in which he was able to condition planarian worms to navigate a simple maze. Because of a planarian worm’s unique ability to regrow excised parts—including the recreation of its own head—McConnell surmised that memory was likely encoded somewhere in the worm’s genetics. To test this hypothesis, he conducted an experiment in which he conditioned a set of worms to navigate a maze using right lights and electric shocks and then fed the “victim” worms to a separate set of “cannibal” worms and tested how quickly the cannibal worms learned the maze. McConnell concluded that, at least for planarian worms, knowledge could be ingested. Duplications of his experiment met with mixed results and his findings were scoffed at by much of the scientific community (see bibliography). Later, McConnell would write that, if he and his colleagues “had been smart, we would have scrapped that study immediately and performed another quite different one in which we showed that sensitization, or perhaps even habituation, could be retained in regenerating pieces of planarians” and then only gradually worked toward claims that memory was a chemical process in order to reduce the shock of the claim among his peers (McConnell, 1966, 311). 7.  The Swamp Thing’s thought and logic patterns are noticeably different from Hollands. The first indicator is the relentless ellipsis that break apart the Swamp Thing’s thought and speech. He does not think clearly, nor does he think in scientific terms. While this could be dismissed as a result of his traumatic experiences and transformation, Woodrue’s report allows us to read the rhetorical differences as potential evidence that Holland is not, in fact, the Swamp Thing. 8.  While the Swamp Thing met neither Alec nor Linda Holland, it is worth noting that he has mourned both.

Ratoon, Remontant, Revenant, or Recorporation (Mccambridge)  157 9.  While not included for space reasons, the many rebirths of Anton Arcane are as important as the Swamp Thing’s complicated relationship with melancholy and mourning. Arcane, who has previously attacked the Swamp Thing directly, has instead possessed the body of Matt Cable and has been having a sexual relationship with his own niece, Abigail, Matt’s wife. Abigail’s reaction both to Matt’s death and her uncle’s sexual abuse is graphic, debilitating, and leads to her death in a quest to clean herself of the pervasive stench that follows her. In issue 2.22 it is implied that Abigail was raped as a child, possibly by her uncle Anton Arcane. The text is ambiguous on this point and the context is Abigail’s lifelong fear of insanity, ­­s elf-doubt, and trouble perceiving reality: “As a child she’d wake to the restless dark of her room and know that something crouched behind her. Something with quicklime on its breath, with curling fingernails and a heart that brimmed with maggots. She’d lie there, a stillborn scream curdling in her throat, and listen to its soft and liquid wheezing. And, eventually when the terror outdistanced the reality, she’d open her eyes … and take a look … and there’d be nobody there” (Moore, 1984, 2.22.10).

References Baynes, H.G. (1940). Mythology of the soul: A research into the unconscious from schizophrenic dreams and drawings. Routledge. Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition. Translated by P. Patton. Columbia University Press. Derrida, J. (2005). Rams: Uninterrupted dialogue—Between two infinities, the poem. In T. Dutoit & O. Pasanen (Eds.), Sovereignties in question: The poetics of Paul Celan. Fordham University Press. Freud, S. (1959). Mourning and melancholia. In J. Riviere (Trans.), Collected papers, volume 4. Basic Books. Freud, S. (2010). The interpretation of dreams. Translated by J. Starchey. Basic Books. Hartry, A.L., ­­Keith-Lee, P., and Morton, W.D. (1964). Planaria: Memory transfer through cannibalism reexamined. Science, New Series, vol. 146, No. 3641, 274–275. Jung, C. (1960). The psychogenesis of mental disease. Translated and edited by R.F.C. Hull. Routledge. McConnell, J.V. (1967). The biochemistry of memory. In W.C. Corning & S.C. Ratner (Eds.), Chemistry of learning: Invertebrate research. Springer Science + Business Media. Michelinie, D. (1975). The Solomon plague. The saga of the Swamp Thing. Vol. 1, No. 22. DC. Moore, A. (1984). The anatomy lesson. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Vol. 2, No. 21. DC. Moore, A. (1984). The burial. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Vol. 2, No. 28. DC. Moore, A. (1984). Swamped! The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Vol. 2, No. 22. DC. Pasko, M. (1982). The screams of hungry flesh. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Vol. 2, No. 5. DC. Pasko, M. (1982). What peace there may be in silence. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Vol. 2, No. 1. DC. Ragland, R.S., & Ragland, J.B. (1965). Planaria: Interspecific transfer of a conditionability factor through cannibalism. Psychonomic Science, no. 3, 117–118. Thompson, R., & McConnell, J. (1955). Classical conditioning in the planarian, dugesia dorotocephala. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, vol. 48, no. 1, 65–68. Wein, L. (1972). Dark genesis! The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Vol. 1, No. 1. DC. Wein, L. (1973). The man who wanted forever. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Vol. 1, No. 2. DC.

Aquaman Rex The Arthurian Associations of a DC Superhero Carl B. Sell

In our contemporary moment, we are inundated with works that situate themselves in relation to medieval sources, elements, and narratives. By and large, we tend to see such associations in films, video games, poems, and many other medium- and ­­genre-based popular material. All too often, such modern and contemporary texts are relegated to “lesser” or “fringe” status in scholarly circles—particularly scholars of Arthurian legend. However, rather than privilege the medieval “canonical” Arthurian texts, we, as scholars, must embrace emerging trends in popular media, especially those works to which we may still be resistant. Comics, especially, provide a glimpse into an increasingly popular fictional form that has become ever more reliant on Arthurian story arcs, characters, and literary history. The new spins on Arthur and Camelot have been popular with readers of comics since Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, but it is the work of contemporary authors that call the most attention to their medieval sources. The Arthurian comics tradition of calling attention to medieval sources—either subtly or overtly—seems to have begun in earnest with Barr and Bolland’s Camelot 3000 in the 1980s, which presents itself as a sequel to Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. Since then, comics such as DC’s Demon Knights and Aquaman, Marvel’s Black Knight and Captain Britain, Dark Horse’s Hellboy, Image’s Lady Pendragon and Mage, Aftershock’s Unholy Grail, and Boom!’s Once and Future all situate themselves within the story of Arthur and his Camelot but are often placed into the context of more “canonical” Arthurian texts—specifically the medieval works upon which they inherently rely. While many comics seek to present a more traditional tale of Arthur and his knights or present modern 158

Aquaman Rex (Sell)  159 heroes and villains transported to the past in a ­­Twain-inspired time travel scenario, what is most interesting is the way in which many more recent comics position the story of Arthur in much the same way as George A. Romero’s film Knightriders: rather than showcase Arthur himself, there is often an Arthurian figure or a character closely related to an Arthurian figure that features prominently in the comic adaptation. Jason Tondro and Michael A. Torregrossa explore these connections in their critical works, Superheroes of the Round Table (2011) and “The Once and Future Kings: The Return of King Arthur in the Comics” (2004), respectively. I add to this discussion by exposing the Arthurian appropriations in the comics character Aquaman and the reasoning behind the appropriation of Arthuriana to situate this character both into the history of his own backstory but also into the wider corpus of the Arthurian literary tradition—a tradition of adaptation and appropriation which began long before comics emerged as a medium. Perennial ­­fan-favorite comics writer Geoff Johns had arguably one of the most famous runs of DC’s Aquaman title in 2013—in fact, Johns’ run was the inspiration for the recent Aquaman film (starring Jason Momoa as the aquatic king), on which Johns himself served as a writer. Arthur Curry, the titular hero and King of Atlantis, had previously been derided as a ­­s econd-rate, ­­low-powered hero without a compelling backstory or link to any serious subject matter. Indeed, previous screen incarnations of the character include the lamentably laughable iteration of Aquaman from the animated Super Friends (1973–1985), which aided in the canonization of Aquaman as a figure of ridicule. Geoff Johns, and Rick Veitch and Peter David before him, changed all that with an Arthur Curry who draws from the most obvious source material presented to the ­­half-human, half–Atlantean king: that of the other—and perhaps more famously celebrated—King Arthur. Johns appropriates elements from the Arthurian mythos as a whole rather than any one specific textual rendering of the legendary King of the Britons, except maybe Sir Thomas Malory’s, a possibility that is revealed via Johns’ title for the story arc Death of a King, in which the Atlantean King Arthur is confronted with an Arthurian return, a ­­Mordred-like figure, a courtly betrayal, and a “final battle” for the kingship just as his namesake is in the many accounts of the famous British king. It is through these appropriations of general Arthuriana that Johns crafts a suitable backstory and parallel narratives for his own King Arthur, Aquaman. Johns’ tenure on the Aquaman title for DC lasted from 2011 to 2013. Though Johns is known for using structures which draw on mythic templates, vast storylines, and borrowing of literary narratives, 2013 saw some of his most mythic work in the comics medium. Both Marvel and DC are

160   The DC Comics Universe not afraid to borrow material from myth, folklore, and legend and often did so at the same time. Johns’ Arthurian Aquaman was no different as Death of a King and its Justice League ­­t ie-in Throne of Atlantis hit the shelves at the same time as Marvel’s Fear Itself event. While Johns used Arthurian and Celtic elements in a returned king plotline, Marvel’s Matt Fraction embraced Thor’s Norse heritage and pit Odin and his son against Odin’s returned brother, the Serpent (Fraction). Reinterpreting Thor’s battle with the Midgard Serpent from Ragnarök, the apocalypse of Norse mythology, Fraction borrows freely from the Eddas and other mythic sagas. In a distinct parallel, Thor, like DC’s Aquaman, is in a unique position to stop the Dark ­­A ll-Father—the brother whom Odin deposed. In fact, as Jason Tondro argues, Thor’s own hammer is an appropriation from the sword in the stone motif, as only those who are worthy enough to wield it can lift it (2011, p. 155). In Fear Itself, the chosen of the Serpent, the Worthy, are the only ones able to wield their respective hammers (dark versions of Thor’s own Mjolnir) in Fraction’s own twist on Thor’s mythology. The lifting of the hammers does also harken back to Sigmund’s own sword, Gram, pulled from the Barnstokkr tree in The Saga of the Volsungs (2000, p. 38–39); the notion of the worthy, or rightful, wielder of such a weapon belongs more to Arthur in the contemporary imagination—and arguably even in the late medieval imagination—than to Sigmund, especially for writers of comics. Marvel’s use of Arthuriana, however, is nearly as ambiguous and DC’s own. Rather than remaining rooted to any single version of the Arthurian mythos, both comics companies seem to use variations of popular versions of Arthur without ties to a particular medieval source, though Malory is often at the root of contemporary conceptions of Arthuriana. At DC, Johns’ use of King Arthur as a parallel for Arthur Curry was not without precedent. However, much like Fraction’s use and reinterpretation of Thor’s previous history, Johns complicates the established Arthurian cycle in Death of a King. In the collected edition of Aquaman #17–19 and #21–25, Johns introduces a rival Arthurian figure which I have termed the “Dark Arthur.” Johns’ use of this kind of character is not unique: Veitch previously used a similar character in his Aquaman run, not to mention the fact that Mordred himself is a dark parallel of his father in Arthurian legend. Nevertheless, Johns’ Dark Arthur forces Aquaman and his fans to question his rightful place as the king of Atlantis. Johns’ Dark Arthur figure is a returned Atlantean king of old who sees his realm in peril, but instead of leading his people to salvation, his murderous rage sparks a war between those who follow him and those who seek to embrace the peaceful future of King Arthur Curry. The dual Arthurian figures of Johns’ writing are pulled straight from his larger concept of mythic source texts; I argue that to fully understand the Aquaman presented in these pages, the

Aquaman Rex (Sell)  161 reader must be fully aware of the Arthurian figure and its literary history from which Johns draws—particularly the elements he appropriates from Malory. Arthur Curry has long been associated with Arthur Pendragon—not only because they share the same first name but because they are both considered bastard sons by their enemies, are raised away from their rightful places on their thrones, the Arthurs eventually rule their idyllic realms, and they are also assailed by enemies outside and inside their own kingdoms. In fact, Arthur Curry, the Aquaman, is a “Once and Future King” himself: in nearly all of his more recent reboots and storylines, he is ousted from his kingdom unjustly but returns when his people need his strong leadership the most. Indeed, in Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis (2009), Aquaman, who is believed to be lost by the Justice League, returns for a brief moment to fight the forces of Darkseid. In issue #7, Morrison reveals: “The story of Arthur of Atlantis, prophesied to return in his people’s time of greatest need” (p. 12). Morrison appropriates this “prophesy”—unheard of with Arthur Curry until Morrison’s pronouncement—from Malory’s own account of King Arthur, which reads: yet som men say in many partys of Inglonde that Kynge Arthure ys nat dede, but had by the will of Oure Lorde Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall com agayne, and he shall wynne the Holy Crosse…. And many men say that there ys written upon the tumbe thys vers: “Hic iacet Arthurus, Rex quondam Rexque futurus” [1485/2017, p. 928].

While Malory was not the originator of this prophecy, his is the most famous account of the “Once and Future King” variant, implying Arthur’s return in a time a great need. Morrison, who may not have used Malory specifically, was aware of this part of the legend which has been adapted in popular culture from Malory’s version. By (re)associating Arthur Curry with King Arthur of Britain, Morrison helps reestablish the connections begun by Peter David and Rick Veitch in their less successful iterations of the Aquaman for Geoff Johns to take over Aquaman from Blackest Night— which also sees an Arthurian return but with Aquaman as an undead Black Lantern who is then healed by the White Lanterns—and finally through Johns’ control of the solo Aquaman title. Geoff Johns’ New 52 run from 2011 until 2013 is far from the first story arc to draw parallels between Aquaman and King Arthur, though it is the most recent to explicitly enter the Arthurian mythos. Originally, it was writer Peter David who successfully established a link between the two Arthurs in his own Aquaman run from 1990 to 1998, and David’s work was continued by Rick Veitch, who attempted to make the Arthurian matter that David associated with Aquaman even more explicit in his 2003 story arc, Aquaman: The Waterbearer. Veitch’s Waterbearer arc was one

162   The DC Comics Universe of the most famous Aquaman stories to connect the DC comics’ character with Arthurian legend (particularly the Lady of the Lake), but it was also largely unsuccessful in comparison to David’s own tenure and was largely eclipsed by Johns’ later run. In Veitch’s take on Aquaman, Arthur Curry is given a prosthetic hand made of water from Annwn, the realm of the Lady of the Lake and the mystical otherworld of Welsh tradition. The Waterbearer hand connects Aquaman with the Lady, who often recalls a similar gift to another Arthur—indeed, she mentions Camelot and King Arthur frequently in her interactions with Aquaman, the new King Arthur. Jason Tondro notes that, like the legendary King Arthur, Aquaman’s downfall is begun by “us[ing] the Lady’s gift in anger,” a new “Dolorous Stroke” (Tondro, 2000, p. 163). This creates a dark version of the Waterbearer and a dark version of Aquaman: The Thirst, the antithesis of Arthur Curry’s desire to save Atlantis and bring its people back into the fold of the Lady of the Lake and to create a new Camelot. Arthur Curry fails the Arthurian ideal by betraying the Lady: rather than uphold his vow to use the hand reliably to heal the world and bring peace to the land and sea, he breaks his word and must pay the consequences. Thus, the Arthurian ideal is yet again used as a vehicle to drive plot and characterization in an Arthurian adaptation. Veitch creates a dual Arthurian figure in this comic: the Arthurian figure of Aquaman and the Dark Arthur figure of the Thirst, whom he pits against each other much as Geoff Johns later pits Aquaman against the returned King Atlan in Aquaman: Death of a King. Unfortunately, Veitch’s Aquaman run was canceled due to poor sales and a questionable move regarding Black Manta’s neurodivergence. Tondro notes that “every indication is that Veitch had only begun to develop his use of the Arthurian mythos in Aquaman” (p. 163) and cites the figures who were beginning to take their places in this recasting of an underwater Camelot. Veitch’s creation of a dark version of Aquaman is something that I argue influenced Geoff Johns’ later run of Aquaman, particularly the Death of a King storyline. Here, the Dark Arthur figure is further explored and used by Johns to create a dual version of an Atlantean King Arthur. Arthur Curry provides the standard version of an Arthurian figure who leads his people when they need him most after his brother, Orm, fails the Kingdom of Atlantis as its ruler. King Atlan, however, provides the Dark Arthur figure: he has returned as well, but his past has changed him into a king who awakes from his slumber with the desire to revenge himself for his betrayal at the hands of his brother. Atlan has allowed his past to corrupt him and wants only to rule with an iron (or rather, icy) fist—the opposite of what a returned Arthurian figure should want for his people, at least if one positions an Arthurian figure (like Aquaman) as an ideal, just king who unifies his people and nation.

Aquaman Rex (Sell)  163 M.A. Chaney notes that DC often positions Aquaman ‘“as a tragic hero’” (1991, p. 56), and Johns’ version of Arthur Curry is no different. While Chaney prefers to think of the notion of a tragic hero in larger terms of mythology, though linking Aquaman’s amputation as reminiscent of the beheading game of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, what Johns is clearly calling attention to in the New 52 Aquaman era is the elements of the tragic hero in Arthurian legend (1991, p. 63). In the same style as Malory, Johns calls attention to the tragic nature of his story with a suitable title: Death of a King. This is no accident as Johns is focusing in on the battle between the true king of Atlantis, Arthur Curry, against pretenders to his throne; Malory similarly bookends his Le Morte D’Arthur with Arthur’s battles against those who oppose his legitimate rule, first as a boy king and later as his kingdom erupts around him and his death draws near. Many subsequent retellings of Arthurian legends have latched on to the idea that an Arthurian king must constantly be tested, which is only natural for a superhero like Aquaman, who must defeat a new villain or stop a ­­world-ending event nearly every week. Unlike Malory’s Arthur, however, Aquaman originally fails to defeat his final foe, the returned King Atlan. The first king of a united Atlantis, Atlan has returned after being awoken from a long, healing slumber; this narrative should sound familiar as it is an inherently Arthurian return. Failure is not new to Arthur, both in terms of his super heroic representation as Aquaman—for a superhero rarely defeats his nemesis the first time—but also in terms of precedent in Arthurian legend. The Arthur of the French High History of the Holy Grail has failed in his chivalric oaths; though this Arthur upheld justice and honor in Camelot for a decade, after those 10 years, “a slothful will came upon him and he began to lose the pleasure in doing largess that he wont to have, nor was he minded to hold court neither at Easter nor at Pentecost,” and his knights of the Round Table and fellow princes followed him into failure (9). Of course, the Arthur of the High History will not languish in his failure for long as the Grail quest reinvigorates his desire to become a king that lives up to his ideals once again. The High History is an outlier in medieval Arthuriana, but it helps to establish an Arthur who fails—perhaps even a ­­proto-Dark Arthur for later representations to appropriate and revise into their separate Arthurian figures. Atlan, however, is not going to bring a new peaceful era to his people; he will not repent, as does the Arthur of the High History. Modernity has attached the (re)establishment of a peaceful era to an Arthurian return, and Atlan instead comes to punish them for the murder of his wife and heir at the hands of his brother and the faction who supported him, and for the degradation of Atlantis and the Seven Seas. Because of this lack of a true Arthurian return, Atlan is no longer the true King of Atlantis, even if

164   The DC Comics Universe he wishes it to be so. Indeed, readers familiar with Arthuriana may question this return: if he, like the legendary King Arthur, returns to his people when they need him most, is Atlan not meant to bring that wrath? In a word, no. Arthurian figures, as contemporary culture and the evolution of Arthur’s character in the last few decades have popularly portrayed, are to return to their people as a kind, just ruler who offers a new era of unity and peace; Arthur is hardly ever portrayed as desiring revenge or enforcing his position at the expense of his people in contemporary versions. Yet, this is exactly what Atlan does: he overthrows Aquaman and reigns over Atlantis once again, but it is not a kind rule. Atlan portrays a Dark Arthur, one whose return is so clouded by his past betrayal—like Aquaman and King Arthur, at the hands of a close family member, his own brother, who sought the throne of Atlantis for himself—that he is no longer the true Once and Future King. Popular versions of Dark Arthur figures include the Arthur of the Unholy Grail comics, the king of David Drake’s novel The Dragon Lord, Arthur’s portrayal in the series Once Upon a Time, and, of course, the Arthur of medieval saints’ lives. This Dark Arthur is not the idealized figure most would hope for in a returned Arthur but rather a vengeful tyrant, a once good king corrupted by a slumber that may have been healing to his body but served to ruin his mind with centuries of thoughts focused only on vengeance. In this way, Atlan is much like Veitch’s Thirst, desiring only the destruction of the Lady of the Lake, her sisters and Annwn for perceived wrongs and slights, but particularly the choice of Arthur Pendragon as the Lady’s champion. Because of our own construction of Arthur as an ideal, just ruler, we assume that his return would be a return to stability; with Dark Arthur figures, we are instead given chaos, vengeance, and tyranny. As a result of this dichotomy, the juxtaposition of Arthur and Atlan becomes even more prevalent, just as the scenes Veitch wrote between Aquaman and the Thirst. Without the battle between these two versions of Arthur, the importance of Arthur as an ideal king and hero would not be present in the comics. Then, who is the true Arthurian figure of Atlantis? Who is the rightful king? That honor, of course, belongs to Arthur Curry, the Aquaman. When Aquaman and Atlan first meet in battle, Atlan is victorious, and Arthur’s vision begins to fade. When Arthur wakes, as of course he must, his first sight is his loyal retainer Vulko, who informs the dethroned king that he has “been unconscious for six months” (Johns, 2014, p. 132) as he needed time to heal from a ­­telepathically-induced head trauma—a head wound, which obviously calls to mind the way in which Malory’s Arthur receives his mortal blow. Unlike Malory, Johns gives us an answer to whether or not Arthur is dead: Johns’ Arthur is alive, has healed and is ready to reclaim his kingdom and bring justice back to his people.

Aquaman Rex (Sell)  165 It is revealed to Aquaman, however, that he is not of the true line of kings: Atlan’s line died at the hands of his brother and he was replaced— or rather, usurped—by that same brother, Orin, Arthur’s Curry’s ancestor. Out of anger at Orin’s usurpation, Atlan sinks Atlantis and damns his people to the seas forever. This is the beginning of Atlan’s shift from true Arthurian King to a Dark Arthur figure: he damns his own people for the actions of his brother and those loyal to Orin, which is decidedly unArthurian. As Vulko himself states, “Atlan was once a great hero of the world” (Johns, 2014, p. 153), but he is no longer one. A hero, such as Arthur was, would decidedly not bring wrath and ruin upon all his people for the error of a few so many years ago. While Orin is not an Arthur figure— he is, in fact, Johns’ version of Mordred in this scenario—his descendant, Arthur Curry, becomes the Arthurian figure that Atlantis needs, especially after the poor rule of Arthur’s brother Orm, another Mordred figure. This dynamic would, if Atlan was a benevolent king, position Arthur Curry as a Dark Arthur and a usurper; however, it is because of Atlan’s desire for revenge that Aquaman remains the true hero—the true Arthur—of Atlantis. Aquaman embraces his role as the true king of Atlantis, even if his ancestor was not. He returns to his realms to turn back Atlan and the Xebel rebels who allied with the Dead King. To prove himself, Arthur defeats Atlan with his own magic scepter, which is destroyed once and for all along with the Dead King (Johns, 2014, pp. 172–75). He is reunited with his wife, Mera, and the two discuss their future roles in Atlantis. Arthur, having fully embraced his destiny as the Once and Future King of Atlantis, reclaims the throne yet again. Mera, however, is uncertain and leaves Arthur for a time; this is seemingly Johns’ representation of a King Arthur without a Guinevere, and the king is unhappy with her loss. However, in a revision of the Guinevere tale, Johns allows Mera to see that she truly belongs with Arthur, and she returns as his rightful queen (pp. 177–78). With a king and a queen ruling in Atlantis, a new Arthurian paradigm is asserted: Johns allows for a unified version of Camelot wherein the king and queen are not separated by betrayal, an unloving marriage, or other issues that allowed for the rise of rival factions in Camelot. Atlantis is thus established as a new Camelot, with a new Arthurian ruler who will not fail as his namesake—the other King Arthur—failed. Yet not all is well in ­­Atlantis-turned-Camelot: Arthur’s rebellious brother Orm is still alive, and Nereus, the leader of the rebels who allied with Atlan, is out to reestablish the rule of the Seven Kings of the Seven Seas rather than a single Atlantean ruler. Nereus appears to Orm, who has seemingly given up his claim to the Atlantean throne and encourages rebellion; Nereus and Orm, two kings in their own right, seek to reinstate

166   The DC Comics Universe the wars against King Arthur (p. 186). Johns sets up the renewal of the Arthurian cycle of rebellion, war, and death that so inhabits stories relying on Arthurian narratives. Johns calls attention to the fact that there can be no lasting peace for any king named Arthur nor for any version of Camelot; rather, the Arthurian cycle will begin anew. However, Johns’ King Arthur may or may not be prepared to meet with this new threat. The future of the Atlantean King Arthur is ever in peril, and the Arthurian cycle in which he thrives and embodies will only ever begin anew, much like the cycle present in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower—quite literally, considering that Johns’ run of Aquaman did eventually end, as did the entirety of DC’s New 52. DC’s continued use of Arthurian storylines brings Arthur to new audiences every time there is a reboot; Arthurian storylines exist in nearly every iteration of the DC Universe and even continue in Rebirth, the latest version of the DC Universe. Because of comics, particularly those published by DC, the story of Arthur is continually brought to new eyes and new ways of thinking. Johns’ version of Aquaman also serves as the basis for the 2018 DC film Aquaman, directed by James Wan and written in part by Geoff Johns himself. Johns’ story arcs for DC’s New 52 version of Aquaman, notably The Trench, Throne of Atlantis, and Death of a King, are all condensed and adapted for the filmic version of Arthur Curry—this includes the Arthurian aspects of Johns’ runs and the links between Arthur, King of Atlantis, and the more famous Arthur, King of the Britons. The Arthurian connections begin almost immediately in Wan’s film and continue throughout the two hour and ­­23-minute run time of DC’s latest entry in its cinematic universe. Aquaman makes no attempt to hide its borrowing of Arthurian themes nor its comics source material and in fact seems to desire an explicit as well as implicit connection between the two Arthurs. Tom Curry, Arthur’s father, suggests that he and Atlanna, the escaped Atlantean queen, name their son Arthur, as Tom recalls the power of the mythic king. Arthur Curry, like that famous king of legend, is to serve as a uniter of warring peoples; though instead of various tribes of Britons, Aquaman must unite the seemingly disparate Atlantean factions as well as the people of the land. It is no mean task for a man who feels like he truly belongs to neither the human nor the Atlantean world. However, all seem to be aware of his role, and none more so than his mother, Atlanna. She tells young Arthur a story about the trident of Atlan, the legendary King of Atlantis, and that only the rightful and true king can find it and wield it in service to his people. This sounds similar as it is an obvious connection to the sword in the stone motif of Arthurian legend, and one that Johns and his predecessors in the Aquaman comic title, Peter David and Rick Veitch, use heavily. The notion of a “bastard” being

