Batman Brings His Mission to the World

Batman Day was officially earlier this month, but, if you're looking for an innovative approach to the character, check out the recent graphic novel Batman: The World (2021). It's created by an international group of writers and artists each presenting the Caped Crusader on their home turf. Most stories feature Batman/Bruce Wayne as a familiar figure; however, a few of the tales adapt him more distinctly as a more  "local" hero.

The Ages of Batman: Essays on the Dark Knight (1/10/2022)

The Ages of Batman: Essays on the Dark Knight

deadline for submissions: January 10, 2022

full name / name of organization: Joseph J. Darowski

contact email: agesofsuperheroes@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/11/02/the-ages-of-batman-essays-on-the-dark-knight

The editor of The Ages of Batman: Essays on the Dark Knight is seeking abstracts for essays that could be included in the upcoming collection. The essays should examine the relationships between the DC comic book adventures of Batman and the social era when those comic books were published. Analysis may demonstrate how Batman’s comic books stories and the creators who produced the comics embrace, reflect, or critique aspects of their contemporary culture. This will be a companion volume to existing essay collections in the series that have already focused on Superman, Wonder Woman, the X-Men, the Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, the Justice League, Flash, and Black Panther.

Potential chapters include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Contextualizing the Bat: Influences and References in Batman’s First Year of Comics
• The Early Villains: Social Fears as Rogues Gallery
• Not-So-Grim-n-Gritty: The Silly Adventures of Batman
• The Cold War Hits Gotham: Social Influences on Popular Culture
• What Masculine Heroism Means in the Vietnam Era
• A Billionaire Hero in the 1980s
• It’s...Problematic: The Cultural Moment Surrounding The Killing Joke
• Sale and Loeb’s WhoDunnIt: Batman: The Long Halloween and Literary Mysteries
• A Death in the Family: Comic Books, Death, and Fan Interaction
• Barbara Gordon’s Changing Roles
• Batman as Corporation: The Expansion of the Batfamily
• Snyder’s Court of Owls and Changing the Face of Villainy in Gotham
• Batman/Catwoman and Romance in a (N)Everchanging Continuity

Essays should focus on stories featuring Batman from his own comic book series or team series. Issues of the Justice League or other teams that have included Batman as a member would be welcome for analysis, so long as the analysis focuses primarily on Batman, as would an analysis of any DC mini-series or event storyline that included Batman as a principal character. Similarly, essays focusing on characters that are closely associated with Batman would be acceptable. Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, the Joker, and so one could serve as topics for essays in this collection.

Essays should solely focus on comic book adventures, not media adaptations of the characters. Furthermore, essays should look at a single period of comic book history, rather than drawing comparisons between different publication eras. For example, an essay that analyzed Batman comics from the early 1980s and contextualized them with what was happening in American society would be more likely to be accepted than an essay that contrasted 2020s comic books with 1940s comic books. The completed essays should be approximately 15-20 double-spaced pages in MLA format.

Abstracts (100-500 words) and CVs should be submitted by January 10, 2022.

This will be a peer-reviewed project.

Please submit via email to Joseph Darowski, agesofsuperheroes@gmail.com.

Publisher: McFarland & Company

 

Last updated November 2, 2021

Worth Reading: DC's Batman: Last Knight on Earth

I usually post short reviews to Amazon; this summer, I thought I'd try some blog posts.

Batman: Last Knight on Earth
https://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/batman-last-knight-on-earth-2019/batman-last-knight-on-earth

Billed as "The Last BATMAN Story Ever Told...," Snyder and Capullo's series Batman: Last Knight on Earth (now collected in a hardcover edition) builds on their last arc of the New 52's Batman series.

Batman: Last Knight on Earth positions a new Batman/Bruce Wayne to rise to become a hero in a potential future of the DCU. It is a bleak world (rather like DCeased and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War), but there is a lot of hope in the end (and some intriguing use of the Joker character).