Aquaman Rex (Sell)  167 the rightful king of Atlantis is also called into question—another clear parallel with Arthurian legend. With these themes of rightful kingship, questionable parentage, and monarchial love relationships, Johns and Wan draw inspiration from Malory. Johns is no stranger to the Arthurian themes and characteristics of Le Morte Darthur; in fact, his Aquaman: Death of a King story arc is a ­­near-perfect parallel to the rise and fall of the legendary King Arthur—albeit with adapted revisions and reimaginings that fit with Jason Tondro’s explorations of the categories of Arthurian comics. While the film carries on with these parallels, it remains, of course, a new vision of Aquaman that is adapted from the New 52 comics and not meant to be a complete rehashing of Johns’ former work with the character. As in Le Morte Darthur, Aquaman’s king is conceived by a royal figure who may or may not be married at the time of Arthur’s conception and birth: the film never explicitly reveals if Tom and Atlanna were married, which adds ambiguity to Arthur’s birth and is also present in the early life of Malory’s Arthur. Of course, the gender reversal of the royal figure from whom Arthur claims his birthright—the line of his mother, Atlanna, versus the primogeniture line of Uther Pendragon for King Arthur—is a difference but not a major one for Wan’s film; in Atlantis, it seems that kings can be made from either the mother’s side or the father’s. Atlanna, fleeing an arranged marriage, still parallels Malory’s Igraine, who flees the unwanted advances of Uther; yet, like Igraine, Atlanna does eventually marry the new king of Atlantis and conceives another child, Orm, who will take the place of Morgan le Fay in both the comics and the film. Like Malory’s Arthur, Arthur Curry is hidden away from his birthright. Kept from the political machinations of the sea kingdoms, Arthur is raised by his father, who teaches him the system of honor and duty that will guide Arthur’s life both as the Justice League member Aquaman and as the eventual King of Atlantis. The Māori culture to which he and his father belong—a change, of course, modeled on the fact that the lead actor, Jason Momoa, is of Māori descent. This change does not feel out of place, however, as it adds to the differences between human culture and those of the various peoples of Atlantis, which only serves to heighten the importance of Arthur Curry’s unification of land and sea when he becomes king. Arthur Curry is also taught by Vulko, his mother’s trusted advisor, who functions as a Merlin figure in the life of young Arthur (perhaps in a nod to T.H. White’s Merlyn, who trains “Wart” to be a good king). Why Vulko trains Arthur in the ways of Atlantis is never really made explicit, but it can be assumed that he, like Merlin before him, knows that Arthur will unify nations and ardently believes that the young ­­k ing-in-waiting must embrace his destiny. Vulko’s role seems to be much smaller in the film

168   The DC Comics Universe than in the comics, which may stem from the necessary shortening of the film and the condensing of the various story arcs from the comics into a single, cohesive narrative; Vulko then feels a bit wasted in Aquaman. Like Batman vs. Superman before it, Aquaman may eventually see an extended version that answers some nagging questions—particularly about how and why Vulko finds Arthur when no one else seems to be able to, or the fact that no one questions the time Vulko remains on the surface to train the young prince, or when and why those lessons stop. For now, however, we may only guess at the reasons and attempt to fill in the gaps with not only Johns’ runs of Aquaman comics but also our understanding of Malory and other Arthurian stories. Orm, Aquaman’s brother and King of Atlantis (at least before Arthur himself proves his worth), hates his older brother, whom he sees as the reason Atlanna was banished by her Atlantean husband to the Trench to die. Orm functions as a Morgan le Fay character because of that hate: he blames his brother for all his ills just as Morgan blames Arthur for the death of her father, her political marriage, and nearly everything else in her life. Like Morgan, Orm has a chance at redemption in the end. In Malory, Morgan is one of the queens who carries Arthur away to Avalon to be healed, proving that she is no longer out to see her brother dead. In Aquaman (the film as well as the comics), at the urging of their mother, also returned from the Trench, Orm cedes the throne to Arthur when he defeats him in combat with the trident of Atlan. Orm’s hatred of the land stems from Arthur’s birth and his mother’s exile and, in a way, could also be considered a kind of Mordred figure; whichever we chose to see him as, he remains alive and will likely play a vital role in any Aquaman sequel. Arthur’s worthiness is proved when he claims Atlan’s trident in much the same way as Arthur Pendragon’s claim to the British throne is proven when he draws the sword from the stone and claims Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. Atlan’s role in the film is significantly shortened and changed from Johns’ Death of a King story arc, though his importance as the last king of a truly unified Atlantis—an Atlantis that had yet to sink— creates yet another Arthurian parallel: Atlan left his kingdom after it fell, and his trident was hidden away until Arthur reclaimed it. The reference here is, of course, to King Arthur’s journey to Avalon and crafts Arthur Curry as a returned Arthur—a new Arthurian king that will once again unite the disparate peoples into a united front to combat evil. Aquaman (2018) continues the tradition of ­­Aquaman-as-Arthur established by DC Comics and the more recent iterations of Arthur Curry. While adaptations are necessarily different than their source material, Aquaman holds its own, not just as a superhero film but also as an Arthurian film. While Arthur (Curry) rules, ­­Atlantis-as-Britain has a strong

Aquaman Rex (Sell)  169 leader. However, while Orm and Black Manta live, Atlantis will never truly know peace, especially as it is pulled into the conflicts of the land with its king maintaining membership in the Justice League, which serves as a king of Round Table itself, and particularly as it is interpreted by Grant Morrison during his tenure at DC. Whether or not Aquaman will continue on film, it is inevitable that a new version of Arthur Curry will come about in the comics, even after DC’s latest Rebirth. Other authors may have a less Arthurian, less mythic viewpoint for Arthur Curry; nevertheless, Aquaman is still a king, and is still named Arthur. The connection to the Matter of Britain will always be present in both his personal history and the literary history of the character. While Aquaman may feature different storylines, different histories, and different writers in future retellings, both on screen and in print, he will forever be DC’s King Arthur, the Once and Future King of Atlantis. Johns’ knowing appropriation of Arthurian legend—specifically the story as it has come down through the ages to contemporary audiences—has propelled Aquaman to a new level of Arthurian popular culture, one in which there is fertile ground and little criticism. The appropriations that Johns uses obviously fall into both Hutcheon’s idea of world building and Sanders’ notion that mythic templates are continually used and revised for each appropriator; however, Johns signals his mythic appropriations in a way that at once allows the reader to make the connections between Arthur Curry and Arthur of Britain but also does not necessitate the reading of medieval Arthuriana. While knowledge of Johns’ sources helps, it is not required. However, a reader versed in Arthuriana will understand more of the mythic backstory associated with Arthur Curry, which allows further lines of analytical thinking and critical study of the aquatic king.

References Byock. J.L. (Trans.). (2000). Saga of the Volsungs. Penguin Books. Chaney, M.A. (1991). The dismantling evolution of heroes: Aquaman’s amputation. International Journal of Comics Art, 1(2), 55–65. Fraction, M. (2011). Fear itself. Marvel Comics. Johns, G. (2014). Aquaman: Death of a king. DC Comics. Malory, S.T. (1485/2017) Le morte darthur (P.J.C. Field, Ed.). D.S. Brewer. Morrison, G. (2009). Final crisis #7, DC Comics. Romero G.A. (1981). Knightriders [Film]. Laurel Productions. Tondro, J. (2011). Superheroes of the round table: Comics connections to medieval and Renaissance literature. McFarland. Torregrossa, M.A. (2004). The once and future kings: The return of King Arthur in the comics (pp. 243–62). In B. Tepa Lupack (Ed), Adapting the Arthurian legends for children: Essays on Arthurian juvenilia. Palgrave Macmillan. Veitch, R. (2018). Aquaman: The waterbearer. DC Comics. Wan, J. (Director). (2018). Aquaman [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.

Bound to the Shackles of History Reading Archival Practices in DC Comics’ Flashpoint Priel Cohanim

Time travel has been the focal point of several DC Comics’ publications in recent years. However, with multiple timelines, universes, and realities, it is often difficult to grasp its ambiguous significance to the DC Comics narratives that readers know and love. The time is right to eliminate this ambiguity by exploring DC Comics’ approach to the subject through its resident time traveler, the Flash, and one of the company’s major examples of time travel: Flashpoint. In the graphic novel, Flash— also known as Barry Allen, a character with “­­super-speed”—harnesses the “Speed Force” to travel back in time to prevent his mother’s murder. While Barry saves her, he accidentally alters the timeline, resulting in significant changes to the DC Universe. This essay argues that time travel in Flashpoint functions as an archival practice in which the company narratively archives some of its past stories and erases the rest. Reading visual representations of fragmented historical information in Flashpoint, the essay defines and develops the concept of narrative archiving, explores the function of time travel as an archival practice and examines Flash’s authoritative role as an archivist. By analyzing the particular synthesis of images and text in the graphic novel’s representations of time, I demonstrate the complexities of erasure that rise with this form of archiving. More specifically, I suggest that, by manipulating readers’ memories of past DC publications and by inviting them to manipulate narrative time in a reading of the graphic novel’s visual panels, Flashpoint encourages readers to participate in its archival practice by resisting erasure.

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Bound to the Shackles of History (Cohanim)  171

Narrative Archiving and Flash as the Archivist Critical discussions on archives emphasize their significance to historic preservation. Achille Mbembe (2002), for example, defines the archive as home to “fragments of lives and pieces of time” that function as “proof that a life truly existed, that something actually happened, an account of which can be put together.” The historical evidence that Mbembe refers to is described as fragmented, as one may only “put together” a partial account of history by collecting pieces of information and constructing a narrative from them. The authority of the historical evidence contained in the archive is further emphasized in Marlene Manoff’s (2004) review of scholarship on archive studies, which describes the archive as an “objective representation of the past.” The image of the archive emerging from these statements is that of a body of fragmented historical information, which is often treated as factual and authoritative. Flashpoint presents two such bodies of historical information, which this essay refers to as the ­­timeline-0 and ­­timeline-1 archives. ­­Timeline-0 represents the history of the DC narrative universe prior to Flash’s time travel and exists in the graphic novel exclusively within Flash’s memory, while ­­t imeline-1 is created by Flash’s time travel and represents the history of characters in Flashpoint. The differences between the character of Batman in Flashpoint and in other DC publications demonstrate the differences between the timelines. In ­­t imeline-0, a young Bruce Wayne walks in a dark alley with his parents when a thief shoots and kills both parents, and Bruce is eventually transformed into the heroic Batman; because of this experience, Batman neither uses guns nor kills anyone. However, in ­­t imeline-1, Bruce dies in that alley instead of his parents; as a result of this change, Bruce’s father, Thomas, becomes a violent version of Batman who does not hesitate to kill criminals. The differences between the ­­t imeline-0 and ­­t imeline-1 Batmen are also emphasized visually through differences in their costumes—most notably ­­Flashpoint-Batman’s red eyes and pointy cape. I use the term narrative archiving to describe instances of textual preservation as certain elements (characters, stories, or relationships) from ­­t imeline-0 are preserved in ­­t imeline-1, while others are discarded. This process occurs in Flashpoint nearly every time a conflict between ­­t imeline-0 and ­­t imeline-1 histories is introduced. For example, when Flash tries to explain to ­­F lashpoint-Batman who Superman is, he is soon met with the revised history of ­­t imeline-1. Instead of landing in an open field in Kansas, baby Superman’s spaceship crashes into Metropolis, resulting in multiple deaths. Here, the graphic novel narratively archives Superman’s arrival on Earth into ­­t imeline-1, while discarding the spaceship’s

172   The DC Comics Universe landing in Kansas in favor of a new narrative. As ­­F lashpoint-Batman explains some of this history to Flash, the focus on the news article in this scene validates this new narrative, echoing a perception of archived documents as an “objective representation of the past” (Manoff, 2004). To borrow Mbembe’s (2002) words, this news clip functions as “proof … that something actually happened.” It is the objective proof within the ­­t imeline-1 archive that Superman’s spaceship landed in Metropolis, and to Flash it may also provide an explanation to the heroic Superman’s absence from this historical narrative. Time travel thus functions as the vehicle through which narrative archiving operates in the graphic novel. It is through time travel that Superman’s existence on Earth is preserved from ­­t imeline-0 into ­­t imeline-1. Yet, time travel also causes the erasure of many details in the narrative archiving process. For instance, Superman’s origin story, physical appearance, public role, and relationships with other characters—all of which originate and are archived in ­­t imeline-0—are erased in Flashpoint and therefore absent from ­­t imeline-1. Instead, the ­­t imeline-1 archive contains a new subplot in which Flash goes to save the imprisoned Superman from his underground cell. Reading time travel in the novel as an archival practice implies that, while Superman’s existence in the DC comic book universe is worthy of being preserved in the new continuity, his traditional origin story is insignificant to this narrative and can therefore be discarded. The authority to preserve and erase historical information is one that is often associated in archive studies with archivists. Archiving, according to Mbembe (2002), is a “product of judgment,” a “result of a specific power and authority” that deems certain items “worthy of preserving and keeping in a public place,” while discarding others. The archivist’s job, therefore, encompasses a tension between the preservation and erasure of historical evidence: on the one hand, archivists are formally tasked with the preservation of history, but on the other hand, they also erase historical evidence by deeming certain items unworthy of preservation. Manoff (2004) presents a similarly authoritative image of archivists by describing them as “human interpreter[s]” in the “writing of history.” The archivist, then, is portrayed as an authoritative active agent in archival practices, capable of creating narratives by interpreting fragments or by erasing historical evidence for deeming it insignificant, thus shaping history itself. Therefore, if time travel functions as an archival practice in Flashpoint, Flash functions as an archivist. Not only is he the literary device through which time travel operates in the text, but he also holds exclusive information about “fragments of lives and pieces of time” from ­­t imeline-0 that no one else recognizes (Mbembe, 2002). For Flash, these fragments are, to borrow Mbembe’s words, “proof that a life truly existed, that

Bound to the Shackles of History (Cohanim)  173 something actually happened, an account of which can be put together” (Mbembe, 2002). Like the archivist’s authoritative role as a “human interpreter” in the “writing of history,” Flash too takes it upon himself to make the ­­t imeline-0 fragments known by changing the world back to “what [it] used to be. What it’s supposed to be” (Manoff, 2004; Johns, Kubert, & Hope, 2011). Yet, while the archivist’s ability to shape history is mostly figurative, Flash’s abilities in Flashpoint are quite literal: Flash’s knowledge of ­­t imeline-0 fragments and his time traveling powers allow him to literally shape the DC Universe’s narrative, including the histories of all other DC characters. Flash’s access to fragmented historical information is represented in the graphic novel in his interaction with Captain Thunder—the ­­t imeline-1 version of ­­t imeline-0’s Captain Marvel. In this interaction, Billy, one of the kids who turn into Captain Thunder, attempts to wake an unconscious Flash, whose memories of ­­t imeline-0 are slowly replaced with memories of ­­t imeline-1. As Billy touches Flash’s body with his “magical lightning” abilities, he gets a vision of his ­­t imeline-0 counterpart (Johns et al., 2011; Figure 2). This vision is portrayed on the page as isolated fragments of Captain Marvel’s experiences as a hero, separated by jagged electrical currents. Unlike the common “dynamism and motion” in comic book art that “encourage [the] linear movement” of time between panels in the reading process, represented as static pieces of time that cannot be read as a temporal development of a particular action (Ndalianis, 2009). This visual effect of asynchronous fragments, representing Flash’s memories from ­­t imeline-0, replicates Mbembe’s (2002) concept of the asynchronous “pieces of time” that comprise the archive’s documents. Much like Flash’s fragmented memories, the documents of the archive do not reflect a temporal development of a particular action or event but rather a fragmented history comprised of various individual moments in time. Flash’s authoritative role as the archivist is also represented visually. At the end of the graphic novel, Flash decides to run back in time once again—this time to prevent himself from saving his mother to restore the original timeline. While running, he is overwhelmed with images of numerous superheroes from different timelines. These present yet another visual representation of “fragments of lives and pieces of time” of which only Flash is aware (Mbembe, 2002). His centrality in the page draws attention to his authoritative role as the archivist, suggesting that all these narratives and timelines revolve around his decisions and actions. The smeared image of DC characters at the bottom center of the page is a good example of this effect as it is visually pulled into the center of the page and into Flash’s route, establishing his role as the core around which these timelines revolve.

174   The DC Comics Universe

Erasure and Derrida’s Reading of the Death Drive Prominent examples of such fragments are the ones that Flash refers to as “mnemonic changes” (Johns et al., 2011). Throughout the graphic novel, Flash experiences occasional seizures that overwrite his ­­t imeline-0 memories with memories from ­­t imeline-1. When Flash is struck with such a seizure, following his mission to rescue Superman, he refers to the new memories as “mnemonic changes” (Figure 4). These changes are visually similar to the memories Billy sees in his interaction with Flash. Here, too, the memories are depicted as isolated fragments—this time of Barry’s life experiences from ­­t imeline-1, including birthdays with his now alive mother, dinners with his parents, and his father’s death—that are, once again, separated by jagged electrical currents. The major difference between these mnemonic changes and “the fragments” is the color scheme used to portray each scene: while Flash’s mnemonic changes are colorful, the color scheme in Billy’s vision is monochromatic, dominated by shades of red, yellow, and brown. Whereas ­­t imeline-1 memories are marked by the colorful world of Flashpoint that imposes these mnemonic changes on Flash’s psyche, ­­t imeline-0 memories seem confined to the color scheme of Flash’s suit, as if to signify him as their origin and suggest his exclusive access to them. Another effect that the earthy colors produce is a portrayal of Flash’s memories of ­­t imeline-0 as faded photographs, as if to emphasize the threat of their evanescence. The concept of erasure and the disappearance of memories in the archive is one that has been famously written about by Jacques Derrida in “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression.” Derrida (1995) writes that the archive is often viewed as possessing “the principle according to nature or history, there where things commence”; in other words, that the archive is considered to possess points of origin, or “all sorts of beginnings” (Steedman, 2001). Yet, Derrida’s reading of the archive through Freud’s death drive presents a problem in treating the archive as possessing such beginnings. In “Freud’s Masterplot,” Peter Brooks (1977) defines the Freudian death drive as “patients’ need to repeat, rather than simply remember, repressed material.” According to Derrida (1995), the application of the death drive’s repetition in archival practices prevents attempts to reach points of origin, while inciting “forgetfulness, amnesia, [and] the annihilation of memory.” Flash’s mnemonic changes demonstrate Derrida’s reading of the Freudian death drive. First, the changes appear multiple times throughout the graphic novel, thus establishing their repetitive nature. They also seem to replicate a desire in the text to “recover [the] moments of inception” that Carolyn Steedman (2001) reads in Derrida’s work on the archive.

Bound to the Shackles of History (Cohanim)  175 Fragments of ­­t imeline-1 memories represent not only Flash’s desire for an explanation for the changes in the timeline or his need for “find[ing] and possess[ing] all sorts of beginnings” but also that of the graphic novel’s readers, who are introduced to historical information about ­­t imeline-1 mostly through Flash’s seizures (Steedman, 2001). Steedman’s emphasis on “all sorts of beginnings” is significant in this context as Flash’s mnemonic changes do not reflect only his own personal memories, including those of his parents, but rather provide a general history of ­­t imeline-1 from a supposedly objective, external perspective. An example of this phenomenon is Flash’s first seizure, where he sees “Aquaman and Atlantis flooding Europe” and “Wonder Woman leading the amazons … on a blitzkrieg in London” (Johns et al., 2011). These memories function as the “moments of inception” to the violent conflict in ­­t imeline-1 between Aquaman and Wonder Woman (Steedman, 2001). However, much like Derrida’s reading of the death drive as inciting erasure, Flashpoint’s repeated mnemonic changes also result in “forgetfulness, amnesia, [and] the annihilation of [Flash’s] memory” (Derrida, 1995). Every seizure Flash experiences overwrites his ­­t imeline-0 memories. He explains that his “memories keep ­­ch-changing. Realigning with this new history,” and he is worried that once his “memories are completely replaced,” everything he remembers about ­­t imeline-0 will “all be gone” (Johns et al., 2011). The text’s repeated attempts to recover ­­t imeline-1’s “moments of inception” thus inevitably result in the erasure of Flash’s memories of ­­t imeline-0 (Steedman, 2001). The mnemonic changes also prevent Flash and the graphic novel’s readers from achieving Flashpoint’s point of origin. The graphic novel begins in medias res with Barry waking up at work and coming to realize that his mother is alive and that his reality has changed. At this point in the novel, Barry does not remember that it was he who traveled back in time and, in doing so, altered the timeline. By repeated attempts to recover ­­t imeline-1’s “moments of inception” and through Flash’s fading memories of ­­t imeline-0, Flashpoint is engaged in a process of deferral, preventing Flash and readers from realizing the narrative’s actual point of origin: Flash’s interference with the timeline. This phenomenon suggests that like archive searches for beginnings, history in Flashpoint has no clear foundation, and it therefore remains an elusive fantasy that is constantly deferred. Yet, despite textual representations of deferral and erasure, archiving in this graphic novel format also introduces its own resistance to erasure in the form of nonlinear readings. While readers are advised to read the content of an American comic book in a ­­left-to-right, ­­top-to-bottom direction, they are not bound by this convention. Martyn Pedler (2009), for instance, claims that comics use their “elastic temporality—made possible

176   The DC Comics Universe by the peculiar spatial and temporal aspects of sequential art—for hyperbolic representations of the impossible.” According to Pedler, “[t]he reader has control over how long to ‘freeze’ a moment by staring at any given panel, be it a ­­double-page splash or barely an inch across.” “Temporality,” he continues, “is further complicated by the fact that even when focusing on a particular panel, we remain aware of the panels composing the rest of the page; we take in now, past and future at once” (Pedler, 2009). Readers can thus dwell on and revisit panels in Flashpoint and experience the same events that Flash decides to discard when he runs back in time again to reverse the changes that his previous time travel produced. Furthermore, not only are panels in graphic novels less linear than lines in prose novels, but they also differ in the amount of detail they portray and therefore invite a more flexible reading process than prose texts as not all panels require the same time for readers to interpret. These flexible readings challenge Flash’s ability to erase any details from continuity, suggesting that, while narratively his power and authority are undisputed, the graphic novel’s physical copy preserves even the most “unworthy” of fragments.

Queer Histories and Readers as Archivists This complication to reading Derrida’s idea of erasure in Flashpoint introduces an interesting relationship between Flash’s temporal abilities and readers’ abilities to simulate time manipulation through the reading process. While Pedler uses the term “elastic temporality” to define this form of readers’ engagement with comic books, I would like to suggest that in the context of Flashpoint’s archival practice, Carolyn Dinshaw’s (2007) interpretation of “queer history” is much more appropriate. In her reading of The Book of Margery Kempe, Dinshaw (2007) defines “queer history” as “a history that reckons in the most expansive way possible with how people exist in time, with what it feels like to be a body in time, or in multiple times, or out of time.” She develops this term by exploring her interaction with documents from the archive of Hope Allen, the first editor of The Book of Margery Kempe, in Bryn Mawr College. Analyzing her textual interactions with Kempe and Allen, Dinshaw (2007) argues that her and Allen “were both touching a past that would become for each of [them]—as the past was for Margery—part of an absorbing now.” A feeling of “familiarity, inspiration, even identification with one’s subject” accompanies Dinshaw as she interacts with documents in Allen’s archive. Having graduated, like Allen, from Bryn Mawr College, Dinshaw describes the experience as follows: “Time present and time past collapsed as I made my way to the archive.”

Bound to the Shackles of History (Cohanim)  177 Dinshaw’s experience lends itself to an analogy between her interaction with the archive and a possible reading of Flashpoint. Martyn Pedler’s argument about readers’ ability to “take in now, past and future at once,” for instance, echoes the breakdown of Dinshaw’s “[t]ime present and time past” in the Hope Allen archive (Pedler, 2009; Dinshaw, 2007). This similarity may apply to a reading of Flashpoint by readers who either have or have not read DC comics before. However, I would like to suggest that experienced readers who are acquainted with the broader DC narrative universe may inhabit additional forms of temporalities. Unlike ­­non-serialized novels or short stories, American comic books often rely on serializations and shared continuities with other books by the same publisher. Experienced readers who know the histories of DC narratives are then likely to bring their own memories of past DC publications to their present reading of Flashpoint. In other words, not only do they manipulate narrative time in the graphic novel through “elastic temporality,” but experienced readers also inhabit queer histories as their present experience in reading the graphic novel is potentially influenced by their past familiarity with DC characters, and their “[t]ime present and time past” collapse in their reading processes (Dinshaw, 2007). Flashpoint’s portrayal of DC characters often seems to appeal to readers’ memories by manipulating information from past publications. For example, the graphic novel invites readers’ feelings of “familiarity, inspiration, [and] even identification” with Flash and Superman when the latter returns at the novel’s climax, exhibiting the heroic traits characterizing his ­­t imeline-0 version (Dinshaw, 2007). Following Superman’s release from prison, the alien accidentally burns one of the soldiers who try to arrest him, flies away and disappears. Seeing this, ­­F lashpoint-Batman sarcastically remarks to Flash, “There goes your big savior,” reflecting Superman’s portrayal in ­­t imeline-1 as a cowardly individual (Johns et al., 2011). Yet, when Superman returns in the graphic novel’s climactic battle between Aquaman and Wonder Woman, Flash sees him and whispers to himself, “I knew it,” seemingly playing on readers’ expectations for the return of one of DC Comics’ most loyal and heroic characters (Johns et al., 2011). Like Flash, readers who are familiar with and inspired by Superman’s heroism may expect him to return and “save the day” as he often does in other DC publications. Thus, the novel not only invites readers to be inspired by Superman’s return but also to identify with Flash’s hopeful reaction. Experienced readers of DC Comics therefore not only replicate Dinshaw’s experience in the archive but also Flash’s queer history, resulting in them becoming fellow archivists. Like Flash, readers are aware of “fragments of lives and pieces of time” represented by and portrayed in the old comic books they know and own (Mbembe, 2002). These comic books,

178   The DC Comics Universe much like the news article in Figure 1, function as an “objective representation of the past,” “proof that a life truly existed, that something actually happened, an account of which can be put together” (Manoff, 2004; Mbembe, 2002). Moreover, the novel’s engagement with readers’ queer histories invites them to function as archivists by resisting erasure. Due their serialized nature, American comic books’ ongoing sales often depend on readers’ reception. Readers may decide to avoid purchasing certain issues or graphic novels that discard nostalgic details from continuity, potentially hurting DC’s revenues. As fellow archivists in a reading of Flashpoint, readers may see fragments of past stories as worthy of preserving as part of DC Comics’ historical narrative, and like Flash, they too would wish to “fix” any deviation from this historical narrative back to “what [the narrative] used to be. What it’s supposed to be” (Johns et al., 2011). Flash’s decision to fix the timeline then is—in a sense—forced upon him by readers’ potential resistance to erasure. Therefore, despite Flashpoint’s attempts to erase ­­t imeline-0 details from continuity, the text inevitably ends with the reversal of these changes, allowing readers the power to prevent erasure.

Bound to the Shackles of History Flashpoint’s implementation of narrative archiving through time travel reflects scholarly work in archive studies: from its visual representations of fragmented historical information to Flash’s exclusive access to these fragments and his authoritative role as an archivist. The close relationship between the portrayal of mnemonic changes in the graphic novel and Derrida’s reading of Freud’s death drive develop the text’s complex representations of erasure and the deferral of origin points. Yet, the graphic novel’s potential for nonlinear readings, the genre’s inherent “elastic temporality,” and readers’ replication of Flash’s role as an archivist complicates this idea of erasure and creates a version of the archive that does not—and perhaps even cannot—discard information (Pedler, 2009). An archive, “there where things commence,” that deems any and all information “worthy of preserving in a public place” and all part of DC Comics’ “historical narrative” is an extreme example of the archive’s power—a fantastic parody of the archival practice (Derrida, 1995; Mbembe, 2002; Manoff, 2004). In the climax of Flashpoint, ­­Reverse-Flash, the novel’s main antagonist, proudly argues that by meddling with time Flash has “freed [him] from the shackles of any history” (Johns et al., 2011). Ironically, in doing so, Flash also achieves the opposite effect for the novel. While he narratively

Bound to the Shackles of History (Cohanim)  179 archives fragments of previous timelines into new continuities and discards others by means of time travel, the changes can only be maintained within the context of a linear reading of the text. Unlike literary archives, whose disposal of documents irreversibly affects historical and literary narratives, Flashpoint’s archival practice is tied to its physical preservation of its own process of erasure. It is the graphic novel’s role as part of the larger DC Comics universe, its engagement with readers, and its physical portrayal of its archival practice that prevent it from ever erasing narrative details from DC’s publication history. Unlike ­­Reverse-Flash, then, Flashpoint cannot be freed and is bound to the shackles of its own history.

References Brooks, P. (1977). Freud’s masterplot. Yale French Studies, 55, 56, 280–300. Derrida, J. (1995). Archive fever: A Freudian impression. Diacritics, 25(2), 9–63. Dinshaw, C. (2007). Temporalities. In P. Strohm (Ed.), Middle English (pp. 107–123). Oxford University Press. Johns, G., Kubert, A., & Hope, S. (2011). Flashpoint. DC Comics. Manoff, M. (2004). Theories of the archive from across the disciplines. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 4(1), 9–25. Mbembe, A. (2002). The power of the archive and its limits. In C. Hamilton, V. Harris, M. Pickover, G. Reid, R. Saleh, & J. Taylor (Eds.), Refiguring the archive (pp. 19–26). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ndalianis, A. (2009). The frenzy of the visible in comic book worlds. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 4(3), 237–248. Pedler, M. (2009). The fastest man alive: stasis and speed in contemporary superhero comics. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 4(3), 249–263. Steedman, C. (2001). Something she called a fever: Michelet, Derrida, and dust. The American Historical Review, 106(4), 1159–1180.

DC’s King of the Wild Frontier Tomahawk and the Tradition of the Eastern–Western Douglas Brode

Aficionados of the DC Universe invariably pick Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Flash as their ­­a ll-time favorite superheroes. Contrarily, the biggest failures include Red Bee, Jayna and Zan, Sixpack, Ambush Bug, and Dogwelder. Then there is DC’s forgotten hero who, though all but unknown today, enjoyed considerable popularity for more than a quarter of a century: Tomahawk, a.k.a. Tom Hawk, a.k.a. Thomas Haukins—a frontier scout capped by coonskin ­­head-gear similar to those identified in popular culture (if not necessarily history) with Daniel Boone (1734–1820) and Davy Crocket (1786–1836). In addition, in a quintet of novels referred to as the Leatherstocking Tales/Saga, the fictional frontier character “Natty (Nathaniel) Bumppo,” created by early American author James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) (Dunbar, 2016, p. 7–8) is identified by nicknames from various Native American tribes: “The Deerslayer” in his youth, “la Longue Carabine” in early maturity, “Pathfinder” in his middle age, and “The Old Scout” during his final days. Cooper’s “franchise” (which, with the exception of only Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard,” may have constituted America’s first example of that form) (Blaisdell, 2013, p.14) drew its title from the iconic hero’s footwear: moccasin bottoms with high ­­boot-like tops that reach to slightly below the knees. Hollywood versions often featured Natty in a coonskin cap, notably in Cooper’s 1936 film The Last of the Mohicans (1826) and in the TV series Hawkeye and The Last of the Mohicans (1957– 1958), featuring stock footage from the earlier film in its opening credits. (Brode, 2009). In fact, the original literary character would more often be topped by a green deerstalker with a red feather, which resembled, in size and shape, the one worn by Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. 180

DC’s King of the Wild Frontier (Brode)  181 In movies and TV, Hawkeye (fascinatingly, DC’s counterpart Hawk was never adapted for the big or small screen) invariably appeared as clothed in a buckskin jacket. This specific costume was associated by old Hollywood with the early Eastern–Western, while the calico shirt, blue jeans, and leather boots with spurs were with the more traditional (and popular) “cowboy attire” of the post–Civil War, ­­t rans–Mississippi west or, at least, the conventional (pre–1970) media representations of that era. However, in more recent incarnations, notably Michael Mann’s 1992 remake of The Last of the Mohicans, such primitive (if historically debatable) garb is gone. The hero (Daniel ­­Day-Lewis) wears a rough cotton or ­­l insey-woolsey shirt and nothing on his head. It is likely that this transformation partly had to do with a desire for greater accuracy as to the period in which the tale takes place, while ignoring/rejecting old cinematic clichés. Even as cowboys wear bowlers and derbies as often as they do ­­ten-gallon hats in post–1970 films (Tombstone, 1993) or TV (Deadwood, 2004–2006), avoiding entrenched stereotypes that today’s mass audience tends to consider unintentionally comical, so was the “Eastern–Western” reinvented according to precise records from the period rather than Hollywood tradition. Some ­­pop-culture historians consider the Eastern–Western as a subgenre of the mainstream Western, while others insist that it is a genre in itself. If the traditional Western film or book is to be appreciated according to geography—with its ­­w ide-open spaces that stretch under a big sky, notably Monument Valley—then the Eastern must be considered a separate artistic/entertainment form. Yet, if the Western is identified by the personality of its American hero, the Eastern is indeed a ­­sub-form of the Western, if set at a time when first New York and New England and later Kentucky and Tennessee as well as the Ohio River Valley constituted “the wild frontier” (Caruso, 1959, p. 45–46). Bumppo, then, offers the original incarnation of the strong, silent type: Gary Cooper would have been as perfect a choice to play him as that lean, laconic actor was better suited for more traditional Western roles including The Plainsman (1936), The Westerner (1940), and Man of the West (1958). In part, Randolph Scott won the Hawkeye role in the popular 1936 The Last of the Mohicans owing to his striking resemblance to superstar Cooper—not affordable for a ­­low-to-medium budget film. This ­­w ell-known movie (constantly broadcast during the early days of TV) was preceded by a silent classic (1920) and a considerably ­­less-impressive ­­s ound-era serial in 1932. The latter had starred Harry Carey, Sr., who set the pace for both Cooper and John Wayne as what Richard Slotkin has identified as the true American hero, “the man who knows Indians” (Slotkin, 1998, p. 35–46): The Lone Ranger and Tonto in the 1880s

182   The DC Comics Universe or Daniel Boone (Parker) and “Mingo” (Ed Ames) in the 1780s, who, likely raised by Indians, dared stand with his ­­blood-brothers against greedy Anglo capitalists planning to steal valuable Native lands. With a change of garb, he could occupy the Eastern or Western frontiers. It is fascinating, then, that in John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) John Wayne’s “Ethan Edwards” (not the character’s name in the 1954 novel by Alan Le May) sets out on a mission to rescue a pair of White women kidnapped by hostile Indians (Frankel, 2014, p. 57). Perhaps not coincidentally, this is the precise dramatic situation for Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans. In history, Daniel Boone and George Custer each achieved status as living legends by likewise rescuing two White women from Native captors, drawing tropes of race and gender into a dark core of both Westerns and “Easterns,” and of fiction as well as fact. However, for our current purposes, Hawkeye is accompanied by a young Mohegan, “Uncas”; Edwards, though a professed Indian hater, rides with a Texan who is part Anglo and part Cherokee, “Martin Pawley,” played by Jeffrey Hunter. Not surprisingly, then, DC’s Tom Hawk has a youthful sidekick (if an entirely Anglo one) as well in the person of “Dan Hunter,” a ­­Robin-like Boy Wonder companion whose name suggests the historical Boone, even as the mature man’s does the fictional Hawkeye. This is, after all, an entry into the DC universe, despite the uniqueness of the geographic setting and time period for that company’s material. As such, the Tomahawk comic had to adjust our first frontier to Batman accompanied by Robin. If Tomahawk ruled between 1947 and 1972 as the only fictional comic book variation on Leatherstocking, there is compelling evidence as to why writer Joe (Joseph) Samachson (1906–1980) and illustrator Edmund Good came up with their joint conception when they did. The son of ­­Russian-Jewish parents living in Trenton, New Jersey, Samachson grew up as an avid reader of such early pioneering (pun intended) comic strips and early ­­2 0th-century pulps (then only recently descended from the Nickel Library and Dime Novels) as Richard Outcalt’s The Yellow Kid and Deadwood Dick, shortly to be followed by Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, and Popeye, among countless others. Revealing brilliance (some would say genius) for complicated scientific logic at an early age, Samachson attended and then received degrees from Yale and Rutgers, among other universities. Thereafter, he quickly found employment as a biochemist. Yet, his early love for “funny papers,” common to most kids of that time, never left him, despite a prestigious public image as an important man of intellect (Haining, 2001, p. 64–65). Not content to remain a secret reader (comics then still considered declasse), hungering to be a part of the creative process, Dr. Samachson submitted storylines to DC as early as 1942, most often for their wildly

DC’s King of the Wild Frontier (Brode)  183 popular Batman and Robin characters. Thus, the concept of a mature hero who mentors a younger one was set in place early in Samachson’s “other” career. To be a true creator rather than a mere contributor to other writers’ conceptions, he had to come up with a concept of his own or, at least, radically adapt a preexisting DC franchise. Thus, Samachson created ­­s cience-fiction and fantasy stories, usually under the pen name “William Morrison” to avoid embarrassment within his ­­h igh-tone ­­working-community. He was involved in the development of The Martian Manhunter for DC (1955) and penned stories for popular pulps like Fantastic Adventures, Startling Stories, and Galaxy, although those who knew him best insist that Batman and Robin held a special place in Samachson’s heart and mind. Though earlier impressed by DC’s fantastical Superman and competitors Shazam/Captain Marvel, what most fascinated Samachson about Gotham’s adult and teenage crime fighters, were their distinct human limitations (Hamilton, 2011, p. 2–5). Devoid of any superpowers, the two “normal” heroic figures, out of necessity for survival, constantly invented serviceable gadgets and gimmicks. Though not blessed at birth with superpowers, Batman and Robin all but flew thanks to their creative use of wires. For a professional scientist, here was a potent narrative device filled with endless possibilities for unique, improbable, yet always possible devices. The result was another DC duo that outwitted as well as ­­out-fought villains while remaining the potentially fatal victim of a simple ­­well-aimed pistol shot. Vulnerability of this sort, increasing a reader’s sense of the protagonist’s courage owing to the risks that he took and which Superman or Shazam did not, would also come into play with Samachson’s ­­outer-space heroes in the 1950s, most famously in the novel for children Mel Oliver and Space Rover on Mars—a futuristic boy and his dog tale. The creation of “Tomahawk” (who made his first appearance in Star Spangled Comics #69, June 1947) was certainly influenced by a sudden, unexpected comeback for the Western in popular culture (comics, radio, movies, and shortly TV) during the immediate postwar years. Immensely successful during the silent era thanks to such ­­h igh-budget epics as The Covered Wagon (1923) and John Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924) as well as ­­lower-budget, sagebrush sagas starring Tom Mix and “Broncho Billy” Anderson (who appeared in one of the earliest “Oaters,” The Great Train Robbery, 1903), the Western movie diminished in popularity during the Great Depression (Everson & Fenin, 1992, p. 42–48). Among many reasons cited for this ­­d rop-off was the concept for ­­X-Men: Manifest Destiny, which derived from a commitment to American Excellence and endless achievements for the nation and its people and did not resonate with the public during the Dust Bowl days, following the 1929 Stock Market crash. While

184   The DC Comics Universe plentiful ­­low-budget Westerns—particularly the “singing cowboy” stories and cliffhangers with Roy Rogers and Gene Autry—were churned out for kiddie matinees, adult Americans did not believe in heroes anymore. It makes sense, then, that one of the few “big” Westerns to succeed at the ­­box-office was Jesse James (1939), about a legendary outlaw. In fact, the “big” mainstream Western did not come back strong until the decade’s end with Cecil B. DeMille’s The Plainsman (1936) starring Gary Cooper and Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) with John Wayne (in truth, even in those successful blockbusters, the protagonist was played more as a noble outlaw than a conventional hero). During the 1930s—the Dark Ages for Westerns—­­adult-oriented films included in this broad genre that enjoyed any level of success were Easterns: the aforementioned The Last of the Mohicans and Daniel Boone, both released in 1936, and Ford’s Drums Along the Mohawk (1939). The harsh realities of our first frontiers may have still held meaning for those who could afford to go to the movies in economically bleak days, while glamorized tales of the great Gold Rush and the unlimited business possibilities on our final frontiers did not. With Ford’s story set in the late 1770s, achieving great ­­box-office as well as critical success, both Tinseltown and the Comic Book Industry cast intrigued eyes on such rich material that years earlier provided the basis for scores of dime novels (Monaghan, 1951, p. 32–33). Publishers (most notably DC) began focusing on younger heroes who would appeal to the emergent Youth Audience (Bobby Socksers transforming into 1950s teens). This included juvenile delinquent characters, “good ­­bad-boys” of the type that would arrive ­­f ull-blown onscreen with Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953) and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). These were preceded by a presentation of Old West outlaws in the guise of troubled teens. Universal featured ­­war-hero Audie Murphy (1924–1971) as Jesse James (Kansas Raiders) and Billy Bonney (The Kid from Texas), both in the 1950. Not to be left behind, comics played down ­­g rown-up heroes in favor of young, troubled Billy the Kid clones. DC introduced The Apache Kid, Kid Colt, and The ­­Two-Gun Kid, among others (Charter Comics got to the historical “kid” Billy Bonney first). Samagson and Good might have opted to create another such ­­teen-on-the-run figure, had the field not already become ­­over-crowded and the market literally saturated with angry kids living on the edge of the law. If they were to invent a frontier epic, it must be different from any other or risk being swallowed up by a sea of sameness (Tripiano, 2005, p. 43). As it turned out, the collaborators had more than enough inspiration owing to the plethora of “Easterns,” even then creating ­­box-office magic: among ­­h igh-budget films, these were Northwest Passage (1940) and Cecil B. DeMille’s Unconquered (1947). Numerous studios, eager for a piece of

DC’s King of the Wild Frontier (Brode)  185 the action, set to work on a string of minor hits: Alleghany Uprising (1939) was followed by Last of the Redmen (1947), The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) Young Daniel Boone (1950), Davy Crockett, Indian Scout (1950), The Iroquois Trail (1950), When the Redskins Rode (1951), Brave Warrior (1952), The Pathfinder (1952), Fort Ti (1953), The Kentuckian (1955), Daniel Boone, Trail Blazer (1956), and The Deerslayer (1957) Sensing the potential, Walt Disney decided that his first stab at a Western on TV would not be Texas’ “Pecos Bill” (an early possibility) but a pioneer whose adventures conclude in The Lone Star State. Thus, Davy Crockett appeared late in 1954, kicking off one of the most remarkable crazes of the mid–20th century (Anderson, 1996). Not surprisingly, DC brought that revived hero into their ­­a lreadyexistent Tomahawk series. Unfortunately, as it takes time to write and illustrate such stories, Crockett did not show up in DC’s pages until the fall of 1955—the Crockett craze having petered out during late summer of that year. Fans of TV Westerns had moved on to such new heroes as Clint Walker in Cheyenne, James Arness in Gunsmoke, and Hugh O’Brian in the historical The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. This may explain while, following a ­­slam-bang introduction via two cover stories in a row, DC unceremoniously dropped Crockett from the publication. In issue #35 (September 1955), “young” Davy Crockett had appeared in a tale that also featured the mythic White Buffalo from the mythologies of the Old West, though in truth this immense bison, which could prove friendly or deadly, mostly figured into tales of the ­­t rans-Mississippi frontier. However, that did not stop the Tomahawk team from having the hero riding atop that beast while firing a long rifle at rampaging Indians, Tom Hauk running alongside. “Nice shooting, Davy Crockett,” Tomahawk calls out, with his usual ­­teen-sidekick Dan Hunter nowhere in sight. “I’m hoping I will be as good as you someday,” Crockett replies. Notably, they do not kill the Native Americans, rather shooting at the arrow fired by one and a spear thrown by another, destroying these flying objects in ­­mid-air; this is due to a growing sense of respect for Native Peoples (Fiedler, 1968, p. 53–62) that infused popular culture beginning with the “enlightened” Western Broken Arrow (1950), which lionized the Apache Chief Cochise (Jeff Chandler), and subsequent TV series (1956–1958) with Michael Ansara. Likewise, the two subsequent Disney Crockett TV episodes focused more on the need to establish a lasting peace between two different civilizations. Thus, Tom Hauk and his young companion (Dan Hunter or Davy Crockett) here employed weapons in a ­­non-fatal way when rifles were pointed at Indians rather than Anglo outlaws (Wright, 2003, p. 71–73). In art, this kept Tomahawk from being tossed onto the ­­pop-culture ­­dump-heap during the infamous “clean up” of comics in the second half

186   The DC Comics Universe of the 1950s. Defeating dangerous enemies (be they Indian or Anglo) without actually killing anyone continued in issue #36, which featured a tale called “The Return of Davy Crockett.” Here, hostile Indians led (or more correctly misled) by a white renegade are devastated to learn they will not only have to face the youthful Davy but Tom Hauk and Dan Hunter. The issue’s cover suggests one other reason why Crockett was dropped after that: when he and Dan were displayed together, it was impossible to tell them apart (try and imagine a Batman accompanied by two variations on Robin!). A final reason for discontinuing this fictionalized friendship may have been historical reality: Crockett was not born until 1786, suggesting that he could not become a teen frontier fighter until a decade after that. The Tomahawk tales took place immediately prior to and then at the beginning of the American Revolution, roughly between 1773 and 1977. That time did allow other heroes of American history to drift in and out of the book’s pages, including Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. An odd, interesting connection connects the comic to NBC’s Daniel Boone (1964–1970) starring Fess Parker, who earlier had played Disney’s Crockett. As with early Tomahawk stories featured in Star Spangled Comics and later World’s Finest (before Tom Hauk emerged as the centerpiece of his own magazine), Boone’s first season took place during that time period: shortly before and then immediately following the “shot heard round the world” occurred on Lexington (MA) Green (4/19/1775). Early in its second season, however, Boone’s ­­executive-producer Parker allowed his writers to abandon any attempts to follow historical chronology. Individual episodes would occur before, during, or even long after the Revolution. Despite this, Daniel’s own Dan Hunter—his son Israel, played by young Darby Hinton—would remain the age this boy actor happened to be when the episode was shot. Whether Parker drew inspiration from the Tomahawk comics is unknown; during a personal interview with Parker in 1984, he indeed admitted that he had been aware of the DC publication and that, while he may have been unconsciously impacted by its narrative “way,” this had not been conscious in his mind while developing Boone. For Tomahawk tales now took place across the Eastern frontier, with the specific time period ever less possible to identify; simply put, the setting had become a fantasy “first frontier,” precisely as had already happened in novels, comics, movies, and TV about The Far West. The publication’s balance between the DC approach to a relatively realistic dynamic duo (sans superpowers) and the Eastern–Western trope remained firmly in place throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Tomahawk continued as a popular comic even after the more traditional Westerns began to disappear from magazine racks and episodic TV, replaced by detectives, spies, and ­­space-cowboys. Unfortunately, the issue of Indians’

DC’s King of the Wild Frontier (Brode)  187 Rights did not make itself as powerfully felt in Tomahawk tales as it did on the Boone TV show, which all but abandoned frontier action for a farming family situation (a predecessor to The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie during the 1970s) in which Native Americans—beginning with “Mingo” (Ed Ames on Daniel Boone)—were close friends rather than deadly enemies. In Tomahawk issue #101 (December 1965), the cover art by Bob Brown featured an image of the frontier hero precariously hanging from the barrel of a cannon while a menacing Indian antagonist attempts to use his knife to send Tomahawk falling to his death. There is no attempt here to do away with outdated structuralism (Anglo good; Indian bad) which were being questioned and challenged during this Civil ­­R ights-sensitive decade. In issue #102 (February 1966), Tom Hawk initially routed (like the protagonists of many earlier Easterns) a tribe on the warpath. At this point, however, the publication moved into fantastical territory. In the story, Hawk turns his attentions to a dinosaur that emerges from deep in the wilderness, apparently a survivor of the evolutionary process. Thus, “The Dragon Killers” (Herron; Ray) neatly segues from conventional frontier fighting to the sort of ­­science-fiction battle with a legendary creature that might engage contemporary DC heroes. Considering the amount of time that Tomahawk had been in print, we can surmise the Revolution and Indian Wars’ narratives could be thought of as a pair of wells that had been fully tapped. Any franchise’s success is in part propelled by supporting characters, some of whom evolve into ­­s tar-entities. Sensing the need not only for strong female villains (Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and so on) but heroines (more correctly, female heroes) to initially aid their male counterparts and in time move on to their own adventures (and magazines), Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Batwoman would each appear. Tomahawk was not off limits to such an approach. “Miss Liberty,” a.k.a. “Liberty Belle,” a.k.a. “Libbie Lawrence” would emerge as the Queen of the Wild Frontier; in truth, she preexisted Tomahawk by five years. Created by writer Don Cameron and artist Chuck Winter, the patriot made her first appearance in the Winter 1942 issue of Boy Commandos. Though her major team affiliation (occasionally as Jesse Quick) would be with the ­­A ll-Star Squadron, Miss Liberty not only equaled Tomahawk as to prowess but in some stories outdid him. Unlike DC’s Batman, in Buckskin’s Tom Hawk Liberty Belle possessed superpowers owing to her otherworldly connection with the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Every time some freedom fighter would ring it, the aural effect served as an equivalent to the visual ­­B at-Signal appearing over Gotham. Though this heroic female crime fighter and time traveler most often fought Hitler and the Axis, the ­­golden-haired Veronica

188   The DC Comics Universe ­­L ake-lookalike also brought her pioneer spirit to the ­­E astern-West of Tomahawk. What went sadly missing, though, is a repertoire of fascinating villains of the order that menaced Batman. There were occasional masked heavies, to be sure. However, the nickname “The Black Bandit” revealed a disappointingly generic quality to antagonists—none projecting the unique fascination of the Joker, The Riddler, or Penguin. At one point, the publication appeared ready to perk up the proceedings by introducing a ­­r aven-haired bad beauty in the person of “Madame Bernet,” who might have evolved into Tom’s own Selina Kyle/“Catwoman” romantic adversary. At the conclusion of what was to have been her debut story, the sardonic villainess escapes by horseback even as all her criminal collaborators are rounded up. “Did Tomahawk purposefully let her escape?” a sudden authorial voice asked in a monologue balloon. “And will they meet again?” It is worth noting that Robin said something similar to Batman when Catwoman managed to escape at the end of a mid–1950s adventure. Sadly, the answer to the second question in Tomahawk would be negative; for unexplained reasons, the character was dropped. We may surmise that censorship had something to do with it. Around this time, Catwoman disappeared for many years owing to the strange sensuality associated with her character. The limited use of either ­­good-girl Miss Liberty Belle or the irresistible bandit M. Bernet left Tomahawk’s succession of writers with a problem: where would the stories come from? How many times could Tom and Dan foil some corrupt ­­A nglo-capitalist from instigating a war between settlers and Indians (or for that manner an intertribal war) before regular readers became bored? Thus, a relatively realistic portrait of our first frontier was introduced in the background as a kaleidoscope of colorful if improbable situations. In issue #61, Tom Hawk found himself coming ­­face-to-face with a survivor of the ancient Aztecs; a ­­second-season Boone episode (9/30/1965) suspiciously employed a similar narrative involving the last of the Mound Builders/Hopewell People showing up in late 1700s Kentucky. Tomahawk issue #83 borrowed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s vision of heroes stumbling on a lost plateau, filled with prehistoric beasts, from that author’s “challenger” novel The Lost World (1912). If, at this point, the series lost touch entirely with its roots in American history and legend, which hardly mattered to the emergent New Breed of comic book readership that came to relish and respect the Golden Age but insisted on graphic novels (a term all at once in use) that addressed their sensibility. If Tomahawk were to survive, the concept had to be modified for the interests of current readers, who much preferred the fantastical; this was the era, lest we forget, of Planet of the Apes, Barbarella, Valley of the

DC’s King of the Wild Frontier (Brode)  189 Gwangi, 2001: A Space Odyssey at the movies and Star Trek, Time Tunnel, and Lost in Space on TV. Continuing writer Herron and illustrator Bob Brown pushed such possibilities considerably further in #103 (April 1966) with yet another ­­t wo-parter, “the Frontier Frankenstein,” in which Mary Shelley’s “thing” is propelled through time and space to our first frontier. The collaborators also dared conceive of the Undying Monster much as he had appeared in Universal’s famed franchise, including the ­­block-like forehead and green skin that could not be revealed in those black and white ­­program-pictures. Surprisingly, the movie studio most associated with the horror genre did not choose to sue. Soon, ever more preposterous (if enjoyably so, for fans) material appeared. Imaginative creatures of ­­s cience-fiction and fantasy allowed elements from these genres, which reached new heights in popularity during the 1970s thanks to films by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, to all but overshadow the pioneer element. Brown’s stunning cover for issue #104 (June 1966) featured a nearly shapeless thing with immense eyes and a grasping claw to set the pace for “The Fearful Freak of Dunham’s Dungeon”—a tale that had more in common with a thriller by Edgar Allan Poe than any ­­f rontier-set adventure from the mind of J.F.C. Similarly, Brown’s vision for #105 (August 1966), a cover designed to attract buyers for a narrative called “The Attack of the Gator God,” echoed movie posters for such 1950s Big Bug thrillers as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1954). It hardly seems coincidental that Universal’s ­­sci-fi horror films from the 1950s had recently been released to TV, even as their more traditional monster movies from the 1930s and 1940s had been during the ­­late-1950s (40). Again, popular culture (and the appreciation of it) has less to do with individual servings of specific entries than an enormous mishmash or, as one ­­song-spoof put it, a “monster mash.” As ghosts, Pterodactyls and Walking Figures of Flame made their appearances, and it became clear that Tomahawk had long since lost touch with the essence of its origination myth. Attempts were made to create a timelier (and time/space continuum) esthetic: one issue of ­­Time-Masters revealed that Dan had been a cousin of their hero Rip Hunter, who headed back to ensure that the Revolution turned out “right,” while acclaimed writer of fantastique Rachel Pollack entirely reinvented Hawk’s own “history.” Eventually, Tomahawk would be entirely reimagined as a Native American, the franchise at last showing full respect for our indigenous people. Still, the handwriting was on the wall: a mere two years after Parker hung up his coonskin cap (Boone was quietly retired in 1970), so did this unique DC publication. A new generation of young comic buyers and readers, about to discover Star Wars and Indiana Jones (as well as the big screen revival of Superman at the ­­t ail-end of the 1970s), wanted

190   The DC Comics Universe their ­­sci-fi/ fantasy and/or superhero epics to be “pure”—contemporary or futuristic in setting and, in some of the most successful cases, including Superman II (1980), a satisfying combination of the two. Then again, as an increasingly number of ­­h alf-forgotten DC (and Marvel) superheroes of the past are brought out of the comic book closet for reintroduction, it is not impossible that this heroic figure from the past might yet appear in the successful ­­g raphic-novel inspired action films of the 21st century.