See below for DC's teaser trailer for the series:

CFP Batman in Popular Culture Conference (12/30/2018; Bowling Green 4/12-13/2019)

Sounds like a great idea for a conference:

CFP: Batman in Popular Culture
https://www.comicgesellschaft.de/en/2018/04/13/cfp-batman-in-popular-culture/

Conference
The Department of Popular Culture and the Browne Popular Culture Library
Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green
April 12 - 13, 2019
Stichtag: 2018 12 30

The Department of Popular Culture and the Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio are proud to announce the Batman in Popular Culture Conference on Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13, 2019. The Batman in Popular Culture conference aims to examine Batman in Popular Culture in all mediums and media. It is intended to serve as a space for academics, graduate students, comic industry professionals, retailers and fans to engage in dialogue about topics related to Batman in its many media forms, mediums and cultural influence in popular culture and beyond. The scope of this conference is deliberately broad, with the intention of highlighting the interdisciplinary nature and many different avenues of research possible related to Batman in Popular Culture.

Possible topics might include but are not limited to:

• Textual analysis of graphic novels, storylines, other texts related to Batman
• In-depth analysis of particular authors & artists work related to Batman
• The development of supporting characters, villains, and themes within the Batman mythos
• Batman in Popular Music
• Batman in Film, Television, and Animation
• The rise of Batman-centric podcasts
• Batman as a mass merchandising phenomenon
• Batman VS. Superman
• Batman and video games
• The role of diversity issues (race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality) within Batman’s world
• Batman within the Comics Industry (writing, drawing, retailing, etc.)
• Batman art and covers across the decades
• How authors build an audience in an era of subgenre specialization
• Reception and fan communities for Batman and the superhero genre
• Digital Humanities approaches to Comics and Mass Media Studies with emphasis on Batman

We welcome individual proposals or pre-formed panels that address any or all of these themes. As the conference seeks to provide a multitude of perspectives, academic presentations and those from outside the academy are welcome.

Please send a 300-word abstract describing your individual presentation to bgsubatman@gmail.com with “Batman in Popular Culture” in the subject line. (Panel, roundtable, performance, and artistic display proposals should include a 300 proposal for each individual and a 500-word proposal explaining the group presentation.) Submissions should be sent in a document attachment with the following information:

Author’s name/Title
Institutional Affiliation (if applicable)
Email address
Presentation Title and Abstract

Deadline for Submissions is Monday, December 30, 2018.

Batman: Assault on Arkham on Home Video (and Justice League: Throne of Atlantis preview)

Warner Home Video recently released Batman: Assault on Arkham to home video. The film draws upon the Batman: Arkham electronic game franchise (taking place after Batman: Arkham Origins) and highlights an adventure of the Suicide Squad. The trailer from DC Entertainment follows:




Details of the extras for the Blu-Ray edition have been conveniently listed on the Blu-ray.com site (http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Batman-Assault-on-Arkham-Blu-ray/102001/#Review) and include:

Audio Commentary: DC Comics Animation creative director Mike Carlin, Assault on Arkham writer Heath Corson and executive producer James Tucker cover every major aspect of the film's development, adaptation, voice casting, animation and music. Director Jay Oliva is nowhere to be found, though.

The Joker's Queen: Harley Quinn (HD, 14 minutes): A look at the animated origin of Harley Quinn, her move to the printed page and the evolution of her character through various media, with Carlin, Quinn co-creator Paul Dini, "Suicide Squad" and Supernatural writer Adam Glass, and Entertainment Weekly writer Geoff Boucher.

Arkham Analyzed: The Secrets Behind the Asylum (HD, 27 minutes): "All things are possible here and I am what madness made me." The not so hallowed institution of Arkham Asylum, its inspiration, and its place in Batman comic books, television shows, videogames and films, with another lineup of interviews with key industry professionals.

From the DC Comics Vault (SD, 91 minutes): "Task Force X" from Justice League Unlimited, "Infiltrator" from Young Justice, "Emperor Joker" from The Brave and the Bold and "Two of a Kind" from The Batman.[The extra cartoons are common to all releases of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies, though one wonders (again) of their value, since real fans will already have these in their collections.]

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis Sneak Peek (HD, 9 minutes): An extended behind-the-scenes promo detailing the production of the next DCU Animated Original Movie, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, the sequel to Justice League: War.

The clip has also surfaced online separate from the Batman film:

Riddle Me This, Batman!