References Anderson, P.F. (1996). The Davy Crockett craze: A look at the 1950’s phenomenon. R&G Productions. Blaisdell, B. (2013). Introduction. In B. Franklin & B. Blaisdell (Eds.), Poor Richard’s almanack and other writings. Dover Publications. Brode, D. (2009). Shooting stars of the small screen. University of Texas Press. Caruso, J.A. (1959). The Appalachian frontier: America’s first surge westward. ­­B obbsMerrill. Dunbar, J.D. (2016). Introduction to The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. Digreads. Everson, W.K., & Fenin, G. (1992). The Hollywood western: 90 years of cowboys and Indians. Citadel Press. Fiedler, L.A. (1968). Return of the vanishing American. Stein and Day. Frankel, G. (2014). The searchers: The making of an American legend. Bloomsbury USA. Haining, P. (2001). The classic era of pulp magazines. Chicago Review Press. Hamilton, E. (2011). Mythology: Timeless tales of gods and heroes. Grand Central Publishing. Monaghan, J. (1951). The great rascal: The life and adventures of Ned Buntline. Bonanza Books. Slotkin, R. (1998). Gunfighter nation: The myth of the Frontier in ­­t wentieth-century America. University of Oklahoma Press. Tripiano, S. (2005). Rebels & chicks: Hollywood teen movies. BackStage Books. Wright, B.W. (2003). Comic book nation: The transformation of youth culture. John Hopkins University Press.

DC Comics’ Renaissance An Examination of the Audience for The New Teen Titans Joshua Ryan Roeder

Comic scholarship commonly treats audiences as passive consumers of culture. In her book, Consuming Pleasure: Active Audiences and Serial Fictions from Dickens to Soap Opera, Jennifer Hayward argued that “serials, like other popular texts, require active participation on the part of consumers. At the very least, a series of choices must be made: which serial to read or view, with whom, where, while doing what” (2009, p. 2). Assuming that an audience is passive or ignoring their impact silences half the story. Theoretical frameworks of mass culture production make this grievous error and lack space for “the very real pleasures and satisfactions of audiences; the practices surrounding consumption of serial texts; the function such texts may serve for the individual and for the community” (Hayward, 2009, p. 2). The letter columns of comic books facilitated space for readership and creator interaction, but few scholars have attempted to analyze them. Although numerous comic book series include letter columns, this analysis will focus on the first volume of the rebooted mainstream comic book series by DC Comics, the New Teen Titans (1980–84). Fan letters were printed in the Titans’ Tower (Wolfman, 1980–1984, #1–40) column, which appeared in nearly every issue. The letter column provided a forum for readers to catch mistakes, give opinions, make suggestions, and express likes or dislikes. The column was a hub for the readership community; J. Richard Stevens’ 2011 article “‘Let’s Rap with Cap’: Redefining American Patriotism through Popular Discourse and Letters from The Journal of Popular Culture” shows that letter writers for the “letters to the editor” column were able to lead to a political and narrative change for Captain America in the character’s comics of the 1960s 191

192   The DC Comics Universe and 1970s. Marv Wolfman, creator and writer of the New Teen Titans, remarked the importance of the column: The letter columns were a way for fans to meet each other but in the comics itself. Today we have the internet, but it’s not the same. If you were a 12 ­­year-old [sic] and you wrote a letter that was actually published, you felt a part of the comic. Your name and thoughts were in the comic. Anyone can post to the internet; there’s nothing special about that [personal communication].

The purpose of this study is to understand the audience of the first volume of the New Teen Titans (hereon TNTT), what they wrote in their letters, and whether reader response shaped the series. These inquiries will be answered through a summarization of the publication history of the series, an analysis of the letters and their common themes, and an examination of the audience’s role in shaping this comic book series. To begin this analysis, one must understand the reason why readers invested heavily into comic book characters such as Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire. At the end of the 1970s, DC Comics was struggling financially, with television gaining popularity and the premieres of smash hit movies like Superman (1978) drawing attention toward a different medium of entertainment. In response, editor Len Wein brought together his lifelong friend Marv Wolfman and ­­up-and-coming comic artist George Pérez to work on an already ­­t wice-rebooted Teen Titan series that would help carry DC Comics through this stagnant period. The series would become the top seller for DC Comics and the number two for mainstream comics during its run, second only to the ­­t hen-current ­­X-Men series. What made this series popular was simply its characterization, which arose when a group of creators came into the field during the second half of the 20th century. Known as the “new generation,” they were comic book readers that grew up with the medium and “gravitated to the field voluntarily” (Decker, 1983). The new generation had been raised caring for the characters and wanted to see them grow and develop. Before diving into individual letters printed in Titans’ Tower, it is important to understand their overall makeup. The span of this research encompasses the issues between the first TNTT in November 1980 to the last issue of the first volume in 1984. The first volume had 40 issues, two annual issues, and a ­­four-part miniseries. The annual issues and miniseries did not contain printed letters; neither did the first two issues of the series, due to the nature of writing stories and getting the draft to the printing stage. Letters concerning the beginning of the series did not appear until issue #3. For most of the series, it was a single page with three to five letters. Later in the series within the first volume, Titans’ Tower increased to two pages with more letters. The number of letters, which were counted

DC Comics’ Renaissance (Roeder)  193

Titan’s Tower letter column composition.

according to gender, was considered. The graph below tracks the breakdown of the letter writers by gender between the years 1980 and 1984 with the exception of issue #37, which did not have a letter column printed in it. Each letter printed in Titans’ Tower was, for the most part, accompanied by a name and address from the person who had sent it. Based on the name given in the letter, these were then sorted into three categories: “assumed women,” “assumed men,” and “unknown.” If the immediate binary gender could not be determined by the given name, the letter was sorted into the “unknown” category. Quantifiably, the total number of letters examined in the series was 160; males wrote 130 letters (81.25 percent), and females wrote 22 (13.75 percent). The remaining eight letters (5 percent) were sorted into the “unknown” category. Some comics printed only male letters, which may suggest that males wrote ­­four-fifths of the total letters received by the editors. That ratio can only be confirmed if all the letters ever sent were examined, which is impossible. Wolfman said that he chose letters depending on whether they showed interesting ideas; hence, quantitative analysis cannot be solely relied upon. Nevertheless, it does show that most of the letters printed were from males, with a small percentage from females. It could be speculated that letters did not get printed as it was a time when comic book shops were still sparse. There were no consistent avenues for readers and fans to meet and discuss comics outside their local circles. What exactly did these letters discuss then?

194   The DC Comics Universe The most commonly printed letters were those that discussed readers’ thoughts and ideas about characters. DC Comics and the comic book industry in general had a trend of showcasing “angry, young, Black male” superheroes that did not connect well with audiences. Wolfman had to adjust his new Black superhero to ensure that readers would take a liking to him (#1–#18). Cyborg, also known as Victor Stone, was a young, Black man ­­half-human and half machine. Victor gained his cyborg body after a lab incident that killed his mother and destroyed half of his body. He believed the incident was his father’s fault and hated him for it, despite his father saving his life by turning him into a cyborg. For some time, Victor believed himself to be a freak and outcast. Then, Victor’s father explained what really happened in the lab and that he (Victor’s father) was going to die soon. Victor came to terms with his new life and renewed his relationship with his father before he passed away. Cyborg wearily started as an angry character, but something was different this time around with this Black superhero. Initial letters in the Titans’ Tower noted this change. One of the more prominent letters came in issue #18. Letter writer L.D. Yelverton mentioned loving the new series and discussed how readers could understand and identify with the characters and their personal problems within the comic. One character was particularly relatable to Yelverton: Each character is unique, especially Cyborg. I have for the first time in comics seen a major Black character who is not stereotyped. I should know since I am Black and I have been there. In DC ­­comic-book land, all Blacks live in a major ghetto, talk street language and are always screaming prejudice. Cyborg is progressing issue by issue. We know he went to college. His slang is less noticeable. Victor has warmth, dignity and pride in himself and not once has he stated the obvious. More power to him…. I earnestly appreciate your efforts in this magazine [p. 26].

Yelverton’s letter was the only letter in this volume of TNTT that specifically mentioned what race they were. While all the other letters primarily mentioned his character growth, this one was unique in that the reader specifically mentioned how they related to the character. Its writer also appeared to be well versed in the representational history of Black characters within DC Comics. Wolfman had a thankful response. If this much care was put into the one nonwhite superhero within TNTT, what about the female superheroes? Within the reboot, almost half the team was female, which allowed this series to explore more gender issues and may have enticed a growing female audience. Readers noted that the female characters were just as powerful as their male counterparts. However, later in the first volume, in

DC Comics’ Renaissance (Roeder)  195 issue #31, Margie Spears had a part of her letter directed to the main artist, George Pérez. Spears had written: Even though you are reportedly pleased at the way you are now drawing the girls, I’m not happy about the diet you have put Wonder Girl on. Let Raven and Kory be skinny, but WG has been historically, as Changeling would say, stacked. The boyish Kristy McNichols figure just is not her! Please put back the zoftig into WG! [p. 28]

Wolfman seemed to do his best to avoid the issue when he started his response by stating, “We kinda think Wonder Girl looks about perfect the way she is, but I will gladly pass your comments along to George. If anything, our Mr. Perez certainly likes his women zoftig.” A similar letter appeared three months later. Amy Sacks began her letter stating that it was no small surprise TNTT had become the DC comic book of the 1980s (Wolfman, #34, p. 25). Her only problem with the series was the body image of female superheroes. Sacks wrote, “I’m no Miss America when it comes to face and figure, and just once, I’d like to see a heroine who isn’t either.” She continued, “I mean, Raven is a knockout, Donna is stunning, Kory is dazzling, Frances is a starlet, and now we have Tara, who’s as beautiful as the lot of them put together.” Amy clarified, “Just once, I’d like to see a heroine who is intelligent, powerful, deadly, and caring, BUT ­­PLAIN-LOOKING. You’d be surprised at what it would do for the fragile egos of ­­non-cover girls everywhere.” Again, Wolfman responded in a dismissive way, writing directly underneath the letter, “Amy, we kinda thought Terra was rather ­­plain-looking—by ­­super-heroine standards at any rate” (p. 25). The creators appeared to be aware of issues with physical representations of strong female characters. An interesting outcome of characterization was the rather lackluster Kid Flash (Wally West). Until issue #18 of TNTT (April 1982), Kid Flash had very little depth to his character. Issue #18 featured a guest appearance of Russian superhero Leonid Kovar, who had worked with the group in the old series. Kid Flash took a particularly hard stance against the Russian being in America in the first place. Wally revealed more of his character when he stated, “I never trusted him, [Robin]. You can’t trust any of his people. Look what they did in Afghanistan and Angola…. Sure you don’t! Just like your government doesn’t want to intimidate Poland, eh?” (p. 6, 14). The rest of the Teen Titans noticed Wally’s behavior and confronted him, to which he responded, “Maybe because I knew our politics were always different. Look, I don’t put you down for being Liberals. Why attack me for being a ­­Mid-Western Conservative?” (p. 17). Within TNTT #22 (August 1982), readers responded to the politically charged Cold War dialog. Wolfman began the letter column explaining

196   The DC Comics Universe that most people were concerned about Wally West coming out as conservative and expressing such hostile views against the Russian superhero. One of the more powerful responses came from Omar Kozarsky. Addressed to Marv & George, Kozarsky wrote: During World War 2 there were many Germans who didn’t agree with their government’s decision to go to war just as Americans didn’t like the idea of going to Vietnam. You think Russia is any different? Being Russian myself I know that not all the people favor their government’s military actions. They are certainly not “cold fish” armed with automatic rifles ready to take over helpless countries in the name of Communism. Kid Flash called Russia’s honor poor. He makes it sound like we’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys. He thinks only of Russians slaughtering innocent people in their sleep. Someone should inform Wally of the incidents in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam. If Kid Flash and the other Titans set good examples for us to follow, perhaps the Cold War would be over for once and all [p. 26].

Most letters posed against Kid Flash’s newly exposed political views, and some readers even felt personally attacked. However, others were also hesitant to condemn Kid Flash. No other issue in this first volume had as many political messages and responses. The letter columns were obvious evidence of reader and creator interactions, though other types of evidence existed and led to various changes throughout the series. The first major change was in issue #14, which saw the development of Beast Boy (a.k.a. Gar Logan or Changeling). Wolfman started the Titans’ Tower with some messages for the readers about what letter publishing and production schedule was like at the office. Wolfman thanked Karen E. Weber of Huntington Beach, California, for her “very long and fascinating letter on Gar Logan.” Weber had raised many points concerning Changeling that the creators would “definitely incorporate into future issues” (p. 26). In issue #28, Andrew J. MacLaney questioned Changeling’s powers. Wolfman began by answering MacLaney’s question and decided to give more print time to Weber: Gar has also come to serious attention of Changeling fan number one. Karen Weber of California, who recently sent George and me a massive 60 plus page researched treatise on animals, their abilities and how the Changeling can use each animal to its utmost. She ­­cross-referenced the work, set it up by ability and animal, and has generally made life much easier for George and me. The work deserves some sort of prize, and Karen, hopefully by the time this sees print, you have received our thanks. You did a great job and we truly thank you for it. Now there will be no excuses when we make mistakes [p. 25–26].

Weber’s original letter was over 60 pages long, but this confirmation by Wolfman was an early example of how reader response shaped TNTT.

DC Comics’ Renaissance (Roeder)  197 Creating characters involved the creative use of a superhero’s powers, especially with a character like Changeling. Though the letter sent by Weber was not held onto by Wolfman for this analysis to use, later instances of Changeling using his powers were most likely derived from Weber’s work and research on the possibilities of the character, as claimed by Wolfman. This is a major example of how readership directed the makeup of a character; the next example, however, is how readership shaped the representation of another character named Cyborg. Printed in issue #40, John K. Austin wrote in his letter that he loved Cyborg and his love interest, Sarah Simms—a character introduced early in the series who made numerous appearances. However, the relationship between her and Victor only hovered around being close friends or romantic interests. In his letter, Austin pleaded that Cyborg and Simms’ relationship “could be groundbreaking and I encourage you to move it forward. You’ve got my support” (1984, p. 24). Unfortunately for Austin, an earlier fan letter prompted Wolfman to decide the fate of Cyborg and Simms. In an interview with The Comics Journal, Wolfman was asked if he was edging Cyborg toward an interracial romance with Simms. Cyborg was a Black man, and Simms was a White woman. At first, Wolfman considered it, but he thought there was nothing wrong with a “good healthy friendship that is not based on a sexual background between them.” However, a letter sent from a “Black leader who felt that we had seen a lot of interracial relationships, but we haven’t seen that many good, solid ­­Black-Black relationships to show that a Black hero doesn’t always go together with a white heroine and ­­v ice-versa” sealed his decision. It arrived during the early relationship between the two characters, and it confirmed Wolfman’s decision for them to remain good friends. No other details were given about the letter or its author. Moreover, the letter did not match any other letters within the series’ first volume. It would have been extraordinary to have seen the published letters and their authors. Much could be speculated on who this “Black leader” was, but it appears that he understood the issue of creating an interracial relationship. Black male superheroes were already a rarity in comic books; even rarer were Black, female superheroes—especially major Black, female characters. No such characters existed in the first volume of TNTT. The only non–White female on the team is Starfire, an alien whose skin has a tinge of orange, who passes as human when in public. Where this analysis is primarily concerned, however, reader response also affected the development of other female superheroes such as Raven. During the interview in Lone Star Comics (Decker, 1983), Wolfman revealed that he had no interest in writing for the mystical character Raven. The DC and Marvel comic universes were both filled with these

198   The DC Comics Universe types of characters, such as The Phantom and Dr. Strange. However, Pérez created a visual mockup of the character, and Wolfman became interested; both had known what Raven’s face looked like, but she wore a hood that kept her face in shadow. They did not intend to show readers her face in order to keep the esthetic of mysticism. As Pérez stated, “We thought we’d wait at least a year before Raven’s face was revealed, but initial reaction was negative. It was the fans. They thought she was too mysterious and couldn’t identify with her” (1983). Wolfman confirmed this analysis in 1982 by stating, This is an example of when fan comments actually affect the book. It was so overwhelming that fans thought she was (A) The Phantom Stranger’s daughter—which we knew all along she wasn’t, or (B) that they didn’t like that kind of character [1983].

The creators decided that Raven’s face would be revealed in issue #4, to make her more relatable to the readership. Specific letter authors altered the series, such as the aforementioned 60+ page letter by Weber that helped define Changeling’s abilities and their usages. ­­Fan-based groups also affected characterization and helped shape storylines, such as when Kid Flash came out as Midwestern conservative. Since that specific story, politics completely vanished from the storylines, at least within the first volume of the series. On the other hand, there were also times when the creators brushed aside or completely ignored reader responses, for example those concerned about the representation of women within the series. While there have been effects on the series by individual letter writers, another important aspect to consider is the effect on the masses; in other words, readership reactions to consistently bad renditions of Black characters in comics, such as Mal from the original Teen Titans. Readership responses led to the creation of Cyborg, a character who helped break the mold of “young, angry, Black characters.” With anger no longer being tied to race, Cyborg was more relatable to a wider audience. Through study of the market, individual letters, and how the creators of the series responded, this analysis has demonstrated that reader response shaped TNTT. It has become clear who the audience was, what they were concerned about, and why they submitted letters. The makeup of printed letters may indicate the makeup of readership in general; though men wrote most of the printed letters, the letter column showed a variety of letter writers by gender, race, age, and political leanings. Comic book target audiences shifted from younger readers to older readers, who were more ­­self-sufficient and aware as well as concerned with what was happening to the characters that they could relate to. Because of the new diverse

DC Comics’ Renaissance (Roeder)  199 cast of characters in the series, comic characters became more relatable to a wider audience. The letter column acted as a platform for social networking between readers and creators. It gave letter writers a chance to communicate their opinions and ideas within a broader group of likeminded individuals. Too few attempts have been made to analyze comic fan mail within the past four decades. Some scholars have been mentioned within this analysis, such as Jeffrey A. Brown who wrote Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans: Milestone Comics and Their Fans (2000) and a few others. At the end of the highly critical work Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books (2005), ­­Jean-Paul Gabilliet wrote: “Fan mail constitutes a largely unexplored source of information about the reception of characters, stories, and creators” (p. 363). I argue that fan mail is an opportunity to understand who the readers consuming this culture are. Comics gained popularity in the 1940s, and the comic industry had thrived and evolved for over half a century into a major cultural force in the 21st century. This cultural force, or consumer culture, is a new front in which comic studies can continue to thrive. What is it that readers are consuming in comics? They are looking for relatability and validity of their social, gender, race, and political views. While consuming, they are also shaping their characters through their own agency. This means that comic culture is organic: it is a force in which fans both consume and create. Understanding the consumer culture of one the most widely read and most accessible mediums is imperative in understanding the ebb and flow of culture in a broader sense.

References Brown, J.A. (2005). Black superheroes, Milestone Comics, and their fans. University Press of Mississippi. Dallas, K. (2013). “Note on comic book sales and circulation data.” American comic book chronicles: The 1980s (1980–1989). TwoMorrows Publishing. Decker, D.R. (1983). “The New Teen Titans: An interview with Marv Wolfman.” The Comics Journal, no. 79. Retrieved from http://www.titanstower.com/­­c omics-journal79-marv-wolfman-interview/. Duncan, R. & Smith, M.J. (2009). The power of comics: History, form and culture. Continuum. Gabilliet, J., Beaty, B., & Nguyen, N. (2013). Of comics and men: A cultural history of American comic books. University Press of Mississippi. Giordano, D. (ed), Kanigher, B. (sc), & Cardy, N. (i)(p). (1970). “A penny for a black star.” Teen Titans #26. National Periodical Publications, Inc. [DC]. Gordon, I. (2012). “Writing to Superman: Towards an understanding of the social networks of ­­comic-book fans.” Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies vol. 9 no. 2. Hayward, J. (2009). Consuming pleasures: Active audiences and serial fictions from Dickens to soap opera. University Press of Kentucky. Levitz, P. (2017). 75 years of DC Comics: The art of modern mythmaking. Taschen.

200   The DC Comics Universe Lopes, P.D. (2009). Demanding respect: The evolution of the American comic book. Temple University Press. Shainblum, M. (1981). “An interview with Marv Wolfman.” Orion Magazine: The Canadian Magazine of Space and Time, no. 2. Retrieved from http://www.titanstower.com/­­orion -2-marv-wolfman-interview/. Skeates, S. (1971). A mystical realm, a world gone mad. Teen Titans #32. National Periodical Publications, Inc. [DC Comics]. TitansTower.com. (2011). New issue club express: The Titans speak! http://www.titanstower. com/­­new-issue-club-express-117-the-titans-speak/. Walsh, J.A., Martin, S., & St. Germain, J. (2018). “The spider’s web”: An analysis of fan mail from Amazing ­­Spider-Man, 1963–1995. In J. Laubrock, J. Wildfeuer, & A. Dunst (Eds.), Empirical comics research: Digital, multimodal, and cognitive methods. Routledge. Wolfman, M. (1980–1984). The new Teen Titans #1–40. DC Comics. Wright, B.W. (2003). Comic book nation: The transformation of youth culture in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.

“A vision of the world where all wisdom is annihilated” Time, Narrative, and the Optics of Power in Watchmen Jeffrey Mccambridge

“I wolde þat oure tymes sholde turne aȝeyre to þe oolde maneres.”—Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiæ

The Doomsday Clock that ticks hauntingly nearer to midnight in each issue of Alan Moore’s Watchmen provides the series with an uncomfortable immediacy. The ­­ever-ticking clock escorts the reader through a tense chronology that inches unavoidably toward Armageddon in the form of nuclear war. As a metaphor, the Doomsday Clock itself has no distinct originary zero hour, a point at which the countdown would have begun. Instead, the doomsday clock counts down the amount of time left until midnight. Rather than resetting the ­­24-hour cycle for a new day, midnight on the Doomsday Clock is the mass extinction of life on Earth resulting from nuclear war. The Doomsday Clock, which “has become a universally recognized metaphor,” does not operate according to the same principles of time as the average timepiece, and instead moves toward or away from midnight based on the measured nuclear threat at a given moment in linear time. The fluctuation of minutes and seconds closer to and further from midnight on the Doomsday Clock is disorienting. While an easily read metaphor, the clock does not measure linear time and the leitmotif of disordered time parallels Moore’s dystopic narrative, which shifts jarringly through time and space but always toward a known end point: doomsday, the execution of Veidt’s plan to counterfeit an interdimensional/extraterrestrial attack intended to shock the United States and the Soviet Union out of its ­­planet-killing Cold War. The Doomsday Clock was first set in 1947 at seven minutes to midnight; by 1949 the clock read three minutes to midnight, ticking down to 201

202   The DC Comics Universe only two minutes to midnight in 1953 before reversing the trend and creating a more comfortable distance of 12 minutes to midnight by 1963—a distance all but annihilated by 1984, the year before the events of Watchmen, when the clock again read three minutes to midnight. “As we enter the new year,” the official 1984 doomsday statement begins, “hope is eclipsed by foreboding. The accelerating nuclear arms race and the almost complete breakdown of communication between the superpowers have combined to create a situation of extreme and immediate danger.” Interestingly, the statement refers to the arms race between superpowers in rhetorical terms, as “a sort of dialogue” that has replaced other, perhaps more productive forms of discourse, such as lingual communication through dedicated, professional ambassadors. The mid–1980s were a time when there had “been a virtual suspension of meaningful contacts and serious discussions” in international politics, a breakdown that primarily manifested in U.S. and Soviet relations, but also includes the concurrent sanctions against Iran. The “fateful juncture” the Earth found itself in during 1984 was “the threshold of a period of confrontation, a time when the blunt simplicities of force threaten[ed] to displace any other form of discourse between the superpowers. This is an appalling prospect.” The apocalyptic tone of the 1984 doomsday report is echoed in the political and domestic discourses of Watchmen, which ends with Laurie, devastated by the crushing emotional weight of narrowly avoiding nuclear Armageddon and the ethics of remaining silent about the true nature of the New York massacre, tells Dan “I want you to love me. I want you to love me because we’re not dead” (Moore 12.22). When faced with extinction, it does not matter to Laurie if her nearly ­­a ll-powerful, ­­a ll-knowing ­­ex-boyfriend minds that she’s having sex with Dan. In the face of extinction, Laurie’s connection with abstract and individual emotions has changed. The requisite qualifications for the exchange of love between them: they survived. The massacre of millions in New York has given Laurie a new perspective on the value of human life, ironically after struggling to convince Jon that human life has meaning earlier on Mars. Individual and interpersonal drama is microscopic by comparison, after millions were killed in the ­­bloody-blink-of-an-eye in Veidt’s plan while they went about their lives, on casual errands like picking up tandoori ­­take-away, assuming they would survive to eat their dinners (Moore 12.7). In the series, the Doomsday Clock that counts toward nuclear extinction perhaps overshadows the leitmotifs of time itself and the interplay between temporality, historical time, and political, physical, and narrative authorities woven within the larger tapestry that is Watchmen. Watchmen is a multigenerational murder mystery with multiple narrators, giving the series the appearance of an edited collection rather than a fictional comic