On my wish list: 

Riddle Me This, Batman! : Essays on the Universe of the Dark Knight

Edited by Kevin K. Durand and Mary K. Leigh
Published by McFarland

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4629-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8731-8
notes, bibliographies, index
228pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price $40.00

About the Book
From his first comic-book appearance in 1939 through his many incarnations on the big screen, the archetypal superhero known as The Batman has never been far from the American consciousness. The character shaped the way we read comics and graphic novels, view motion pictures, and analyze the motifs of the Hero, the Anti-Hero and the Villain. He has also captured the scholarly imagination, telling us much about our society and ourselves. These essays examine how Batman is both the canvas on which our cultural identity is painted, and the Eternal Other that informs our own journeys of understanding. Questions relating to a wide range of disciplines—philosophy, literature, psychology, pop culture, and more—are thoroughly and entertainingly explored, in a manner that will appeal both to scholars and to fans of the Caped Crusader alike.

About the Editors
Kevin K. Durand is the dean of academics at the LISA Academy College Preparatory School in Little Rock, Arkansas. He has published broadly in philosophy, religion, and ethics. Mary K. Leigh is a doctoral academy fellow at the University of Arkansas.


Table of Contents

Preface
MARY K. LEIGH      1
Introduction: What Has Adorno to Do with Gotham?
KEVIN K. DURAND      3

Part One: The Ethics and Anarchy of Batman
1. Virtue in Gotham: Aristotle’s Batman
MARY K. LEIGH      17
2. The Dark Knight Errant: Power and Authority in Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
CHRISTOPHER BUNDRICK      24
3. Why Adam West Matters: Camp and Classical Virtue
KEVIN K. DURAND      41
4. Dark Knight, White Knight, and the King of Anarchy
STEPHANIE CARMICHAEL      54
5. Introducing a Little Anarchy: The Dark Knight and Power Structures on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
SUDIPTO SANYAL      70

Part Two: Batman and Literary Theory
6. Batman’s Canon: Hybridity and the Interpretation of the Superhero
KEVIN K. DURAND      81
7. Seminar on the Purloined Batarang: Batman and Lacan
MITCH FRYE      93
8. Queer Matters in The Dark Knight Returns: Why We Insist on a Sexual Identity for Batman
JENEE WILDE      104
9. The Hero We Read: The Dark Knight, Popular Allegoresis, and Blockbuster Ideology
ANDREA COMISKEY      124
10. Rolling the Boulder in Gotham
RANDY DUNCAN      147
11. Figuration of the Superheroic Revolutionary: The Dark Knight of Negation
D. T. KOFOED      156

Part Three: Batman and Beyond
12. "One May Smile, and Smile, and Be a Villain": Grim Humor and the Warrior Ethos
MELANIE WILSON      169
13. "And Doesn’t All the World Love a Clown?": Finding the Joker and the Representation of His Evil
MICHAEL SMITH      187
14. Call It (Friendo): Flipism and Folklore in No Country for Old Men and The Dark Knight
MATTHEW FOTIS      201

About the Contributors      219
Index      221

CFP Dick Grayson Collection (8/31/14)

This sounds like a really cool idea:

75 Years of Dick Grayson (Robin, Nightwing, Batman) - 31 August 2014

full name / name of organization:
Kristen Geaman - University of Toledo
contact email:
kgeaman@gmail.com
Book Project

To date, there has not been a single scholarly book published on Dick Grayson, the original Robin who grew up to become the hero Nightwing and serve as Batman. In conjunction with Grayson’s 75th anniversary in 2015, this book seeks to examine any and all aspects of Grayson as an influential comic book character and cultural icon.

We welcome contributions from all scholarly fields, including history, literature, psychology, philosophy, art, art history, cultural studies, media studies, and more.

Given that this project is the first of its kind, the range of topics is extremely broad. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

-Dick's influence on the development of comic book conventions (especially as the original kid sidekick)

-Dick in comic-book art

-Dick's role as leader

-Dick's relationships with other heroes (Bats, Titans, JLA, etc)
*We are especially looking for an article about Dick and his relationship with Barbara Gordon

-Dick in the New 52

-Dick and his fans (who they are, why he might have more female fans than Batman, etc)

-Dick and representation (especially the ret-con that gave him Romani heritage)

-Dick in fanart, fanfiction, and/or cosplay

-Dick in non-print media

-Dick and his villains

-cosplay

-looking at Dick through any number of theoretical lens: gender theory, queer theory, etc.

-Dick and philosophy, psychology, etc

Please contact Kristen Geaman (kgeaman@gmail.com) for more information. Currently, we hope to have first drafts written by the end of August 2014. That will give us time to circulate them among the participants before we write final drafts.


By web submission at 04/18/2014 - 16:20

Bill the Boy Wonder

I've known about this for a while but only today received a copy to peruse. It is an interesting book (as was Boys of Steel, which I need to blog about one day).

Nobleman, Marc Tyler. Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-creator of Batman. Illus. Ty Templeton. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2012. N.pag. Print. 978-1-58089-289-6

Binding Information:
Hardback
Ages: 8 - and up
Price: $17.95

From the Publisher:


This is the true story of how Batman began. Every Batman story is marked with the words "Batman created by Bob Kane." But that isn't the whole truth. A struggling writer named Bill Finger was involved from the beginning. Bill helped invent Batman, from concept to costume to character. He dreamed up Batman's haunting origins and his colorful nemeses. Despite his brilliance, Bill worked in obscurity. It was only after his death that fans went to bat for Bill, calling for acknowledgment that he was co-creator of Batman. Based on original research, Bill the Boy Wonder is the first-ever book about the unsung man behind the Dark Knight.

This book is good for your brain because it provides: Biography, character and plot development, point of view


Comics Medium Links and More annotation:

Follow-up to Nobleman’s Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-creator of Batman is a picture book biography of comic book writer Bill Finger that presents him as the originator of the essentials of the Batman character (though the name was conceived first by Bob Kane, the man usually given credit for having created Batman) and his most prolific early chronicler. Concludes with an “Author’s Note,” in which Nobelman describes some of his sources (listed more fully in the “Selected Bibliography” at the end) and writing of the book (including his discovery of Finger’s only living heir) and a brief discussion of the growth of the Batman franchise. An online companion to the book, with activities and resources for educators, can be accessed at http://www.charlesbridge.com/BilltheBoyWonder, and the publisher's page for the book (at http://www.charlesbridge.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=5655) includes links to interviews with Nobleman about the project.

Batman Family Origins

 Concluding today's look at DC Comics-based books, here's one I did like:

Sazaklis, John. Batman: Dawn of the Dynamic Duo. Pictures by Steven E. Gordon. Colors by Eric A. Gordon. I Can Read! 2. New York: Harper-HarperCollins Children’s Books-HarperCollins, 2011. Print. 978-0-06-188520-4

A laudable combination of text and comic-book-like illustration, Batman: Dawn of the Dynamic Duo offers beginning readers an adventure featuring Batman, Robin III, and Nightwing in battle against Two-Face and his men. Serving (in part) as an introduction to Batman and his world, the book is noteworthy for its presentation of origin stories for Tim Drake (12-15) and Dick Grayson (16-17), as Robin and Nightwing, respectively, and its silent omission of Batman’s second partner Jason Todd. The story is therefore most in line with the continuity of the DC Animated Universe in making Drake and Grayson the only partners of the Dark Knight.

More Justice League for Kids

Another entry--lamentable again, I'm afraid--in the new line of Justice League products:


Sonneborn, Scott. Justice League: Partners in Peril. Illus. Andy Smith. Colors by Brad Vancata. New York: HarperFestival- HarperCollins Children’s Books-HarperCollins, 2013. N.pag. Print. 978-0-06-221007-4

In Justice League: Partners in Peril, the Justice League assembles to battle the rampaging android Amazo (one of the team’s less well-known foes). The roster here very much represents the classic Justice League and features Batman, Black Canary (apparently Dinah Laurel Lance), Flash (most likely Barry Allen), Green Arrow (Oliver Queen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Hawkman (presumably Katar Hol), Martian Manhunter, and Superman. The art is of variable quality, and there appears to have been no effort made to match the various characters to their comic book originals.

Kid-Friendly Origin of the Justice League

DC has begun to extend the Justice League franchise into alternate media, including a new ongoing series of children's books, of which the following is the first. Sadly. its not the best translation from the comics page:

Rosen, Lucy. Justice League: Meet the Justice League. Pictures by Steven E. Gordon. Colors by Eric A. Gordon. I Can Read! 2. New York: Harper-HarperCollins Children’s Books-HarperCollins, 2013. Print. 978-0-06-221002-9

Inspired by the first story of the Justice League of America from The Brave and the Bold No. 28 (February-March 1960), Justice League: Meet the Justice League recounts the formation of the Justice League when Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman—the stars of an earlier series of books in the I Can Read! series—enlist Aquaman, Flash (presumably Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), and Martian Manhunter to thwart the plans of Starro (a relatively obscure villain from the team’s sixty-plus-year history) for world domination. The art is unexceptional and not truly representative of the characters’ comic book origins, and, at some points, figures appear grossly out of proportion and/or distorted.