“A vision of the world…” (Mccambridge)  203 series. Moore embeds his story in a universe with its own complex history that is reminiscent of the 1980s, and this dedication to realism renders the fantastic story frighteningly familiar. Like many comics, Watchmen is focused on origins, but mirroring the complex political and interpersonal histories of the world, its beginnings are a point of orientation more than of creation. The opening panels of the comic are the Comedian’s iconic smiley face button, a single drop of blood over the eye, laying in a pool of blood that is flowing into a sewer grate on a dirty, urban sidewalk. The series avoids opening with an origin or even a death, that is, the Comedian’s final ending, but instead in the lingering aftermath of what seems to be an ending. Accompanying the spilt blood on the dirty New York sidewalk is an entry from Rorschach’s journal, which reads: “Dog carcass in ally this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face” (Moore 1.1). While these early words and images from the series introduce the reader to the world of Watchmen in this historical moment, this is decidedly not the beginning of the story; like Homer’s Iliad, Moore’s Watchmen begins in medias res—that is, in the middle of the things—as if the reader were casually walking along the dirty streets alongside the faceless Rorschach as he marches bearing his apocalyptic banner, with decades worth of necessary context being revealed to the reader over the course of the following issues. Beginning here, in the aftermath of Blake’s murder—as Blake’s blood is casually washed from the sidewalk with a garden hose like common debris—the reader is presented with the stark realism of the series, as well as the series’ own theory of the interplay between the poetics of time and narrative. Watchmen’s narrative does not exactly begin in medias res, since Veidt’s doomsday plan is already in motion. Instead, the story exists in the liminal space between the apocalyptic event and the realization of loss. The historical ethos invoked by Moore in the construction of Watchmen gives the series a recognizable temporality that complements the comic’s realism. While the narrative’s universe is demonstrably different from our own—Nixon is president, for example—and references familiar geopolitical events (the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear arms race, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) provide a false sense of historical or contextual security in a hostile and fictional narrative that shifts through decades of American history and conflates distinctions between fiction and ­­non-fiction. In his book Considering Watchmen, Andrew Hoberek writes that the differences between the comic’s world and the reader’s world can be reconciled because of the narrative’s greater conflicts are “the product of structural politics that are all but impossible to change” (Hoberek, 2014, p. 120). The devotion to realism orients the reader away from the science fiction and fantasy elements of the series. Veidt’s skills are

204   The DC Comics Universe extraordinary, but his plot is plausible and his justifications understandable. Not only that, but his need for Dr. Manhattan’s validation is grossly human. But while the reader may comfortably recognize the basic chronology of the universe in Watchmen, it presents its own fatalistic poetics of time. In Confessions, Augustine asks God, “What is time?” [quid est ergo tempus?] and without pausing for an answer goes on to explain: “If nobody asks me, I know [what time is]; if I wish to explain it, I know not” [si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nesico] (Augustine 11.14). In the 4th century, Augustine mused that, while both knowing and not being able to explain the experience or substance of time that the past no longer exists and that what is future does not exist yet (11.15), which is why we refer to the prior events in the grammatical past tense—“it was a long time ago” rather than “it is a long time ago”—and why we refer to events in the future using the future tense—“it will be far in the future” rather than “it is far in the future”—rather than use the present tense to refer to events that are not occurring in the present.1 In issue four of Watchmen, titled “Watchmaker,” Jon, acting as narrator, explains to the universe that this clear separation of past, present, and future is a mistake in perspective that Jon is aware of because his annihilation and subsequent reconstruction alters his relationship with time. For Jon, like God in Augustine’s Confessions, all three temporal states (past, present, and future) coexist and occur simultaneously [“The photograph lies at my feet, falls from my fingers, is in my hand” (Moore 4.2)]. Jon lives in an eternal present that is coeval with all other times that are not perceived as present by regular humans, and yet Jon experiences each moment as if it is the first and only time that he has experienced it—as demonstrated when Jon informs Laurie that she will to tell him she is having a sexual relationship with Dan (Moore 9.6) and when he is speaking with Laurie in the past and Rorschach in the present simultaneously after entering Veidt’s Antarctic compound (Moore 12.11, 12). The difference between Jon’s temporality and that of the other characters, it would seem, is a difference of experiencing time and memory. Laurie remembers the past; Jon perpetually experiences it in the present as current moment, making memory physical, immediate, and likely superfluous. In this sense, we can perhaps envision a loose parallel between Jon’s experience of all times at once and Veidt’s seemingly infinite television screens feeding him a mixture of ­­pre-recorded and live broadcasts. Every moment for Jon is 1947, 1985, and all other times that he has experienced simultaneously. Importantly, Jon’s experience of temporality shifted after his accident in the intrinsic field subtractor—the moment when Jon no longer lived in a present with a past relegated to memory and a future of potentialities, but instead existed in all times simultaneously—but

“A vision of the world…” (Mccambridge)  205 he continues to experience time before the accident in his ­­post-accident state. This means that 1945 Jon both is and is not Dr. Manhattan because ­­post-accident Jon continues to experience his ­­pre-accident life coeval with the narrative’s 1985 present. This is seen in Jon’s constant use of the present tense to describe past events [“It’s 1945. I sit in a Brooklyn kitchen…. It is 1985. I am on Mars” (Moore 4.2)]. Paul Ricoeur writes “[…] that we measure time when it is passing; not the future which is not, nor the past which is no longer, nor the present which has no extension” (Ricoeur, 1990, p. 16). Ricoeur is noting the peculiarities of measuring time, given that we only experience the now, a collective state of being, though Jon’s father informs him that “Professor Einstein says that time differs from place to place” (Moore 4.3). If the laws of time vary from place to place, standard units of measure, like the watch whose gears Jon’s father is dropping from a Brooklyn fire escape in like metallic rain 1947, are inadequate, have always been inadequate, will always be inadequate. We think of time as ubiquitous, existing the same in all places, but on Mars Jon explains to Laurie that “There is no future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet” (Moore 9.6). Rather than arguing that time is a construct overlaid upon the universe according to man’s limited perspective to validate ancient assumptions about the cosmos, Jon argues that humans insist on viewing time without all of its dimensions, much like a ­­t wo-dimensional image, rich with detail when viewed from the right perspective, turned 90 degrees is a mere segment of line. To demonstrate his point, Jon asks Laurie to revisit her earliest memory, which is a snowstorm ball, a tiny city enclosed in glass as if it were its own universe within her hands. With some small effort on her part, the universe in the snowstorm ball came alive, the unsettled imitation snowflakes now slowly resettling. Reflecting on this moment, with her mother and stepfather arguing in the background, Laurie notes that she “figured [that] inside the ball was some different sort of time. Slow time” (Moore 9.7). But inside the globe wasn’t a different time or a different world, just a plastic castle and water that smashed against the ground when dropped; a broken trinket ­­half-forgotten in her present. Moments later, Jon tells Laurie that it, like all human life and experience, is meaningless compared to the lifeless atomic structures he reads across Martian dust. “All those generations of struggle,” Jon asks. “What purpose did they ever achieve? All that effort, and what did it ever lead to?” (Moore 9.10). The question both prompts Laurie to lose hope in convincing Jon to save the world—a task that Jon himself quietly fails in and also seemingly fails to foresee—and also leads Jon to recognize the random coincidences and chance encounters

206   The DC Comics Universe that make up human interaction as unique in the universe and worth his attention.2 In other words, there is an inherent beauty in patterns, but the anomalous nature of humans and human interaction is unique in the universe and worth preserving. Time in Watchmen is fatalist and linear, and yet not linear at the same time. There is a set timeline that even Jon, despite his powers and foresight, cannot change, or as Jon explains, “We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings” (Moore 9.5). Jon’s limitations are made aggressively clear both for him and the reader by the Comedian in 1977 when Blake murders the mother of his unborn child. Jon, in disbelief that Blake would shoot a pregnant woman in cold blood, is unable to formulate coherent sentences to communicate his disapproval to Blake. Blake replies, mirroring Jon’s broken language: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Pregnant woman. Gunned her down. Bang. And y’know what? You watched me. You coulda changed the gun into steam or the bullets into mercury or the bottle into snowflakes! You coulda teleported either of us to goddamn Australia…. But you didn’t lift a finger! [Moore 2.15].

Jon is already experiencing not only this violently shocking moment, the events preceding it, and its aftermath, but also Jon has been experiencing Blake’s censure for decades; there should be no shock or disbelief on Jon’s part. Despite his ability to read atoms and experience all times simultaneously, Jon remains a puppet enacting a linear script. Regardless of where he is in the story, its beginning, middle, or end, Jon is fulfilling a part and fostering a narrative that is always the same. One possible reason for this is that, because all time occurs in a coeval present without passing into the past or remaining in a ­­yet-unrealized future, Jon isn’t anticipating events he has already witnessed but instead living them for the first time while remembering them at the same time in another coeval experience of the present. This would, of course, mean that time is in fact not linear in Watchmen, nor is it circular, but instead a single point with no other coordinates to trace recognizable geometric shapes. That is, assuming that Jon’s understanding of time is accurate and that he possesses the ability to articulate the workings of time. The implications for time are particularly interesting in Watchmen in light of its emphasis on nostalgia (which is also the name of Veidt’s fragrance). Without the nostalgic flashbacks, the narrative is a murder mystery investigation that uncovers a ­­mad-scientist world domination plot [Veidt’s Pyramid company seems to remain prominent in New York post massacre (Moore 12.31)]. The past, even when painful, are the good old days, and a contrast to the present. The notion that time exists only in the ­­a ll-encompassing now is reflected in the Doomsday Clock metaphor

“A vision of the world…” (Mccambridge)  207 and that particular timepiece’s ability to defy linear time. Regardless of nuclear war, there is no future, and under constant threat there is no viable present, leaving the realm of memory, constructed or otherwise, the only recourse for most characters. This feeling recalls Chaucer’s translation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ that serves as the epigraph, which translates to, “I wish that our times should turn always to the old manners.” Watchmen laments the passing of a better time and provides a way of understanding the universe that demonstrates that this lost time is not actually lost and exists outside of memory and fantasy, at least for Jon. At the same time, the story shows that we cannot return to the good old days, the days of costumes and small crime. The epigraph looks to the future, uncertain as it may be.

Authority and Watchmen Patience nurtures magnanimity. He who thinks greatly must err greatly. —Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place. —Horace Smith, “Ozymandias”

In his book Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault analyzes the 1­­ 8th-century panoptical prison design by Jeremy Bentham. The basic design of the panopticon places the guard observation area in the center of the prison with the cells and common areas surrounding it. The design allows the guard to observe any given prisoner from his hidden position at any given time. While no guard can observe all prisoners at all times, the threat of institutional observation compels prisoners to police their own behaviors, or, as Foucault puts it, “Hence, the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (Foucault p. 201). At its core, the effectiveness of the design rests on the ­­ever-present possibility of observation, implying a ­­near-omnipotence on the part of the guards. The unseen the guard/guardian polices/protects through inaction, through observation, through the implication of presence, and in terms of function “it is an important mechanism, for it automatizes and disindividualizes power” (Fouclault p. 202). The threat of anonymous surveillance, coupled with “the spectacle of the scaffold” is the key to the ­­over-effectiveness of the Minutemen, who disintegrate as a group in the absence of masked

208   The DC Comics Universe criminals. Both Nite Owls—Hollis and Dan—note how silly it seemed to chase common criminals while in costume, taking special note that costumed adventurers require a certain type of crime. While the costumes and the threat of ­­s emi-official violence deterred crime, the optics of authority felt silly under scrutiny. For Dan specifically, despite its silliness, the feeling of authority that came with donning the mask is conflated with his sexuality and when outside of his Nite Owl costume he is rendered sexually impotent, much like the state is rendered impotent when the threat of surveillance is removed and it is demonstrated that large scale control mechanisms are not easily maintained. Dan’s impotence is ironic given his conversation with Laurie in which they ridiculed Captain Carnage, a ­­costumed-villain pretender who got off on being beaten up by costumed adventurers (Moore 1.26). Nite Owl—along with the other masked adventurers, but perhaps more emphatically—is analogous to the part of state authority that ensures obedience through the threat of surveillance, which causes those being surveilled to ­­self-regulate behaviors according to expected standards. In the case of Watchmen, the rise of costumed adventurers was not initially a state function but instead grew from vigilantes who worked independently to supplement law enforcement. It was only later that the vigilantes were incorporated into the machinery of state before ultimately being banned by that same state through the enactment of the Keene Act. Interestingly, in his article “Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas,” Dan wonders if it is possible to study a bird so closely “that it becomes invisible” (Moore 7.29). More specifically, Dan ponders if the attention to detail causes the observer to overlook the subject’s innate poetry. Of course, panoptical techniques rely on this invisible poetry, on the subject avoiding the burden of scrutinizing the possibly absent observer or the psychological effects of this observation. Like the prison guard’s tower, Nite Owl’s stealth Owl Ship allows for hidden surveillance, serving a panoptical function that allows Nite Owl and Comedian to surprise protesters during the police strike. Dan’s language when addressing the protesters is important because it demonstrates that, while an optical facet of state authority whose presence is a show of state force, as an individual he is willing to reason with the crowd while the Comedian seems to thrive on abusing protesters. In the same moment that the Comedian throws tear gas into the heart of the crowd to disperse the protesters, Dan apologizes— while blaming the protesters for Comedian’s excessive force—saying, “God, look, I’m sorry. You haven’t left us any choice. This stuff is dangerous. Please clear the streets…” (Moore 2.17). In this case, Nite Owl and the Comedian demonstrate the ­­often-mixed messages emitted by the state, which both protects and polices, both represents and controls. Rather than

“A vision of the world…” (Mccambridge)  209 condemn or question Blake’s response, Dan asks how long they can maintain control of the situation in the streets. The state protects itself. Dan’s disbelief and disapproval are for the situation itself, not for the methods employed by the masked adventurers working to pacify demonstrators during the police strike, demonstrators demanding regular, regulated police officers and not vigilantes patrolling the streets in stealth ships with their faces hidden. Dan’s analysis of the role of costumed adventurers prevents him from seeing the poetry, that is, the situation as a whole, even as the Comedian explains this political poetry to him: “Well, me, I kinda like it when things get weird, y’know? I like it when all the cards are on the table. […] It [the American Dream] came true. You’re lookin’ at it. Now c’mon…. Let’s really put these jokers through some changes” (Moore 2.18). While firing what appears to be a tear gas round at a protester painting “Who watches the Watchmen” on a wall, Blake casually remarks, “I keep things in proportion an’ try ta see the funny side” (Moore 2.18). Blake, while his methods are shocking, is able to recognize the machinery of state as well as his role within that machine. In other words, Blake not only recognizes the details of the bird [state authority], but remains focused on its poetry [state control], while Dan has lost the poetry and is reacting to the moment, the observable detail. Following Dan’s metaphor, he is measuring wingspans, counting talons, and observing eating and mating habits and missing the bird as a complex object, more than the sum of its parts. By contrast, the Comedian observes the ecosystem but in recognizing its complexity also observes the insignificance of any individual moment that has captured Nite Owl’s attention. The complex and seemingly contradictory politics of costumed adventuring is one of the humorless jokes that makes the comedian cynical. There is a dark humor embedded in the actions, optics, contradictions, and futility of masked adventuring. While Dan is committed to the idea that they are doing good, Blake openly recognizes the ineffectiveness of chasing small crime on the brink of nuclear war and also that his role is one of social control [Dan: “Who are we protecting them from?” Blake: “From themselves. Whatsamatter? Don’t feel comfortable unless you’re up against some schmuck in a Halloween suit?” (Moore 2.18)]. Superheroes—a term Moore actively avoids in the majority of Watchmen—and their logos are often associated with hope and justice, but in Watchmen the masked adventurers and their associated iconography are associated with control and force, even in Veidt’s line of action figures. While this is a comic book from the mid–1980s, the institutional critiques and the popular reaction to the threat of violently enforced control has strong parallels with the movement to defund police departments following the death of George Floyd in May 2020. The optics of authority and

210   The DC Comics Universe the social control that encourages ­­self-policing behaviors just in case an enforcement officer is watching are not explicit conversations in Watchmen, there are, however, the background discussions in the series are echoed in popular discourse about excessive force, legal and illegal chokeholds, the stockpiling and use of military grade gear, the free use of pepper spray (often from moving vehicles) against crowds and demonstrators, and the many head injuries from protesters being shoved from behind or shot with rubber bullets. It may be more than coincidental that, while the comic is in its third decade, the 2009 film directed by Zack Snyder and the 2019 HBO series remain in popular memory; not to mention the prominence of white supremacists (Seventh Kavalry) and questions about race and racism in the series’ most recent incarnation. The question of authority in Watchmen takes its most insidious form in Veidt’s plan to save the world from itself. The validity of the threat of nuclear war is never contested within the narrative and instead forms an ­­ever-present specter in the series, haunting each character differently. The repeated imagery of the physical Doomsday Clock counting down reinforces the immediacy and accuracy of the existential threat. Styling himself as the Eurocentric revision of the Egyptian Ramesses II and Alexander of Macedonia, Veidt executes a plan to end all war by uniting the world against a common, fictional, extradimensional enemy. Rather than work within the existing optics of state authority the costumed adventurers represent, Veidt adopts a ­­behind-the-scenes mad scientist plan. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s inscription “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” ring through Veidt’s actions and serve both as title and as epilogue to issue eleven (Shelley ll. 10–11). The use of Shelley’s poem ­­i n-text implies that this is the version and legacy of the historical Ozymandias that is most relevant to the story, at least in Veidt’s mind. In Shelley’s poem, these words are boldly inscribed at the base of an ancient statue, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / [that] Stand in the desert” (Shelley ll. 2–3). The statue of Ozymandias that proclaims his might above all else is surrounded by “the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The long and level sands stretch far away” (Shelley ll. 12–14). The poem does not celebrate the grand accomplishments of an enlightened conqueror, as Veidt supposes, but instead imagine a forgotten and lost past where only desert now exists. An empire lost both to the figurative sands of time and to the literal sands of the Egyptian desert. And the rub, of course, is that Veidt’s plan to save the world rests on the destruction of New York, which he transforms into an urban desert of blood, bone, and rubble. It would seem that, while Veidt has misread the poem he is, in fact, enacting it as Shelley describes. Importantly, the speaker in Shelley’s poem is neither the great Pharaoh Ramesses II/Ozymandias,

“A vision of the world…” (Mccambridge)  211 nor is he the “traveler from an antique land” who saw the great monument himself (Shelley l. 1). Instead, the speaker is the armchair recipient of the story seeking wisdom from the ancient Orient while keeping it at arm’s length, refusing even the Pharaoh’s Egyptian name and adopting his Greek moniker, Ozymandias. The ­­self-styled Alexander/Ozymandias is anything but his namesake; Veidt is a Machiavel, akin to Shakespeare’s great usurper, Claudius, who poisoned his brother, King Hamlet, and wept at his funeral. Veidt, while charismatic and in peak physical condition and with unlimited funds at his disposal, instead prefers theatrics and good PR to the brute force display of state force associated with his namesakes. Conquerors like Old King Hamlet, Fortinbras, and even Alexander are better reflected in the domineering Comedian, a potential source of jealousy which may be why Veidt disliked Blake immediately and retained the grudge against his contemporary. This ­­deep-seated jealousy may be strengthened by the fact that Veidt’s grand plan to save the world through destruction was inspired by the Comedian himself at the first, doomed meeting of the Crimebusters, a scene the reader is introduced to in the second issue of the series. Veidt’s handsome face, Olympian physique, intelligence, wealth, and speed (he’s fast enough to catch a bullet) mean that through privilege, money, or skill he can conquer nearly any obstacle, and yet he proves unable to best the Comedian, and all of Veidt’s actions following the failure of the Crimebusters emphasize a ­­hero-Napoleon complex inscribed across the motivations of the World’s Smartest Man. Veidt’s story echoes Heidegger’s verse that serves as this section’s epigraph, that “He who thinks greatly must / err greatly.” Most interpretations of this verse would read that success requires risk and endurance through failures, but this reading is not the sole reading. In the case of Veidt, thinking greatly also enables him to “err greatly,” to justify murder on both individual and mass scales. Veidt’s great thinking has engendered great callousness. Like the archetypical abusive figure, he has created a situation in which his own villainous actions frame him as a hero while ensuring that no support network that leads to any other savior remains accessible. It is no coincidence that Heidegger, famous for his philosophies of both time and phenomenology, was a member of the Nazi Party. Concentration camp survivor and poet Paul Celan write the poem “Todtnauberg” in 1967 after meeting Heidegger at his chalet in the city of the same name; the poem seems to seek an understanding between the two men but ends without an apology or acknowledgment of prior crimes—even if through proximity and association rather than direct action—ending with a sense of defeated anticipation that echoes the tone of Watchmen [“Now that the Betschemel 3 are burning / I eat the book / with all its / insignia” Jetzt, da die Betschemel brennen, / eß ich das Buch / mit allen / Insignien (Celan

212   The DC Comics Universe ll. 27–30)]. In the end, in the face of abject power and hostility posing as beneficence, the reader is left to eat the book, unable to alter its outcomes. Veidt’s decidedly non–Alexandrian insecurity is confirmed in the aftermath of the massacre in New York when Veidt callously assures Jon that he has “made myself feel every death”—an impossible task—but then, visibly disturbed, asks Jon if he did the “right thing” and if it “all worked out in the end” (Moore 12.27). Veidt’s need for validation, like Celan’s desire for the unreceived apology, is left unfulfilled when Jon replies, “‘In the end’? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends” (Moore 12.27). Jon’s final message to Veidt are the link between the discourse on time from this chapter’s first section and its discourse on authority in the present section. Veidt’s plan was a murderous tragedy and cosmically insignificant at the same time. Veidt failed to see the significance of an ­­ever-present present and instead sought to manipulate the future. Unable to achieve closure, it is implied that Veidt’s own insecurity will endure as he calls out into the darkness previously occupied by Jon, begging for clarification and finding only darkness and isolation. Once so confident, or at least seemingly so, in his carefully constructed political authority and having crafted a new global narrative, Veidt is reduced to a sad man alone in his Antarctic home, completely isolated from the world he has “saved”; a world that he is only connected to through countless murders/sacrifices and a series of monitors and media feeds. Veidt’s confidence is solid, so long as it is untested and he has controlled the outcomes.

The Intersection of Time and Authority Narrative is the application of words to time. While not every narrative is linear, each establishes a timeline, or chronology. The essence of narrative is beginning, middle, and end, whether or not the resolution is satisfactory or placed at the end. Watchmen is an experiment in narrative; it is a multigenerational story told by many narrators and with no clear origin or end, and with even more messages embedded within the artwork. The use of multiple narrators within a ­­single-author piece enhances the realism of the narrative, as if Watchmen is a history of a parallel universe that the reader has stumbled upon. But histories, as Hayden White and others have noted, are by their nature works of omission that rely on recognizable narrative tropes. Watchmen remains relevant and has been reinvented precisely because of its implicit attention to the complexities that explore the intersections between narrative, temporality, and the manufacture and execution of authority. Watchmen warns against the seductive sense of security found in entrusting security costumed

“A vision of the world…” (Mccambridge)  213 adventurers—some of whom sexualize the role, are accused of being Nazis, or far right extremists—as well as warning readers about the complex, Machiavellian schemes that impact lives from behind the political and commercial curtain.

Notes 1.  Unlike Augustine’s Latin and other languages, the English language does not have a future tense—it does have future constructions—making the expression of futurity difficult in a grammatical sense. 2.  Whether or not Jon’s intervention saves the world is a possible point of contention. He fails to prevent Veidt’s plan but if Veidt’s plan does indeed save the world from nuclear Armageddon then Jon’s disintegration of Rorschach, who was going to expose Veidt, could have actually saved the world. The publication of Rorschach’s journal by the ­­r ight-wing fringe newspaper The New Frontiersman may or may not be read as credible evidence ­­post-Watchmen. Veidt readily admits that Rorschach is not a credible witness. 3.  A type of prayer stool.

References Augustine (2014). Confessions. Edited by Carolyn J.-B. Hammond. Harvard University Press. Boethius (1868). De consolation philosophiæ. Translated by Chaucer. http://name.umdl. umich.edu/ChaucerBo. Celan, P. (2002). “Todtnauberg.” Poems of Paul Celan: A bilingual German/English edition. Edited by Michael Hamburger. Persea. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. Vintage Books. Heidegger, M. (2013). Poetry, language, thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Harper Perennial. Hoberek, Andrew (2014). Considering Watchmen: Poetics, property, politics. Rutgers University Press. Moore, A. and Gibbons, D. (1986–1987). Watchmen. DC Comics. Ricoeur, P (1990). Time and narrative: Volume I. Translated by Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. The University of Chicago Press. Shelley, P.B. (1868). “Ozymandias.” The minor poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edward Moxon & Co. Smith, H (1857). “On a stupendous leg of granite, discovered standing by itself in the deserts of Egypt, with the inscription inserted below.” The poetical works of Horace Smith and James Smith, authors of the “rejected address.” With portraits and a biographical sketch. Edited by Epes Sargent. Mason Brothers. “Timeline.” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. https://thebulletin.org/­­d oomsday-clock/ ­­past-statements.

Wonder Woman Revisited Increasing the Drama with Classical Reception in New 52’s Justice League Scott Manning

Geoff Johns has tackled ancient Greek history and mythology on numerous occasions both as a comic book writer and, more recently as a screenwriter; sometimes head on, as he did with his graphic novel Olympus (2005). Yet, even when ancient history is not his source material, Johns often finds a way to incorporate the classics. During his over ­­50-issue writing stint on New 52’s Justice League (2011–2016), Johns was responsible for some of DC Comics’ biggest storylines, including the Darkseid War—an event that longtime DC Comics editor Robert Greenberger ranked among the team’s 100 greatest moments (Greenberger, 2018). With accomplished artist Jason Fabok penciling most of the issues, Justice League featured one of the strongest comic book teams to convey dramatic, ­­l arger-than-life events in the company’s flagship title filled with ­­top-tier characters. Fans predicted that, when the timing was right, two of the most powerful entities across the Multiverse—Darkseid and ­­A nti-Monitor—would fight. However, on three different occasions, Johns took such an event one step further by aggressively incorporating the aforementioned classics. Wonder Woman plays the narrator for these climatic, often perilous moments as she recounts flashbacks of similar scenes from ancient Greek tales, exposing readers to classical authors such as Homer and Thucydides, along with stories such as the Strait of Messina and the Plague of Athens. The tone remains serious and sometimes incorporates dates, cuing the reader that this is a different sort of classical reception that is meant to educate rather than appropriate. Such a flashback technique ensures that readers know they are encountering “real history,” even in the mythical tales from Homer, as opposed to the invented metanarrative of Wonder Woman as a literal descendant of Zeus. Geoff Johns has established an 214

Wonder Woman Revisited (Manning)  215 approach to increase the drama of any moment with classical incorporation, even in a comic book world rife with classical appropriation. Johns’ approach follows in the footsteps of classical historians, poets, and playwrights, who often evoke history and myth to add legitimacy to their stories. Further, Johns has successfully incorporated and will continue to incorporate this technique on the big screen.

Classics and Comics Although classical reception—the interpretation of the ancient world through any medium—is by no means a new field, the “intersection of the ancient world and modern comics” has become a niche field established by George Kovacs and C.W. Marshall in their edited volumes Classics and Comics (2011) and Son of Classics and Comics (2016). Editors and contributors demonstrate that understanding the sources used by comic book writers and artists and their interpretation enrich our comprehension of ancient sources in question. Marshall and Kovacs fully admit that their edited volumes are “only the beginnings of what can be said about the interaction between the medium of comics and the Classical world” (2011, p. xi), encouraging further exploration. Kovacs presents three possible ways in which a comic book reader can encounter the ancient world: “(1) passing references and cosmetic borrowings; (2) appropriations and reconfigurations in which classical models are displaced from their original context; and (3) direct representations of the classical world” (2011, p. 15). The metanarrative of Wonder Woman typically falls into the second method, as her earliest storylines involve Hercules and other such figures. As with any myth, her exact origins have changed with new creative teams over the years, but she is always an Amazonian. George Perez and Greg Rucka explored these ancient roots in depth, crafting detailed backstories with the Greek gods in the form of “appropriations and reconfigurations” that have become “a serious, even defining component of Wonder Woman’s psychological profile” (Kovacs, 2011, p. 16). Names, places, and some events will be familiar to classicists. Yet stories and motivations vary dramatically, and they are meant to entertain rather than educate. The “direct representations of the classical world” remarkably appear rarely in the early Wonder Woman, at least not in a way distinguishable between entertainment and education. That changed with New 52’s Justice League run during the Darkseid War. In the span of eight Justice League issues, three moments allow Johns to incorporate the classics using Wonder Woman: the pandemic of the Amazo Virus, the battle between Darkseid and ­­A nti-Monitor; and

216   The DC Comics Universe finally, at the realization that Justice League members have transformed into gods. Johns’ methods for evoking classics are consistent: the letterer incorporates narration boxes to indicate these are thoughts rather than spoken words, and the boxes are stylized so that the reader knows they are reading Wonder Woman’s thoughts—each box is red and the first in any sequence is prefixed with a “W” drop cap. Where the event is historical (not mythical), Johns includes a date. Some scenes are drawn for the reader. Finally, Wonder Woman’s narration always spans multiple pages and overlaps with the events happening in ­­real-time, creating a direct correlation between Wonder Woman’s told tale and the current event. Johns establishes the classical incorporation approach in issue #39, using all the methods described above. Though this approach is established in our first encounter, Johns loosens the approach in latter issues, stringing readers along a path of education under the implied understanding that he is speaking “real history,” thereby allowing for a more seamless read.

The Plague of Athens and the Amazo Virus Pandemic The first encounter with Johns’ educational approach comes during the peak of the Amazo Virus pandemic. The Justice League find themselves unable to contain the plague, which affects humans and metahumans in fantastical/horrific ways, ultimately killing its victims. Superman and Wonder Woman are immune, being an alien and a demigod, respectively; thus, they are on the front lines, looking for a cure. At the peak of their desperation, Wonder Woman evokes a similar situation from Ancient Greece. Justice League #39 (2015) starts with the Amazonian telling us, The Plague of Athens hit in 430 bc And as the plague spread, so did fear. The Law was ignored as much as the sick. Those tending to either risked their lives. Beyond the contagion and the disease, the outbreak poisoned minds and hearts. In the heat of death, panic and depravity ruled Athens. Compassion and decency collapsed. Most believed the gods had abandoned them. That was true. The gods had [p. 1].

In a few panels, Wonder Woman succinctly describes one of the most infamous plagues in history. At the beginning of a ­­t hree-decade-long war between Athens and Sparta that became known as the Peloponnesian War (431–404 bce), the plague brought Athens to its knees. Thucydides,

Wonder Woman Revisited (Manning)  217 a survivor, describes its effects in gruesome detail, concluding: “Nothing afflicted and damaged Athenian strength more than [the plague]” (Thucydides, ca. 3rd century bce/1998, 3.87.2) as it “inflicted a very great amount of suffering on the Athenians, destroying the army” (2.58) and killed “an untold number of the general population” (3.87.3). Modern historians estimate the plague killed ­­one-third of the city’s population, as it ebbed and flowed for years (Buckley, 2010, p. 342; Tritle, 2010, p. 48). Likewise, Wonder Woman explains in Justice League #39: “Most believed the gods had abandoned them. That was true.” Divine plagues appear often in the Greek imagination. Homer’s The Iliad opens with Apollo firing arrows at the Spartans, inf licting them with a plague (Homer, ca. 8th century bce/2015, 1.74–83). After the first year of the Athenian plague, playwright Sophocles depicted a ravaged city in Oedipus Rex, in which a character lamented: The buds are blighted and do not ripen to fruit, the cattle are blighted too, and our women birth dead babies. The god who carries fire has visited the house of Cadmus and all Thebes [Sophocles, 429 bce/2007, p. 61].

In the play, Ares, the god of war, inflicts the plague, further associating it with current events of the time. These would not have been lost on the audience (Kagan, 1991, p. 249). For his part, Thucydides is clear that doctors were initially clueless, and appeasements to the gods had no effect (2.47). He also points to the manner in which a Delphic prophesy was misinterpreted to reveal that the gods favored Sparta over Athens since the former was comparatively spared from the plague (1.118.3, 2.54.4). However, Thucydides proved more rational, brushing aside fantastical origins of the plague, instead tracing its spread from Ethiopia, then Egypt, Libya, and finally the Persian Empire before reaching Greece (2.48). As for those misinterpreting the prophecy, Thucydides believed that “men shaped their memories in accordance with what they experienced” (2.54). Wonder Woman similarly explains in Justice League #39: “The outbreak poisoned minds and hearts. In the heat of death, panic and depravity ruled Athens. Compassion and decency collapsed,” which echoes one of Thucydides’ more brutal passages: The plague was the starting point for greater lawlessness in the city. Everyone was ready to be bolder about activities they had previously enjoyed only in secret … whatever was pleasant immediately and whatever was conducive to that were deemed both noble and useful. Neither fear of the gods nor law of man was a deterrent, since it was judged all the same whether they were pious or not because of seeing everyone dying with no difference, and since no one anticipated that he would live till trial and pay the penalty for his crimes, but that the much greater penalty which had already been pronounced was

218   The DC Comics Universe hanging over them, and it was reasonable to get some satisfaction from life before that descended [2.53].

At this moment wherein Wonder Woman evokes the Plague of Athens, the Justice League also faces terrible odds with hospitals full of dead and dying people and the streets filled with lawlessness. Thucydides also describes the dead and dying lying on top of each other and full sanctuaries; bodies were burned or tossed into mass graves (2.52). As for the survivors, “their minds reduced to despair on every count” (2.59). Wonder Woman eerily blurs the lines of fictitious and historical desperation. Artist Jason Fabok aids this by interlacing panels depicting classical Athens and modern Metropolis, both in turmoil. If this is too bleak for readers who despair at the thought of gods abandoning diseased people, the Amazonian concludes her monologue in Justice League #39 (2015): “This god won’t. My name is Diana. I am the daughter of the Amazons. I am Wonder Woman.” This first use of Johns’ educational approach with classical reception in Justice League incorporates the following reusable methods—narration with a “W” ­­d rop-case and red boxes to indicate Wonder Woman is speaking, a date, visual depictions of the ancient event, and finally the interlacing of a classical story with the current moment. With the approach established, Johns employs it again four issues later.

The Strait of Messina and Darkseid vs. ­­Anti-Monitor The Darkseid War provided the largest event of DC Comics’ New 52 run, lasting a full year and incorporating virtually every title with some sort of ­­t ie-in to the ­­lead-up, occurrence, and aftermath of the saga. The climax featured a battle between two of DC Universe’s most powerful villains: Darkseid and ­­A nti-Monitor. Both arrive on Earth with super powered entourages; the characters loom larger than life and fight each other, while surrounding humans, metahumans, gods, and aliens seemingly have little impact on the outcome. Wonder Woman acts as the reader’s narrator for the conflict. Rather than describing any of the scenes in the panels of Justice League #43 (2015), she evokes Homer: There were once two sea monsters that guarded the Straight [sic] of Messina. Charybdis hid in the darkness of the sea, its mouth formed a whirlpool on the surface, lined with rows of ­­razor-sharp teeth that would tear a man to shreds. On the other side of the straight [sic] there was Scylla. A ­­six-headed monster whose heads would fight over the men it caught. Odysseus had to pass through the Straight [sic] of Messina between the two monsters.

Wonder Woman Revisited (Manning)  219 But they were too close to avoid both of them. So he had to make a choice. What was the lesser evil? Which monster did Odysseus choose? [pp. 19–23]

Wonder Woman’s story comes directly from Book 12 of Homer’s The Odyssey. The protagonist—Odysseus, a.k.a. “Ulysses”—recounts that 10 years after the Trojan War, he still attempted to make his way home to Ithaca. After blinding a Cyclops, surviving Hades, bedding a goddess, and withstanding sirens, his men yet had to sail through the Strait of Messina. Before Odysseus arrived at this impasse, the goddess Circe provided intelligence on the awaiting monsters. Charybdis resides under fig trees with thick foliage and …sucks black water down. Three times a day she spurts it up; three times she glugs it down. Avoid that place when she is stalling the water. No one could save you from death then, even great Poseidon [Homer, n.d./2018, 12.104–107].

On the other side is Scylla who Has twelve dangling legs and six long necks with a gruesome head on each, and in each face three rows of crowded teeth, pregnant with death. Her belly slumps inside the hollow cave; she keeps her heads above the yawning chasm and scopes around the rock and hunts for fish. She catches dolphins, seals, and sometimes even enormous whales … [12.89–96]

If Odysseus thought he could elude Scylla, Circe emphasizes that “no sailors ever pass that way unharmed” as “she snatches one man with each mouth” (12.88–89). Although Wonder Woman presents Odysseus’ situation as a choice between two evils, Circe counsels that there is no choice. Odysseus must face Scylla because “it is better if you lose six men than all of them” (12.109–110). When Odysseus questions whether he could fight Scylla, Circe mocks him: “No, you fool! Your mind is still obsessed with deeds of war. But now you must surrender to the gods” (12.116–177)— emphasizing that men in his crew will die. The sight of the monsters is more horrifying than Circe, or even Wonder Woman describes Charybdis: with a dreadful gurgling noise sucked down the water. When she spewed it out, she seethed, all churning like a boiling cauldron on a huge fire. The froth flew high, to spatter the topmost rocks on either side. But when

220   The DC Comics Universe she swallowed back the sea, she seemed all stirred from inside, and the rock around was roaring dreadfully, and the ­­d ark-blue sand below was visible. The men were seized by fear [12.236–243].

Heading instead toward Scylla, who predictably snatches up six men from the crew, Odysseus watches helplessly, as he saw their feet and hands up high, as they were carried off. In agony they cried to me and called my name—their final words. As when a fisherman out on a cliff…. …so those men gasped as Scylla lifted them up high to her rocky cave and at the entrance ate them up—still screaming, still reaching out to me in their death throes [12.248–251, 255–257].

Odysseus confesses that it “was the most heartrending sight I saw in all the time I suffered on the sea” (12.258–9). The origin stories of the monsters and Odysseus’ encounter with them have gone through countless appropriations by classical writers and poets such as Virgil, Ovid, Apollonius of Rhodes, Hecate, Aeschylus, and Propertius, to name a few. Through the proliferation of Homer and many of these interpretations, the expression “between Scylla and Charybdis” continues today, offering “a sophisticated way to refer hyperbolically to alternative hazards” (Hopman, 2012, p. 232). In her translation of The Odyssey, Emily Wilson appropriately titles Book 12 “Difficult Choices.” Meanwhile, back in Justice League #43 (2015), Wonder Woman is every bit as hopeless as the Greek hero and she leaves Odysseus’ decision nebulous. What Odysseus decided doesn’t matter. Six of his men died getting through that straight [sic]. Sometimes there is no escape. Sometimes whatever you choose, you lose. Those are the lessons of the gods. They are far from perfect. They’re anything but. They will turn on you. They will turn on their own family. On themselves. The gods are at war. And not all of us will survive [pp. 23–25].

In this case, Johns foregoes any dating of the story; classicists have not settled on an exact date when Odysseus may have crossed the strait—let alone whether it happened. The letterer still stylizes the narration with a “W” ­­d rop-case and red boxes to indicate that Wonder Woman is narrating.

Wonder Woman Revisited (Manning)  221 Though there is no visual depiction of Odysseus’ peril, a clear interlacing of the ancient and modern occurs as Wonder Woman’s narration overlays panels depicting Darkseid and ­­A nti-Monitor confronting each other. In addition, a small panel depicts the Amazonian with a ­­t housand-yard stare as she begins her story, emphasizing the helplessness she feels in this predicament.

Ino, Odysseus, and the Justice League’s New Odyssey By Justice League #46 (2015), Darkseid is dead, and the Multiverse is dealing with the fallout. Each member of the Justice League, save Wonder Woman, has gone through a massive transformation that afforded each with new powers and altered their personas, leaving readers wondering if they are still “good.” The situation proves so transformative that Wonder Woman again escorts the reader through it all by evoking the classics: “Gods aren’t always born. Sometimes they’re made. Raw clay given purpose. Sculpted by destiny. Touched by the divine. Or so go the tales some children are told” (Johns, 2015, p. 1). The notion of clay forming a hero is a reference to Wonder Woman’s more common origin story in which her mother sculpted her from clay and gave her life. The New 52 run of Wonder Woman alters this dramatically by dismissing it as a cover for the Amazonian being a descendant of Zeus. In Greek myth, such affairs always infuriated the god’s wife, Hera; this established the backbone of Wonder Woman’s own plot through her series during New 52. In Justice League #46, Wonder Woman indirectly makes this connection as she continues her narration with the story of Ino of Thebes, whose sister also gave birth to a son of Zeus. Unaware of the boy’s demigod nature, Ino agreed to raise him as her own. When Zeus’ wife, Hera, discovered the lovechild and Ino’s role, she “went into a rage” and “took revenge.” Wonder Woman’s narrative continues in gruesome detail: First she drove Ino’s husband mad enough that he took his own life— —then Hera struck Ino with that same madness. Blinded by Hera’s infection, Ino boiled her own son in a cauldron. When her sanity returned, Info was so horrified by what she had done she took the body of her son and leapt off the cliffs and into the sea [p. 1].

Wonder Woman then tells how Ino should have perished, but she was instead saved by Zeus who “transformed Ino and her son into gods of the sea.” From there, Ino used her powers well. Without her, Odysseus would have never cross the sea.

222   The DC Comics Universe Meaning without Ino, there would have been no Odyssey. In the aftermath of Darkseid’s death, some of my friends have been deified themselves like Ino. New gods have been born— —as another great odyssey unfolds (pp. 2–3).

This evocation of the classics is the lengthiest from Wonder Woman; she provides nearly as much detail on the story of Ino as have Homer and other surviving works. Ino’s story was so familiar to the Greeks that Euripides evoked her in his play Medea (431 bc), a tragic story in which the title character kills her children out of revenge rather than a mistake. While the audience can hear the screams of Medea’s sons as she stabs them offstage, the chorus sings, I’ve heard of just one, just one other woman who dared to attack, to hurt her own children: Ino, whom the gods once drove insane and Zeus’s wife sent wandering from her home. The poor woman leapt to sea with her children: an unholy slaughter She stepped down from a steep crag’s rocky edge and died with her two children in the waves (Euripides, ca. 431 bce/2008, 1323–1331).

As Rick M. Newton points out, the correlation of deeds by Medea and Ino, although performed with different circumstances and degrees of remorse, “serve[s] the important function of establishing in the minds of both chorus and audience precedents for the shocking deeds” (Newton, 1985, p. 497). In this sense, Johns follows in the footsteps of Euripides by evoking myth, adding legitimacy to his fictitious story. Ino’s tragic story also survives in the Bibliotheca, traditionally albeit incorrectly attributed to Apollodorus. This work provides a brief retelling of Ino’s tragedy and many of the details recounted by Wonder Woman, adding that Zeus’ son was none other than Dionysus and that Ino became Leucothea, a god known to help sailors (Apollodorus, ca. first/second century ce/1997, 3.4.3). However, it is necessary to turn back to The Odyssey to learn how Ino aids Odysseus with a scarf, which he wears to cross the sea while Poseidon fails to halt him (5.333–461). Ino, like the newly enhanced members of the Justice League, is a created god. The first page of Justice League #46 (2015) performs a roll call of each member and their ­­god-like status, as Wonder Woman retells the story, Batman: God of Knowledge Superman: God of Strength Flash: God of Death

Wonder Woman Revisited (Manning)  223 Shazam: God of Gods Green Lantern: God of Light Lex Luthor: God of Apokolips [p. 1]

Again, Johns foregoes any visual depiction of Ino’s story, relying entirely on narration; however, the reader will immediately recognize the same method from previous issues. In addition, using Odysseus again recalls the previous story of the Strait. By incorporating the classics in this manner, Johns successfully exposes the reader to classical myth and associates each new ­­superhero-god with an ancient Greek god. The approach fits these created gods in the context of a ­­3000-year-old parallel story, adding legitimacy to Johns’ new/original story.

Conclusion Although Geoff Johns is not currently active in comic books, he continues working in film adaptations by incorporating the classics. In Warner Bros.’ Aquaman (2018), written by Johns, the title character and Mera travel to Sicily, where they encounter ancient ruins featuring Greek and Roman statues. While unraveling an ancient Atlantian clue, Aquaman relies on his own classical education acquired on land to determine the next steps in their quest. The ­­half-human, half–Atlantean easily identifies Roman general Marcus Agrippa and king Romulus. Mera, uneducated in the classics, watches in wonder. Although the Sicilian location featuring the statues is fictitious, the scene is successful in tying the “real” ancient history and myth that readers encounter through ancient historians, poets, playwrights, and satirists with the metanarrative of Aquaman, a bastard descendant of the royal kings of Atlantis. The statues and Aquaman’s recollection of his classical education mimic the role of Wonder Woman’s memory of such ancient tales. As George Kovacs points out, “For good or ill, however, we must acknowledge that students are most likely to have had their first exposure to the ancient world through some expression of current media” (Kovacs, 2011, p. 7). This is true for comic books and blockbuster films that incorporate the classics. Understanding how writers such as Johns use such traditional sources allows us to understand the way in which an audience may be first exposed to or reacquainted with such classics. In addition, it also enriches our understanding of the original sources and how they have proliferated throughout history.

References Apollodorus. (1997). The library of Greek mythology. (R. Hard, Trans.). Oxford University Press. (Original work ca. first/second century C.E.).

224   The DC Comics Universe Buckley, T. (2010). Aspects of Greek history: A ­­s ource-based approach (Second Edition). Routledge. Euripides. (2008). Medea. (D.A. Svarlien, Trans.). Hackett Publishing. (Original work ca. 431 B.C.E.). Greenberg, R. (2018). Justice League: 100 greatest moments; Highlights from the world’s greatest super heroes. Chartwell Books. Homer. (2015). The Iliad (C. Alexander, Trans.). ­­Harper-Collins. (Original work ca. eighth century B.C.E.). Homer. (2018). The Odyssey (E. Wilson, Trans.). W.W. Norton & Company. (Original work ca. eighth century B.C.E.). Hopman, M.G. (2012). Scylla: Myth, metaphor, paradox. Cambridge University Press. Johns, G., & Fabok., J. (2015). Justice League, Vol. 2, #39. DC Comics. Johns, G., & Fabok., J. (2015). Justice League, Vol. 2, #43. DC Comics. Johns, G., & Manapul, F. (2015). Justice League, Vol. 2, #46. DC Comics. Kagan, D. (1991). Pericles of Athens and the birth of democracy. The Free Press. Kovacs, G. (2011). Comics and classics: Establishing a critical frame. In G., Kovacs & C.W. Marshall, Classics and comics (pp. 3–24). Oxford University Press. Kovacs, G., & Marshall, C.W. (2011). Classics and comics. Oxford University Press. Kovacs, G., & Marshall, C.W. (2016). Son of classics and comics. Oxford University Press. Newton, R.M. (1985). Ino in Euripides’ Medea. The American Journal of Philology, 106(4), pp. 496–502. doi:10.2307/295201. Sophocles. (2007). The Theban plays (D. Slavitt, Trans.) Yale University Press. (Original works ca. 441–401 B.C.E.). Thucydides. (1998). The Peloponnesian war (S. Lattimore, Trans.). Hackett Publishing. (Original work ca. fourth century B.C.E.). Tritle, L.A. (2010). A new history of the Peloponnesian war. ­­Wiley-Blackwell. Wan, J. (Director). (2018). Aquaman [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.

Evil Ink Tattoos as a Sign of Villainy in Comics Michelle D. Miranda

Historical and scientific research endeavors pertaining to tattoos in the 19th and 20th centuries included documenting and classifying tattoos as well as assigning meaning to tattoos based on their physical characteristics, such as design and location on the body. Interest in tattoos ranged from understanding social stratification and group affiliation, criminal behavior and punishment, and meaning and perception. Early explorations into the distribution and meaning of tattoos focused on members of working and low socioeconomic classes. Tattoos were generally believed to be an indicator of idleness and degeneration, which helped explain why they were often found in these groups; from seafarers away at sea for an extended period of time to individuals consigned to the penal system, tattoos served as a way to pass the time and document one’s history and affiliations.1 Criminologists, forensic psychologists, and ­­medico-legal physicians weighed in on how the tattoo could be used to “read” the wearer. Viewed as indications of deviance, criminality, and underlying mental health issues, tattoos served as an outward sign of an individual’s character and a record of their past. Specific tattoo designs and locations could be markers of membership and rank in organized groups like the Yakuza (Japanese organized crime) and the Aryan Brotherhood, or a general group of individuals, such as the Russian criminal tattoos borne out of Gulags, where tattoos denoted criminal history and social hierarchy. Just as tattoos continue to play a role in forensic endeavors for the viewer (such as behavioral profiling), they too play a role in the identity of the wearer. Despite the current proliferation of ornamental tattoos in today’s mainstream, they are still portrayed in the media as a mark of criminality, gang affiliation, and psychopathology. From film to television shows, 225

226   The DC Comics Universe to comic books and graphic novels, tattoos convey information about the wearer without verbal prompts. Prison tattoos, gang tattoos even tattoos that indicate apparent mental instability become apparent within the context of a film or comic book. In the 2010 film Iron Man 2 (Marvel Comics), antagonist Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) displayed tattoos that supported the character’s background as a Russian ­­ex-convict. In the 2016 film Suicide Squad (DC Comics), the Joker (Jared Leto) was awarded a series of tattoos as a nod to his criminal past.

Tattoos and Villains: Iterations of the Tattooed Man The Tattooed Man first appeared in DC’s Green Lantern, in a story entitled “ Threat of the Tattooed Man” in September 1963. ­­Sailor-turned-criminal Abel Tarrant is in the process of stealing a statue from an art gallery in Coast City when he has his first ­­r un-in with Green Lantern (Hal Jordan). In an effort to evade capture, Tarrant touches the tattoos on his body, which “materialize into animated, menacing weapons,” facilitating his escape from both perplexed gallery security and Green Lantern (Fox, 1963, p. 1). Posed with the question: How has he worked the fantastic “magic” of his animated tattoos?, the reader is brought to a flashback providing the backstory to Tarrant’s mystical powers, while in the process of stealing from a safe in “the chemical laboratories of a great industrial concern,” a triggered burglar alarm sends in armed security. A mixture of chemicals spills on the floor forming a “blob” in the shape of a bomb. When Tarrant simultaneously concentrates and thinks of a bomb while touching the shape, this turns into a real bomb, providing Tarrant with a means of escape. Recognizing the importance of his discovery, Tarrant returns to the scene the next day to recover the spilled chemicals, study their behaviors and harness their powers. Tarrant’s experiments lead to success; drawing the desired shape with the chemical, followed by touching it and concentrating, causes it to materialize into a tangible object, and further concentration gives Tarrant control over it. Understanding the significance of the chemical, Tarrant wastes no time in painting picture tattoos on his skin with the magic chemicals. The images include a series of weapons (e.g., firearms), getaway vehicles, an eagle, and of course, an anchor. 2 As the story proceeds, the reader learns that a chemical in the tattoo ink is yellow and that the effectiveness of the “living tattoos” is limited to Tarrant’s willpower and focus upon deployment. These details are important as the effectiveness of Green Lantern’s ring (and thus his power) is impacted by both materials yellow in color and Green Lantern’s own willpower. Green

Evil Ink (Miranda)  227 Lantern’s ability to utilize observations and reasoning during his encounters with The Tattooed Man become important in countering Tarrant’s tattoos, eventually leading to his apprehension. Tarrant’s second appearance as The Tattooed Man came eighteen years later. In September 1981, Tarrant returned in “The Last Picture Show.” The reader finds Tarrant being chased through New York City by henchmen. After an escape facilitated by his tattoos, Tarrant heads to Los Angeles County, where he is recognized by Green Lantern in Burbank Airport. After a getaway, Tarrant again finds himself ­­face-to-face with the Green Lantern during a bank robbery. As the Green Lantern pursues Tarrant, he hears a gunshot and finds Tarrant dead. The story ends with the Green Lantern standing over Tarrant with the ominous question, Who killed the Tattooed Man? In June 1990, readers discover in “Pursuit of Happiness!” that Tarrant did not in fact die. The reader learns Tarrant has given up his life of crime and is working as a tattooist at a tattoo parlor (the Palace of Fine Art) in New York City. However, he is recognized by Green Lantern (Guy Gardner), who antagonizes Tarrant and forces him into an altercation in which he must again rely on his tattoos. During an attempt to get away, Tarrant washes up on shore and once again endeavors to begin a new life, this time on a fishing boat. Not yet ready to fade into the sunset, Tarrant’s character was recast for a ­­four-part series, Skin Graft, as part of the DC Vertigo imprint series, geared toward mature audiences owing to its more graphic content. In the first of the series, Blood and Ink, the main character, John Oakes, is befriended by Tarrant in prison, where he recalls being captured by Green Lantern in Japan. In his cell, Tarrant has a bottle of the “magic ink,” and Oakes agrees to be tattooed by Tarrant. Tarrant describes the power of the ink: “In contact with my flesh, it moves. I can make it do anything. Mixed with blood, it lives” (Prosser, 1993a, p. 11). The significance of Tarrant’s assertion quickly becomes apparent; preparing for release, a tattooed Oakes is attacked by another prisoner (Ott, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood). Oakes responds by seemingly absorbing Ott, which creates a tattooed image of the man on Oakes. Oakes is eventually released from prison, becomes a famous tattoo artist as well as a suspect in a series of brutal murders. Three women that Oakes had tattooed end up dead—their tattooed skin flayed from their bodies post mortem. When Oakes walks in on the third murder scene, he struggles with the perpetrators, is knocked unconscious and wakes up in Japan, where he becomes exposed to the art of Japanese tattooing (irezumi). At the end of the third book in the series, Body and Soul, a tattooed Tarrant also appears in Japan. Tarrant’s current tattoos are markedly different from the nautical tattoos characteristic of sailors and seafarers, such as those he displayed from 1963 to 1990. In the

228   The DC Comics Universe final book in the series, Dissolve and Combine, Oakes has a final confrontation with Tarrant and tattooist and Yakuza associate Mizoguchi Kenji, who wants to acquire Oakes’ tattoo skin for his collection and harness the power Oakes has obtained from his tattoos borne from magical ink. Tattoo history, symbolism, and culture are depicted throughout Skin Graft. Tattoos of ­­magico-religious significance, prison and gang tattoos (including those of the Aryan brotherhood) and irezumi are featured as well as references to and depictions of the Yakuza—a Japanese criminal organization known for their discreet, ­­f ull-body tattoos. Edgerton and Dingman (1963) describe ­­m agico-religious tattooing as functioning to “protect against danger … to divest a corpse of its malevolent powers or intentions … to propitiate supernatural powers and to acquire supernatural power of all sorts” (p. 144). In Body and Soul, the reader learns that Mizoguchi Kenji became obsessed with tattooing and was “corrupted” by forbidden text that led him to madness. Kenji’s descent is made visual by his evolving (or devolving), darker tattooing style along with physical signs of his deteriorating mental state. Eventually, Kenji resorts to flaying tattooed bodies and preserving the human skin in his private collection (26 in total, including the skins of the women that were murdered in the second book of the series, Skin and Bone). This practice of removing ­­f ull-body, tattooed skin from the dead is a nod to Japanese physician Dr. Fukushi Masaichi (1878–1956), who studied irezumi in the 1920s as removing, preserving, and archiving tattooed skin. Temporarily, Abel Tarrant as The Tattooed Man faded into comic book obscurity. Sixteen years later, he reappeared in the Green Lantern series, this time as Mark Richards, a U.S. Marine who went missing, and was presumed dead after a helicopter crash. Branded begins with a man, Lou Rosen, pursued through the streets of Gotham City by a saber, toothed tiger and flying skull with bat wings. Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) partners with Batman, who provides investigatory information about the case through crime scene photos and forensic traces: the body of Rosen was tattooed postmortem with the phrase “Weakness: Women,” which connects to a series of murders in which victims were tattooed postmortem (one with the phase “Weakness: Gambling,” another with the phrase “Weakness: Rude to Waiters,” and yet another with “Weakness: Theft”). Batman realizes there exists a hitman with hundreds of powerful tattoos whose MO (modus operandi) is to tattoo his victims with their “sins” and who refers to himself as “The Tattooed Man.”3 The reader learns that, like the original Tattooed Man, Richards’ tattoos come to life. Later, Richards explains what happened to him when his helicopter went down: captured by a tribe, Richard survived months of torture before being taught “sin grafting,” namely the process of burning sins of others into his flesh. The

Evil Ink (Miranda)  229 sins of his victims thus become Richards’ sins to be burdened with in an effort to save their souls. In Branded, tattoos play an interesting role in addition to their normal utility in comics. Not only do we see concepts from original comics featuring The Tattooed Man (tattoos ­­coming-to-life) merge with the concepts from Skin Graft (namely, the ­­soul-absorbing ability imparted on the wearer possessing tattoos with magical powers), but the tattoos are utilized by Batman (here representing law enforcement) as traces capable of connecting crimes and establishing a pattern indicating that the crimes were committed by one perpetrator. This account, albeit fictional, demonstrates the utility and application of tattoos in forensic investigations (Miranda, 2012; Miranda, 2020). Within Marvel’s 2009 ­­X-Men: Manifest Destiny storyline exists a ­­four-part series entitled Lovelorn. Colossus (Piotr Rasputin) encounters an unnamed, tattooed Russian gangster from his past. This mutant Russian gangster has the power to see the hidden, inner secrets of the person he touches, visualized on his skin when his tattoos rearrange to form images of those secrets. This man identified Rasputin as a mutant when he was a child after touching his father, blackmailing him to keep this secret. After joining his gang as a bodyguard, Colossus exacts revenge on the tattooed Russian when he discovers that the gangster operates a human trafficking ring. When Colossus touches the tattooed Russian during their altercation, several images of Katya “Kitty” Pryde (Shadowcat) appear on the gangster’s chest, including images of Pryde and Colossus embracing. These tattoos reflect Colossus’ innermost secrets—the pain of losing his love, Kitty. Tattoo history, symbolism, and culture are likewise depicted in the Lovelorn series, specifically with respect to the unnamed tattooed Russian gangster who represents the Russian criminal tattoo culture and the ­­less-prevalent symbolic nature of the memorial tattoo. Colossus, who attempted to obtain a memorial tattoo of Pryde at a tattoo parlor (Rated R Tattoos located in San Francisco) in the first part of Lovelorn (entitled Every Bit Hurts) was unsuccessful after his metal exterior kept breaking the tattoo machine wielded by the tattoo artist. He finally obtains a tattoo in memory of Pryde at the series’ conclusion after touching the mutant Russian and bearing his secrets of loss, grief, and fear. Colossus ultimately opts for a memorial tattoo of the name Katya (in Russian, Катя) in a heart in the center of his chest. Memorial tattoos are obtained as a tribute to someone or something to denote loss, often as part of the processes of grieving and healing. In the Lovelorn series, the story begins with the tattoo (the failed attempt to obtain the tattoo) and ends with it (successfully placed on Colossus to symbolize his acceptance of his loss).

230   The DC Comics Universe

Tattoos and Psychopathology Since his first appearance in the spring of 1940, the Joker has retained his status and allure as an evil villain while maintaining physical and behavioral characteristics synonymous with his character. Described in the 1940s as having a white face, green hair, purple suit, and a crimson, “ghastly clown’s grin” (Kane & Finger, 2016, p. 144), the Joker has remained true to his unique appearance as established 80 years ago in the Golden Age of comic books. As to the Joker’s criminal proclivities, he was described in the 1940s as “a clever but diabolical killer. Too clever and too deadly to be free!” (Kane & Finger, 2016, p. 156). As time progressed, details concerning the Joker’s mental state have been teased out to produce a character crafted to become the violent man driven to madness, as depicted in today’s Modern Age comic books. Nuanced references to his mental state have dotted the literature since the 1940s, with the Bronze Age setting up the seismic shift that would take place in defining the Joker in the Modern Age. In his second appearance in The Joker Returns (spring 1940), he was aptly described as a “madman”; through his appearance in The Joker’s Five Way Revenge (September 1973), a clearer (yet still cloudy) picture began to emerge: the Joker had escaped from the state hospital of the criminally insane.4 Comics in the 1970s focused on his madness. Modern Age (beginning in the 1980s) comics featuring the Joker took a darker turn with respect to his appearance, crimes, and mental state—shifting from prankster to homicidal maniac. In 1988, Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke provided the backstory that would be the inspiration for the 2019 film Joker (directed by Todd Phillips). Flashbacks depict a poor, struggling comedian suffering tragic loss and his fall into chemical waste—a combination that affects his outward appearance as well as his mental state. Our broken man emerges as described in the 1940s: with a white face, green hair, and a crimson clown’s grin, fueled by rage and orchestrated by madness, the Joker is born. Additional clues are provided in the artwork by Brian Bollard—one newspaper clipping refers to a “disfigured homicidal maniac” (Moore, 2019, p. 19). Despite ­­f ine-tuning the Joker’s appearance and psychopathology into the new millennium, one facet remained consistent: the Joker was not tattooed. This seemingly insignificant detail would change in January 2007. Jim Lee and Scott Williams ushered in a new vision with the cover art of Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, featuring the Joker with an elaborate tattoo of a ­­Japanese-inspired dragon across his back, extending over his right arm. In this story, Batman refers to him as a “psychopath” and “serial killer.”5 Gone were the Golden Age portrayals of the Joker as

Evil Ink (Miranda)  231 a creative criminal with a bag of gags and parlor tricks, accentuating his crimes with jokes and punchlines; in the Modern Age, he emerged as a diabolical killer lacking empathy, driven to murder by a pronounced mental illness. This portrayal took hold and was infused into films, including The Dark Knight (directed by Christopher Nolan) in 2008 featuring Heath Ledger; Suicide Squad (directed by David Ayer) in 2016 with Jared Leto; and, most recently, Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix. Ledger, Leto, and Phoenix punctuated their depictions with characteristic signs of personality disorders— specifically Ledger and Phoenix, who took on roles meant to accentuate the dark, psychological narrative within the director’s vision. While the characters played by Ledger and Phoenix did not have any visible tattoos, Leto’s character embraced the tattooed psychopath like the Joker in Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder (although the tattoo designs were markedly different between the comic and the film). The tattoos on Leto’s Joker tell a story, much like the ones that were “read” by the researchers in the 19th and 20th centuries.6 Many are direct references to the Joker himself, hinting at a narcissistic personality disorder (especially the “God’s Only Child” tattoo). Others convey a deeper meaning, such as the “Damaged” tattoo on Leto’s forehead, the switchblade perforating the Batman logo, and the inverted bird with an arrow through it. Table 1 lists the Joker’s tattoos from Suicide Squad.

Table 1. List of Tattoos on the Joker Character Played by Jared Leto in the 2016 Film Suicide Squad Tattoo Design

Location

Interpretation

“Damaged”

Center of forehead, hairline

Joker’s teeth smashed in by Batman after Robin’s death; the Joker feels that his face has been damaged by Batman

J

Cheek (L)

Reference to the Joker

“All in” and set of cards

Front shoulder, neck (L)

Reference to the Joker

HAHA

Chest (L) Lower forearm (L)

Reference to the Joker

Jester skull

Chest (R)

Reference to the Joker

JOKER

Stomach, abdominal region

Reference to the Joker

Toothy grin

Stomach Forearm (R)

Reference to the Joker

Switchblade perforating the batman logo

Bicep (L)

Reference to his nemesis, Batman

232   The DC Comics Universe Tattoo Design

Location

Interpretation

Upside down bird with arrow through it

Bicep (R)

Dead Robin. The Joker is credited with killing Robin (Jason Todd). In the comic book series, this occurred in Batman: A Death in the Family, 1988.

Red lips and toothy grin

Hand (L)

Reference to the Joker

Jester

Rear shoulder (L)

Reference to the Joker

“God’s only child”

Rear ribcage (R)

Reference to the Joker

In 2011, The Batman Files book written by Matthew Manning was released and advertised as Batman’s private journal and scrapbook, chronicling his life and serving a dossier of villains. Included is a file on the Joker, in which Batman writes: The Joker is easily the most dangerous individual I have ever met. And I’ve met Gods. On paper, he doesn’t appear to be much of a threat…. What separates the Joker from the pack is his mind, or some would argue lack thereof. The Joker is a walking engine of chaos with no regular method of operations. He doesn’t seem to need a reason to do what he does, making it nearly impossible to predict his next move [Manning, 2011, p. 68].

Batman describes the Joker as “a psychotic killer, attempting to elevate murder to the level of fine art” (Manning, 2011, p. 68). In an additional entry, Batman refers to the correlation between the Joker’s mental health and violence, reporting: Recently, the Joker has taken a liking to personal mutilation, cutting a permanent smile on his own face as well as slicing his tongue in two to resemble that of a serpent. It may have something to do with the bullet wound scar on his forehead, but it’s probably just the next step in his spiral further downward into insanity [Manning, 2011, p. 69].

The most riveting portrayal of the Joker’s descent into madness was that by Phoenix. Much like the storyline in The Killing Joke, Joker is a psychological thriller that provides an origin story. Failed ­­stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck is crippled by mental illness, his psychological deterioration catalyzed by rejection, ridicule, and abuse in a dark and deteriorating Gotham City. Fleck’s condition is exacerbated by his interactions with social services, his coworkers, and his mother’s deception. Shortly after the film’s release, ­­neuro-criminologist Adrian Raine, who studies violent criminals, weighed in on the film in a Vanity Fair interview with Julie Miller, asserting that it “authentically traces the way a man could be

Evil Ink (Miranda)  233 driven to deeply troubling acts of violence by a combination of genetics, childhood trauma, untreated mental illness, and societal provocation” (Miller, 2019, para. 2).7 Raine added that these background elements and circumstances could combine to create a murderer; in diagnosing Fleck, Raine notes depression, delusions, and his suffering from schizotypal personality disorder, highlighting Phoenix’s additional flourishes that helped create Fleck’s character—notably his “odd behavior, appearance, and social tics exhibited by those who suffer from certain personality disorders” (Miller, 2019, para 2). While a tattooed Joker is not the standard, the idea that tattooed versions of him have crept into the narrative presents an opportunity to consider the relationship between tattoos, violent crime, and mental illness. The reasoning is such that tattoos are perceived as indicative of deviant behaviors, which in turn are linked to personality disorders. As such, studies based on this hypothetical correlation concluded that the presence of tattoo marks with a history of antisocial behavioral problems was of clinical, diagnostic importance (McKerracher & Watson, 1969; Raspa & Cusack, 1990; Cardasis et al., 2008). In 2002, Manuel and Retzlaff concluded, from their study of over 8,000 male inmates, that “the traditional inmate personalities of Antisocial and Sadistic are more likely to be involved in tattooing” (p. 528). In 2008, Cardasis et al. concluded that “inpatients in a forensic psychiatric facility who possess tattoos are more likely to have a diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) than patients that do not have tattoos” (p. 177). While questions linger about the veracity of such correlations, depictions of a tattooed Joker on the cover of a comic book and in film adaptations support the narrative of tattoos as marks of criminality and psychopathology.

Conclusion Tattoos do not make up a substantial portion of the comic world, but they can effectively serve as a utility to character development and function as crucial aspect of the storyline. The imagery and symbolism of tattoos help a viewer understand the nature of the character, effectively serving as subtext—a way to convey information about the wearer without dialog. Attention to such details can enrich the narrative and capture the essence that the writer, director, or artist is trying to convey in a veiled manner. From The Tattooed Man to the Joker, tattoos highlight nuanced details about the wearer, whether it be magical powers or mental instability. These tattoos are carefully crafted to reflect tattoo culture as it pertains to the tattooed character, and they often take on a life of their own.

234   The DC Comics Universe

Notes 1.  Parry (2006) also adds “subconscious sadism” to the reasons for tattooing (p. 80). 2.  Despite being referred to as The Tattooed Man, Tarrant’s tattoos are in fact drawn on the surface of the skin (specifically in his first and second appearances in 1963 and 1981, respectively). There is no indication that the chemical is ever inserted intradermally, as would be done during the normal tattooing process. It is reasonable to infer that his tattoos in Pursuit of Happiness! are meant to be permanent tattoos (unlike the first two appearances, Tarrant does not stop ­­m id-story to draw the tattoos on himself). Interestingly, the matter is addressed in the Skin Graft series in 1993, when Tarrant introduces himself as The Tattooed Man to John Oakes in Blood and Ink. Oakes remarks to the reader, “I thought it was funny…. He was the tattooed man but didn’t have a mark on him” (Prosser, 1993a, p. 9). Oakes later adds, “Sometimes … Tarrant would put the ink on himself. He would never use the needles, just paint it on with a Japanese brush” (Prosser, 1993a, p. 14). 3.  The reader also learns from Green Lantern that the original Tattooed Man, Abel Tarrant, is incarcerated in Blackgate (penitentiary). 4.  This state hospital, the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, would eventually be referred to as Arkham Hospital and Arkham Asylum, and go on to be the focal point of madness and institutionalization for several characters, including Batman himself. 5.  While the terms psychopath is utilized in this essay, it is noted that antisocial personality disorder is the formal distinction as documented in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (­­DSM-5). See American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association. 6.  Suicide Squad served as the debut of a tattooed Harley Quinn, who also exhibits tattoos that are intended to tell a story. 7.  See Karpman, B. (1926). Psychoses in Criminals: Clinical Studies in the Psychopathology of Crime. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 64(4), 331–351 and Karpman, B. (1926). Psychoses in Criminals: Clinical Studies in the Psychopathology of Crime. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 64(5), 482–502.

References Cardasis, W., ­­Huth-Brooks, A., & Silk, K. (2008). Tattoos and antisocial personality disorder. Personality and Mental Health, 2, 171–182. Edgerton, R., & Dingman, H. (1963). Tattooing and identity. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 9, 143–153. Fox, G. (1963). Threat of the tattooed man. Green Lantern #23. National Periodical Publications, Inc. [DC Comics]. Fraction, M. (2009a). Lovelorn Part 1—Every bit hurts. Uncanny ­­X-Men: Manifest destiny #504. Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Fraction, M. (2009b). Lovelorn Part 2. Uncanny ­­X-Men: Manifest destiny #505. Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Fraction, M. (2009c). Lovelorn Part 3. Uncanny ­­X-Men: Manifest destiny #506. Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Fraction, M. (2009d). Lovelorn Part 4. Uncanny ­­X-Men: Manifest destiny #507. Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Hambly, W. (2009) The history of tattooing. Dover Publications. (Originally published in 1925). Johns, G. (2006). Branded. Green Lantern #9.  DC Comics. Jones, G. (1990). Pursuit of happiness! Green Lantern #2. DC Comics. Kane, B., & Finger, B. (2016). Batman: The golden age, Vol. 1. DC Comics. Manning, M. (2011). The Batman Files. Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC. Ma nuel, L ., &  Ret z la f f, P. (2002). Psychopat holog y a nd t at tooi ng a mong

Evil Ink (Miranda)  235 prisoners. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 46(5), 522–531. Miller, F. (2007). Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #8. DC Comics. Miller, J. (2019, October 14). Leading neurocriminologist considers Joker ”a great educational tool.” Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/10/­­joker-joaquinphoenix-psychology. Miranda, M. (2012). Forensic analysis of tattoos and tattoo inks. CRC Press. Miranda, M. (2020). Tattoos and tattoo inks: Forensic considerations. WIRES Forensic Science, 2(1), Article e1360. Moore, A. (2019). The killing joke. DC Comics. O’Neil, D. (1973). The Joker’s ­­f ive-way revenge. Batman #251. DC Comics. Parry, A. (2006). Tattoo: Secrets of a strange art. Dover Publications. (Originally published in 1933). Prosser (1993a). Blood and ink. Skin graft “The adventures of a tattooed man” #1. DC Comics. Prosser (1993b). Skin and bone. Skin graft “The adventures of a tattooed man” #2. DC Comics. Prosser (1993c). Body and Soul. Skin graft “The adventures of a tattooed man” #3.  DC Comics. Prosser (1993d). Dissolve and Combine. Skin graft “The adventures of a tattooed man” #4.  DC Comics. Raspa, R., & Cusack, J. (1990). Psychiatric implications of tattoo marks. American Family Physician 41(5), 1481–1486. Wolfman, M. (1981). The last picture show. Green Lantern #144. DC Comics.

Caped Crusaders and Cartoon Crossovers A Nostalgic Look “Beyond” DC Superheroes Christina M. Knopf

Reworked. Reimagined. Rebooted. Remembered. These are the words that headlined the industry coverage of DC Comics’ ­­H anna-Barbera Beyond initiative launched in 2016. The same year marked DC Comics superhero relaunch in the DC Rebirth enterprise. The undercurrent of both “a return to” and “renewal of ” DC’s ventures is consistent with the trend of nostalgia in media and marketing that permeated cultural products in the early decades of the 21st century (Niemeyer, 2014). The reemergence of nostalgic products may be a reaction to modernity—an effort to recover the past as Lowenthal (1985) suggested, to respond to the present as Boym (2001) has argued, and to realize profits through the commodification of memories as posited by Panati (1991). ­­Hanna-Barbera Beyond (HBB) is described on the DC Comics website as a “new line of comics inspired by some of [­­Hanna-Barbera’s] classic cartoons” which “offer imaginative new takes on the characters” (DCE Editorial, 2016). The titles offer “new visions of the classic toons, injected with current sensibilities and aimed at the ­­teen-plus set” if with “the heart and soul of the classic animation” for original ­­Hanna-Barbera fans (Beedle, 2016, para. 1). In the words of DC Entertainment ­­C o-Publisher Dan DiDio, I can’t think of anyone that doesn’t look back at these characters with anything but fond memories…. We’re excited for fans to experience the reimagining of these Saturday morning classics with a more modern and contemporary look and feel [in Beedle, 2016, para. 2].

However, as one reviewer noted, “DC hasn’t simply given the ­­Hanna-Barbera gang a new splash of paint in an attempt to connect with 236

Caped Crusaders and Cartoon Crossovers (Knopf)  237 ‘the youth,’” instead reworking traditional characters in gritty reboots that both redefine and reify ­­Hanna-Barbera’s—and DC’s—canon (Barnett, 2018, para. 4). HBB captures what Boym defined as restorative nostalgia and reflective nostalgia. The former represents a return to the past through reconstruction, whereas the latter is more critical, acknowledging “the contradictions of modernity” and calling the truth of the past into doubt (2001, loc. 195).

Beyond Superheroes The HBB initiative features, to date, 10 series ranging in length from of six to more than 30 issues, several standalone and serial featurettes, and more than a dozen ­­one-shot crossover special issues that join the universe of existing DC superheroes with the world of classic ­­Hanna-Barbera (­­HB) cartoons. Crossover ­­team-ups ranged from wise (fellow ocean dwellers Aquaman with Jabberjaw) and witty (­­do-gooder Superman with the scheming Top Cat), to the wacky (the psychopathic Deathstroke with ­­picnic-loving Yogi Bear) and weird (the antihero Spectre with the dimwitted Captain Caveman). Though ­­one-shot specials were designed to promote the HBB initiative, the series remains for the most part separate from the DC hero universe. The Flintstones positions the “modern Stone Age family” at the cusp of commercialization, witnessing the commodification and exploitation of land, natural resources, animals, people, and religion. The Ruff and Reddy Show imagines ­­Hanna-Barbera’s original cat and dog duo as a ­­hard-luck vaudevillian comedy team. Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles (based on characters of The Quick Draw McGraw Show) recasts the pink thespian cougar as a closeted gay playwright whose Tennessee ­­W illiams–esque works are investigated by the House of ­­Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. Dastardly & Muttley (based on Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines) ­­re-envisions the pilots as members of the U.S. Air Force who inadvertently uncover a massive Cold War government conspiracy that could destroy the world. Scooby Apocalypse, the ­­longest-running of the HBB titles (based on ­­Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?), places the ­­mystery-solving youths and their talking canine companions in a fight for survival when a corrupted science experiment starts a ­­monster-epidemic akin to that in The Walking Dead (Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel also receive serial features in the back of Scooby Apocalypse). Wacky Raceland (based on The Wacky Races) places the ­­long-distance driving teams in a race for salvation in a postapocalyptic wasteland inspired by the Mad Max movies. The Jetsons live in a society that survived the flooding of Earth, now faced with another

238   The DC Comics Universe environmental disaster threatening the end of the world, and Future Quest and Future Quest Presents (based on Jonny Quest, in conjunction with The Herculoids, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Space Ghost and ­­Dino-Boy, Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, and Mighty Mightor) celebrate all the ­­h igh-flying, ­­h igh-tech adventures of Saturday morning cartoons, joining the forces of ­­Hanna-Barbera’s ­­a ll-stars to save the world from a creature ostensibly torn from the pages of H.P. Lovecraft. DC Comics confirmed that these HBB titles, including the crossover specials, “are in loose continuity with each other,” cataclysmic events from Scooby Apocalypse laying the groundwork for the dystopic future of Wacky Raceland, which becomes the Earth left behind in The Jetsons (Shiach, 2016, para. 2). The HBB initiative envisioned 2018 as the beginning of “a shared cinematic universe of animated films based off classic characters and creations from the ­­Hanna-Barbera library” from the Warner Animation Group (Smith, 2016, para. 1). In truth, ­­Hanna-Barbera, alone and with DC Comics, created shared animation universes as early as the 1960s. Snagglepuss, for example, originally appeared on The Quick Draw McGraw Show in 1959, before becoming a supporting character in Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and eventually being awarded his own shorts in The Yogi Bear Show in 1961. In 1977, he acted as the commentator for Scooby’s ­­All-Star ­­L aff-A-Lympics, which brought together characters from at least 12 individual ­­H-B shows. ­­Hanna-Barbera is no stranger to crossovers within a shared universe of animation magic, and DC Comics has been part of that tradition since 1972, when Batman and Robin met the ­­S cooby-Doo gang in two episodes of The New ­­S cooby-Doo Movies— another series devoted to the crossover, bringing the cowardly Great Dane and his ­­mystery-solving human companions into contact with both real and fictional ­­pop-culture icons. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, ­­Hanna-Barbera produced the Super Friends cartoons featuring DC superheroes from the Justice League. In 1996, ­­Hanna-Barbera joined DC Comics under the Time Warner umbrella (Martin, 2017). Soon after, DC took over publication of ­­Scooby-Doo comic books (which in 1977 were produced by Marvel, in 1992 by Harvey, and in 1995 by Archie), with ­­Scooby-Doo! (1997–2010), ­­Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (2010–present), and ­­Scooby-Doo ­­Team-Up (2013–present), the latter bringing Scooby together with characters from across the ­­H-B and DC universes years before the HBB initiative started. A 2011 episode of ­­Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated included a poster of the 1973 DC Comics character Prez. In 2018, ­­Scooby-Doo and friends again met up with the Dark Knight in the ­­Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated film, which alluded to the 1966 Batman, 1968 Wacky Races, 1972 New ­­Scooby-Doo Movies, and the 2008 Batman: The Brave and the Bold television series.

Caped Crusaders and Cartoon Crossovers (Knopf)  239 Such cartoonish crossovers characterize restorative nostalgia in their ­­f un-filled frolics through the tender times of discarded decades. The HBB initiative, however, epitomizes reflective nostalgia with stories that are critical of the problems of the present and the possible future by pointing to a ­­not-so-perfect past. The Flintstones are not only at the leading edge of civilization in creating tools but also at the beginning of civilization’s downfall in establishing unchecked capitalism. Snagglepuss is a ­­t wo-bit cartoon performer owing to blacklisting during McCarthyism; Dick Dastardly became an obsessive pilot because his own government exposed him to ­­m ind-altering chemicals; ­­Scooby-Doo is a talking dog because of horrific animal testing; and the Wacky Racers are competing to find the last vestiges of civilization after the downfall of humanity. As observed in The Guardian, “[i]f you listen carefully you can hear the distant wail of a male voice decrying the ruin of his childhood” (Barnett, 2018, para. 3). The remainder of this essay will explore how DC’s dark, dystopic, and depressing depictions of ­­H-B cartoons engages nostalgia for commercial and progressive ends by reminding readers of their lost childhoods.

Nostalgia Sells Tilley argued that “[n]ostalgia plays a key role in the current success of the comics industry broadly and the superhero genre more specifically” (2018, p. 51). Both DC and Marvel have capitalized on the proliferation of popular blockbuster superhero films since 2000, by releasing collected volumes of the original comic books on which the movies are based and “catering to an increasingly nostalgic baby boom audience” (Beaty, 2010, p. 205). Associated collectible figurines and artwork, ­­retro-styled shirts, and toys and games marketed to adults to further provoke—and profit from—nostalgia by referring both to classic texts and to the eras of their original consumption (Tilley, 2018). Such ­­cross-media franchise development was made easier by “the sale of both DC and Marvel in the ­­late-1960s to larger media corporations” (Tilley, 2018, p. 58). Large media mergers in the last decades of the 20th century and first decades of the 21st century enabled crossovers represented by DC’s ­­Hanna-Barbera “Beyond” initiative. When Warner Bros. merged with Time in 1989, Bugs Bunny appeared at the start of the VHS copy of Tim Burton’s Batman movie—a precursor to crossover specials in 2017 and 2018 featuring pairings like Wonder Woman with the Tasmanian Devil. Additionally, the 1996 purchase of Turner Broadcasting by Time Warner linked the properties of DC Comics with those of ­­Hanna-Barbera Productions (Martin, 2017). Media mergers and the creative licensing and franchising options they provide allow companies to capitalize on otherwise fading properties,

240   The DC Comics Universe such as those in classic television: “Television series have started to transform and expand, or cross over entirely, into other media” (Niemeyer & Wentz, 2014, p. 137). For the generation that grew up ritualistically watching ­­Hanna-Barbera creations every Saturday morning, their latest comic book iterations (in addition to their releases on DVD/­­Blu-Ray and streaming services) offer not only a chance to relive an element of their childhood but also to share in that experience with their children and grandchildren. As Wesseling notes, “As a consequence of potentially infinite processes of recycling, adaptation, and remediation of children’s media and toys, childhood nostalgia has become endemic around the last turn of the century” (2018, p. 4). Childhood nostalgia now comprises adults simultaneously enjoying “a vicarious indulgence in the wonders of childhood” by sharing the cultural products of their youth with their children (Wesseling, 2018, p. 8) and consumption patterns that collect and memorialize those products through nostalgic goods (Cross, 2018). Both facets are epitomized by the HBB’s Scooby Apocalypse. After debuting in 1968, ­­Scooby-Doo and friends have starred in more than a dozen television and streaming series; more than a dozen animated and ­­l ive-action television and ­­d irect-to-consumer movies; two ­­l ive-action feature films; several platform and online video games; seven comic book series; two magazines; crossover episodes with the popular CN cartoon series Johnny Bravo in 1997 and with the hit CW drama Supernatural in 2017; numerous children’s books; and countless licensed toys, games, collectibles, youth and adult apparel, and household goods. With one or more media iterations of the characters appearing in every decade since their inception, Amazon.com reviews are filled with sentiments such as “loved every episode as a child. Grandkids enjoy them now as I did” (Tweeters, 2017). Inherent in its popularity and the narrative flexibility afforded by the cartoon origins, ­­Scooby-Doo has been the focus of fan theories, fan fictions, and assorted paratexts that have, thanks to their longevity, become incorporated into the ­­S cooby-Doo canon. For example, the 1968 ­­Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? spawned theories that the characters of Fred and Daphne were either romantically or sexually involved because when the gang ­­split-up to look for clues, Fred would often ensure he and Daphne were alone. The 2010 Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated made the ­­on-again-off-again relationship of Daphne and Fred a key part of its ­­52-chapter plot, retconned with the original show through cameos, dream sequences, and time travel. The ­­never-quite-realized romance of Fred and Daphne provides much of the emotional motivation for the characters in DC’s Scooby Apocalypse, linking generations of new and old Scooby fans—though this time Fred’s devotion to Daphne gets him killed and he returns as an undead creature determined to bring Daphne with

Caped Crusaders and Cartoon Crossovers (Knopf)  241 him to the monstrous beyond, unless Daphne can kill him for ever. Consequently, the nostalgic longing for an innocent past is destroyed.

Radical Reimaginings Scooby Apocalypse, like the other HBB titles, is inspired by ref lective nostalgia, changing “the adapted text in order to provide alternatives to the world depicted in that text” (van ­­L ierop-Debrauwer, 2018, p. 38). Reflective nostalgia allows for irony and playfulness in its reflections—its interpretations—of the past, thereby suggesting possibilities and alternatives for being and acting in the present (Boym, 2001). Modern adaptations of childhood classics temper the carefree fun of a youth past with the concerns of the present (van ­­L ierop-Debrauwer, 2018, p. 49). Scooby Apocalypse combines the childhood ideal and nostalgic appeal of a boy and his dog with ­­present-day concerns about the militarization of technology, animal cruelty, and divisive politics. In 2017, Great Dane gains the power of speech not through the childish suspension of disbelief but through “smart technology” designed for weaponizing animals and funded by an overweight, egomaniacal, millionaire, who lives with his glamorous trophy wife in a tower bearing his name, as part of his efforts to control the masses. A similar figure is seen during the apocalyptic aftermath in Wacky Raceland, when racers enter the remains of Vegas, now ruled by gangs (one of the most dangerous being the ­­C omb-Overs) led by an “insane narcissist” focused on building a “great wall on our casino border” (Pontac & Manco, 2016, p. 4). The placement of Donald Trump ­­s tand-ins during an apocalyptic ­­near-future—one that destroys the innocence of childhood past—offers clear political commentary about a troubled present. Frequently thought of as a conservative force, nostalgia holds progressive potential. A sense of loss is at the heart of the “radical imagination”—a yearning to go “back to authenticity, to solidarity, to the culture of the people” (Bonnett, 2010, p. 7). Nostalgia can be a site for creative and even transgressive expression because it provides a disruption to modern life (Bonnett, 2010). Of all the HBB titles, The Snagglepuss Chronicles and The Flintstones ostensibly engage most directly and reflectively with nostalgia to make explicit political statements. The Flintstones has been compared to AMC’s period television series Mad Men in its ability to invoke the culture of a bygone era (Martin, 2017), while Snagglepuss uses a historical setting to establish its narrative and to reflect on the era that realized the founding of ­­Hanna-Barbera Productions. This is not a new phenomenon in the DC Universe. In 2004, Darwyn Cooke’s ­­six-part-miniseries DC:

242   The DC Comics Universe The New Frontier offered an ambitious “Elseworlds” narrative that conflated a specific moment in American history with a specific time within the history of the comic book industry, placing the Silver Age of DC Comics against the backdrop of the Cold War and the burgeoning presidency of John F. Kennedy: “Cooke invokes the late 1950s and early 1960s as an idyllic moment in the history of the genre even as he criticizes the political and social conservatism of the period” (Yockey, 2012, p. 365). The book was critically acclaimed as a celebration of hope in contrast to present cynicism, as a critical reflection on Cold War realities of racism, bigotry, alienation, paranoia, and nationalism and as an allegory of post–9/11 America (Naso, 2005; Yockey, 2012; Naso 2016; Rikdad, 2016). The Snagglepuss Chronicles takes place during the mid–1950s, against the backdrop of the House of ­­Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Congressional hearings, which scrutinized the entertainment industry for Communist influences under the machinations of Senator Joseph McCarthy. ­­Hanna-Barbera Productions itself was founded in 1957—the year that HUAC’s blacklist, which had gutted the United Productions of America animation studio and destroyed Tempo animations, began to lose its power (Sennett, 1989; Cohen, 1997; Faulk, 1963). In the comic, Snagglepuss is a gay, anthropomorphic cougar living a double life with a marriage of convenience and a secret relationship with a Cuban refugee in the Greenwich Village area of New York. His critically acclaimed plays about the social condition place him in the same social circles as Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Roundtable, Lillian Hellman, and Arthur Miller— along with Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. In addition to helping launch the careers of ­­H-B’s Peter Potomus, Squiddly Diddly, and Auggie Doggy, Snagglepuss also mentors a young Clint Eastwood. In the background, the Rosenbergs are publicly electrocuted for treason, the U.S. government tests atomic bombs in the Nevada desert, and Nikita Khrushchev engages in a corn battle on an Iowa farm. Attempting to put political pressure on Snagglepuss, an anti–Communist activist orders a police morality raid on the Stonewall Inn 15 years before the 1969 raid that would spark the Stonewall riots and ignite the Gay Rights movement. Huckleberry Hound gets caught in the raid, putting him at odds with his policeman boyfriend Quick Draw McGraw and publicly outing him; Huck eventually takes his own life. Meanwhile, Snagglepuss’ boyfriend returns to Cuba to fight alongside Fidel Castro in the Revolution. With nothing left to lose, Snagglepuss defies HUAC and is blacklisted from show business. In 1959, he is invited by his old Greenwich Village acquaintance, Quick Draw McGraw, to start a new career in his animated television show. This ending to the series effectively made The Snagglepuss Chronicles part of ­­Hanna-Barbera canon and, like New

Caped Crusaders and Cartoon Crossovers (Knopf)  243 Frontier, reminds readers that the original texts were not created in isolation but were situated within the larger cultures of their era, even when unacknowledged. The Ruff and Reddy Show, which also opens in the 1950s placing the characters in their original chronology, explicitly acknowledges the sociopolitical climate of its time while offering a metanarrative on media products. The story features the ­­present-day reunion of the 1950s comedy team Ruff and Reddy. The narration is ­­self-reflective, noting, How ironic … the internet has made everything available … everything … and yet, cultural amnesia is a pandemic … leaving us to forget everything … everything … … until someone comes along … someone to remind us of what we’ve forgotten … and what we might just want to recollect [Chaykin & Rey, 2018/#2, p. 1].

As Ruff and Reddy make their comeback, the scripts that they are given, which parody shows like Law & Order, South Park, Stranger Things, and even Batman, provide a critical glimpse of media/cultural fads. Meanwhile, diegetic commentary critically reflects on the decade that produced Ruff and Reddy themselves, observing if these vintage stars can return: “Can polio and institutional racism be far behind?” (Chaykin & Rey, 2018/#3, p. 1)—suggesting that the “good old days” of yesteryear may have not been that good.

Restorative Reflections DC Comics’ ­­Hanna-Barbera Beyond initiative invokes multiple nostalgias. Commercially, it depends in part on evoking memories of an idyllic past, claiming that “if you’re a fan of classic ­­Hanna-Barbera, then you’re going to want […] the new line of comics based on some of their most classic cartoons” (Beedle, 2016, para. 1). However, these comics are not the classic cartoons that fans remember; thus, another aspect of nostalgia triggers a sense of loss through devices such as the deaths of ­­long-beloved characters. The nostalgic reflection also offers critical commentary on the eras of the original texts and contemporary culture of the new adaptations, inspiring a need for social resistance and political action against power structures that enable the destruction of innocence through such means as censorship (Snagglepuss Chronicles), cultural annihilation (Flintstones), chemical warfare (Dastardly & Muttley), animal cruelty (Scooby Apocalypse), warlord governance (Wacky Raceland), or environmental devastation (Jetsons). DC is giving readers a cue, to paraphrase Snagglepuss, to move to the left of the political stage.

244   The DC Comics Universe

References Barnett, D. (2018, January 18). DC is not kidding around with ­­H anna-Barbera reworkings for adults. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/ jan/18/­­dc-is-not-kidding-around-with-hanna-barbera-reworkings-for-adults. Beaty, B. (2010). The recession and the American comic book industry: From inelastic cultural good to economic integration. Popular Communication, 8, 203–207. Beedle, T. (2016, January 28). ­­H anna-Barbera Beyond: Flintstones, Scooby and more are getting comic book reimaginings. DC Comics. https://www.dccomics.com/ blog/2016/01/28/­­h anna-barbera-beyond-f lintstones-scooby-and-more-are-gettingcomic-book-reimaginings. Bonnett, A. (2010). Left in the past: Radicalism and the politics of nostalgia. Continuum. Boym, S. (2001). The future of nostalgia [Kindle edition]. Basic Books. Chaykin, H., & Rey, M. (2018). Ruff and Reddy: A cautionary tale in six parts, part three. The Ruff and Reddy show #3. DC Comics. Chaykin, H., & Rey, M. (2018). Ruff and Reddy: A cautionary tale in six parts, part two. The Ruff and Reddy show #2. DC Comics. Cohen, K.F. (1997). Forbidden animation: Censored cartoons and blacklisted animators in America [Kindle edition]. McFarland. Cross, G. (2018). Historical roots of ­­c onsumption-based nostalgia in the United States. In E. Wesseling (Ed.), Reinventing childhood nostalgia: Books, toys, and contemporary media culture (pp. 19–35) [Kindle edition]. Routledge. DCE Editorial. (2016). Get to know ­­H anna-Barbera Beyond. DC Comics. https://www. dccomics.com/blog/2016/05/18/­­get-to-know-hanna-barbera-beyond. Faulk, J.H. (1963). Fear on trial [Kindle edition]. University of Texas Press. Lowenthal, D. (1985). The past is a foreign country. Cambridge University Press. Martin, J. (2017). The rise of wacky comic book crossovers. Observer. https://observer. com/2017/08/­­r ise-of-comic-book-crossovers/. Naso, M. (2005). Darwyn Cooke: Toward the heavens. Comics Bulletin. http://comicsbulletin. com/features/110950048942545.htm. Naso, M. (2016). Darwyn Cooke, 1962–2016. The Comics Journal. http://www.tcj.com/­­darwyncooke-1962-2016/. Niemeyer, K. (2014). Introduction: Media and nostalgia. In K. Niemeyer (Ed.), Media and nostalgia: Yearning for the past, present and future (pp. 1–24) [Kindle edition]. Palgrave Macmillan. Niemeyer, K., & Wentz, D. (2014). Nostalgia is not what it used to be: Serial nostalgia and nostalgic television series. In K. Niemeyer (Ed.), Media and nostalgia: Yearning for the past, present and future (pp. 129–138) [Kindle edition]. Palgrave Macmillan. Panati, C. (1991). Panati’s parade of fads, follies and manias. Harper Perennial. Pontac, K., & Manco, L. (2016). What happens in Vegas… Wacky raceland #4. DC Comics. Rikdad. (2016). Retro review: DC: The New Frontier. Rikdad’s Comic Thoughts. http:// rikdad.blogspot.com/2016/06/­­retro-review-dc-new-frontier.html. Sennett, T. (1989). The art of ­­Hanna-Barbera: Fifty years of creativity. Viking Studio Books. Shiach, K. (2016). Penelope Pitstop gets a makeover in new designs from DC’s ­­Hanna-Barbera Beyond titles. Comics Alliance. http://comicsalliance.com/­­n ew-designs-dc-hannabarbera-beyond-titles/. Smith, B. (2016). DC Comics’ ­­Hanna-Barbera Beyond: What you need to know. Rotoscopers. https://www.rotoscopers.com/2016/05/17/­­dc-comics-hanna-barbera-beyond-whatyou-need-to-know/. Tilley, C.L. (2018). Superheroes and identity: The role of nostalgia in comic book culture. In E. Wesseling (Ed.), Reinventing childhood nostalgia: Books, toys, and contemporary media culture (pp. 51–65) [Kindle edition]. Routledge. Tweeters. (2017). Can’t go wrong with ­­S cooby-Doo! Amazon. https://www.amazon. com/g p/customerrev iews/R 2E0DM A XSNPMIU/ref=cm _cr_dp_d _r v w_tt l?ie= UTF8&ASIN=B000I01R40. van ­­L ierop-Debrauwer, H. (2018). Nostalgia or innovation? The adaptation of Dutch

Caped Crusaders and Cartoon Crossovers (Knopf)  245 children’s books into films. In E. Wesseling (Ed.), Reinventing childhood nostalgia: Books, toys, and contemporary media culture (pp. 36–50) [Kindle edition]. Routledge. Wesseling, E. (2018). Introduction. In E. Wesseling (Ed.), Reinventing childhood nostalgia: Books, toys, and contemporary media culture (pp. 1–16) [Kindle edition]. Routledge. Yockey, M. (2012). Retopia: The dialectics of the superhero comic book. Studies in Comics, 3, 349–37.

About the Contributors Hafsa Alkhudairi is a researcher and project manager within the cultural sector as well as a freelance writer and editor. Since finishing her MA in Contemporary Literature and Culture at Birkbeck College, University of London, she has been writing papers on comic books, articles on contemporary art and artists, and short stories within the fantasy and science-fiction realm. William Battle is a videographer at DC Thomson Media. He has a background in children’s media, previously working as staff writer on DC Thomson Media’s kids’ magazines team. There he has written articles and comics for 110% Gaming Magazine, WWE Kids Magazine, Danger Mouse Magazine, and many more. He holds a degree in film and English from the University of Leicester. Douglas Brode is a novelist, graphic novelist, playwright and screenwriter, ­­award-winning journalist, and educator. He created and taught the film classics program for the Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University. He has edited and/or coedited anthologies on various popular culture subjects and is the author of Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture (2006). Garret L. Castleberry is an associate professor at Mid–America Christian University. His scholarly training intersects areas of media studies, semiotics, and genre theory. His work has appeared in Popular Culture Studies Journal, Memory Studies, Flow, In Media Res, and PopMatters. He is coeditor of Competition, Community, and Educational Growth. Priel Cohanim is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics at ­­Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. His research interests include representations of temporalities in literature, the graphic novel form, and the analysis of canonicity, intertextuality, and the multiverse in literature, comics, film, and animation. Christina M. Knopf is a professor in communication and media studies at the State University of New York, Cortland. She is the author of Politics in the Gutters (2021), The Comic Art of War (2015), and dozens of essays on politics and popular culture. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology and communication from the University at Albany. Emily Lauer is a professor of English at Suffolk County Community College. She has published essays and articles on various aspects of adaptation studies, children’s and YA literature, and pedagogy. She is a frequent contributor to the twice Eisner ­­Award–winning website, WomenWriteAboutComics.com.

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248   About the Contributors Scott Manning is an independent scholar and the VP of Conference for the Mid– Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association. Since 2019, he has been the session organizer for the International Joan of Arc Society’s panels at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, held annually in Kalamazoo. He holds an MA in ancient and classical history from AMU. Jeffrey Mccambridge is a doctoral candidate at Ohio University, where he specializes in constructions of Islam and Muslims in medieval and early modern European literature. He has published in Performativity of Villainy and Evil in Anglophone Literature and Media and Violence and Gender on the Premodern Stage. He received his MA from IUPUI. Micah McCrary is author of Island in the City (University of Nebraska Press), a memoir-in-essays. His work also appears in the Journal of Creative Writing Studies, Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, and Essay Daily, among other publications. A contributing editor at Assay, Dr. McCrary lives in New York (on Haudenosaunee homelands) where he researches equity, inclusion, diversity, and internationalization in writing pedagogies, and teaches courses in writing studies, creative nonfiction, and the health humanities at Syracuse University. He additionally serves as a mentor-teacher and low-residency faculty in Wilkes University’s Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing. Ora C. McWilliams is an adjunct professor at Metropolitan Community College and Avila University in Kansas City. He is the former managing editor of the American Studies Journal and has written on ­­Spider-Man, Captain America, and families in comic books. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in American studies with a dissertation on artistic labor in the comic book industry. Michelle D. Miranda has a Ph.D. in criminal justice, forensic science concentration, from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is an associate professor at Farmingdale State College of the State University of New York and the author of Forensic Analysis of Tattoos and Tattoo Inks (2015). Cyrus R.K. Patell is Professor of English at New York University. He is the author of Lucasfilm: Filmmaking, Philosophy, and the Star Wars Universe (Bloomsbury, 2021) and is the editor (with Deborah Lindsay Williams) of The Oxford History of the Novel in English, Volume 8: American Fiction Since 1940. Katherine Pradt is a librarian at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In addition to supporting academic research and answering citation style questions, she works to connect scholars to ­­open-source tools and open access resources. She holds an MFA in addition to her library degree and is writing a novel set in occupied New York during the Revolutionary War. Joshua Ryan Roeder is a Ph.D. candidate in the History & Culture Program at Drew University. His work primarily focuses on the relationship between comic creators and the readers, while exploring how the latter has influenced the development of the former’s work. He has a background in feminist, gender, race, social, book, and audience history. Carl B. Sell is the TRIO SSS Writing Specialist at Lock Haven University. His research explores appropriations of Arthurian legend narratives, characters, and

About the Contributors  249 themes in popular culture as an extension of the medieval adaptive tradition. He is the author of film and literature reviews on medievalist blogs, as well as journal articles on DC’s Aquaman. Joseph S. Walker teaches online literature and composition courses. He has published essays on various aspects of contemporary literature and culture, including toxic masculinity and Star Wars fandom, Indiana Jones comic books, and the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000. He is an ­­E dgar-nominated author of crime fiction with more than fifty published short stories. Carl Wilson is coeditor of Superheroes: A Companion. He is also a contributing guest writer for comic book publishers Fanbase Press and a former film editor for PopMatters.com. He has published work in over a dozen titles and has several chapters forthcoming in the area of transmedia convergence, including the depowering of DC superheroes and the digital legacy of Superman.

Index

Action Comics (comic book series) ​1, 17–18, 22, 57, 129, 142 The Adventures of Batman and Robin (video game, 1994–1995) ​79 The Adventures of Superman (TV series) ​9 Ambush Bug (character) ​12, 136–145, 180 Aquaman (character) ​12, 158–168

Dan Hunter (character) ​181–183 Daredevil (character) ​37 The Dark Knight (film, 2008) ​27, 38 The Dark Knight (graphic novel, 1985) ​12, 28–29, 37 The Dark Knight Returns (graphic novel, 1986) ​27, 38–38 The Dark Knight Rises (film 2012) ​27, 37 The Dark Knight Rises: The Last Crusade (graphic novel, 2012) ​40 The Dark Knight Strikes Again /(DK2) (graphic novel, 2001–2002) ​39 Detective Comics (comic book series) ​4, 25–27, 54, 58–59 Dixon, Chuck ​43

Batgirl/Betty/Barbara Gordon (character) ​ 11, 36, 43, 48, 51, 100–198 Batman (ABC-TV series, 1966–1968) ​9–10, 27, 36–37 Batman (comic book series) ​36, 40, 59–60, 70–73 Batman (1989 movie) ​27, 239 The Batman Adventures: Mad Love (comic book) ​78 Batman: Arkham Asylum (video game, 2009) ​ 81 Batman: Arkham City (video game) ​80–85 Batman Begins (2005 movie) ​27, 37 Batman/Bruce Wayne (character) ​4, 9–11, 49, 54–63, 65–66, 69–75, 77–85, 127, 180, 222, 230, 232 Batman Gothic City Racer (video Game 2001) ​78 Batman Returns (1992 movie) ​27, 37 Batman: The Animated Series (TV, 1992– 1996) ​27, 82 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (film, 2016) ​21, 168 Batwoman/Kate Kane (character) ​36, 40 Black Hand (character) ​128 Burroughs, Edgar Rice ​6 Burton, Tim ​27, 37, 239

Finger, Bill ​25, 70 The Flash (character) ​55, 72–73, 180, 222 Flashpoint/Barry Allen (character) ​12, 170–179 Fleischer, Dave ​8 Fleischer, Max ​8 Freddy Freeman (character) ​116–117 Gaiman, Ned ​136 Giffen, Keith ​136–138 Good, Edmund ​182–183 Grayson (graphic novel) ​50 Green Lantern (character) ​12, 122–133, 180, 223, 226–227 Hanna-Barbera Productions ​236–243 Harley Quinn (character) ​11, 80–86 Iron Man (character) ​226 Johns, Geoff ​122, 129–130, 159–160, 161, 214 The Joker (character) ​230–233 The Justice League (characters) ​12, 21, 215–222 Justice League (film, 2017) ​21 Justice League: Apokolips War (film, 2020) ​52

Catwoman/Selina Kyle (character) ​11, 35, 60, 78 82, 84, 86, 188 Changeling/Beast Boy (character) ​196–197 Conan Doyle, (Sir) Arthur ​11, 65–75 Cooper, James Fenimore ​180–182 yborg (character) ​184–195, 198

251

252  Index Justice Society of America (character) ​125 Kane, Bob ​69, 84 Kid Flash (character) ​195–196 Lady Shazam/Mary Bromfield (character) ​ 117–118 Ledger, Heath ​231 Lois Lane (character) ​2, 57–58, 84 Lucas, George ​10 Mad Love (TV series, 1999) ​78 Man of Steel (film, 2015) ​21 Miller, Frank ​27, 34, 37–40, 143 Moore, Alan ​201–213, 230 Morrison, Grant ​137 The New Batman Adventures (TV series, 1997–1999) ​78 The New Teen Titans (characters) ​12, 48–49, 191–200 Nightwing (character) ​43 Nightwing: Year One (graphic novel, 2020) ​ 51 Nite Owl (character) ​29–209 Nolan, Christopher ​27, 37 O’Neil, Dennis ​79, 123 Poe, Edgar Allan ​67 Poison Ivy (character) ​79, 86 Reeves, George ​9 The Riddler (character) ​37 Robin/Dick Grayson (character) ​11, 26–27, 34–36, 38, 40, 42–53, 55, 158–159, 192 Robin: 80th Anniversary (100 Page) Super Spectacular (book, 2020) ​42 The Saga of the Swamp Thing (book, 2012) ​ 146–147 Samachson, Joseph ​182 The Scarecrow (character) ​79 Scooby Apocalypse (TV series, 2016–2019) ​ 239–242 Shazam/Captain Marvel/Billy Batson (character) ​110- ​121, 223 Shuster, Joe ​1, 17

Siegel, Jerry ​1, 17 Sinestro (character) ​128–129 Snyder, Zack ​21 Space Ghost and Dino Boy (TV series, (1966– 1968) ​238 Star Spangled Comics (comic book, 1941– 1952) ​183 Stewart, Cameron ​100–109 Super Friends (TV series, 1973–1974) ​238 Superboy (character) ​61 Supergirl (character) ​57, 62, 90–98, 140–141 Supergirl (TV series, 2015-present) ​96–98 Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El (character) ​ 1–4, 8, 9, 15- ​19, 20–22, 54–63, 112, 122, 141–142, 172, 177, 180, 222, 237 Superman and the Mole Men (film, 1951) ​9 Superman, the Movie (film, 1978) ​4, 128, 192 Superman, the Musical (play, 1966) ​9–10 Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane (comic book) ​57–58, 84 Swamp Thing/Alec Holland (character) ​12, 136–146 Tarr, Babs ​100–109 The Tattooed Man/Tarrant (character) ​ 226–234 Titans (graphic novel series) ​47 Tomahawk (comic book) ​180–190 Tomahawk/Tom Hawk (character) ​180–190 Veitch, Rick ​161–162 Verne, Jules ​4 Ward, Burt ​27 Watchmen (characters) ​201–213 Wein, Len ​148 Wells, H.G. ​4 Wertham, Fredric ​59–62, 84 West, Adam ​27 Wheeler-Nicholson, Malcolm ​6–7 Whiz Comics (comic book) ​113–114, 116, 118 Wolfman (character) ​195–198 Wonder Woman/Diana Prince (character) ​ 12, 15–16, 18, 20–23, 180, 215–219, 223 X-Men (characters) ​122, 140, 229