DC Comics at Capstone

A quick head's up:

Capstone Publishing now has a dedicated site to it's DC Comics series of chapter books at http://capstonesuperhero.com/. The site includes promotional posters with the DC trinity promoting literacy. At present, content includes books featuring Superman, Batman, and the pets of the Justice League (see trailer below), though the publisher has additional series (through its Stone Arch imprint) featuring the Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and the foes of the Justice League.

Some details on the line from Capstone's YouTube Channel:

Beware the Batman Teaser

Two new series are coming soon to DC Nation on Cartoon Network (and replacing Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice). One, Teen Titans Go! is a humorous take on the Teen Titans franchise, while the other, Beware the Batman, offers a more serious look at the Dark Knight and his world in CGI for the first time.

Origin of Batman for Kids

Here's an older book (now out of print), but it finishes off the trinity of DC super stars for now. Unfortunately, it is extremely divergent from DC canon.


Puckett, Kelley. Batman’s Dark Secret. Illus. John J. Muth. Hello Reader!—Level 3. New York: Scholastic, Oct. 1999. 0-439-09551-4

For young readers aged 6-8, Batman’s Dark Secret adapts the origins of Batman, but Puckett presents a bowdlerized account that subverts the traditional version of the story, which focuses on vengeance as Batman’s motivation to fight crime, to draw a connection between Bruce Wayne as a little boy and the target reader.

Occurring off page, the book opens with the murder of young Bruce Wayne’s parents, and, according to Puckett’s narrative, the boy becomes afraid of the night following their deaths.

Eventually, Wayne tumbles into the cavern beneath Wayne Manor, and there he is forced to face his fears in the form of a giant bat.

By protecting himself from the bat, Wayne regains the confidence he lost following the deaths of his parents, and the boy realizes that he “felt strange, somehow. Different. He would grow up. He would fight evil and win. And he would never be afraid again” (30-32).

Batman: Earth One?

Geoff John's recent graphic novel Batman: Earth One offers a radical take on the Dark Knight that makes him far more human than we're used it (see the summary on Wikipedia). There are also some shocking twists to his traditional back story and some very original takes on the supporting cast. This is certainly a transformative take on Batman, and, even after two reads, I'm still not sure if I'd recommend it. Still, there is certainly much for discussion and debate.

Some useful resources include the following:

BATMAN For A New Era: Gary Frank on BATMAN: EARTH ONE (08 Dec. 2009)

Exclusive! Batman Re-Imagined: An Interview With Geoff Johns (n.d.)

Interview: Geoff Johns Brings Batman to 'Earth One' + EXCLUSIVE Art! (25 June 2012)

Batman: Earth One with Geoff Johns (Plus Exclusive Pages!) (10 July 2012)

Geoff Johns crafts an Everyman Batman in 'Earth One' book (27 June 2012)

INTERVIEW: Geoff Johns talks Batman Earth One (29 June 2012)

‘Dark Knight Rises’ and ‘Earth One’ : A hero lost in shadows (30 June 2012)

INTERVIEW: GARY FRANK TALKS BATMAN: EARTH ONE AND SHAZAM! (19 July 2012)

Interview: Artist Gary Frank Talks BATMAN: EARTH ONE, Vol. 2, SHAZAM, and More (19 July 2012)

Gary Frank Speaks on 'Batman: Earth One' and 'Shazam' (19 July 2012)


Extended Reviews:

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/155936005/how-he-became-a-bat-once-more-with-feeling

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/best-shots-advance-reviews-120703.html

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/07/the-good-the-bat-and-the-ugly-batman-earth-one-by-geoff-johns-and-gary-frank

http://www.tcj.com/reviews/batman-earth-one/

Brooker on Batman Links

A series of recent Batman pieces by Will Brooker in anticipation of his new book and the current Batmania:

"Review of The Dark Knight Rises." (19 July 2012)

"Batman can't come out as gay – his character relies on him being in denial." (28 May 2012)

"Occupy Gotham: Analysing the Dark Knight Rises Viral Campaign." (8 May 2012)

"Clothes and the Batman: Analysing the Outfits in Dark Knight Rises." (5 May 2012)

"My Life With Batman." (3 May 2012)

"Why Fans of The Dark Knight Should Embrace Batman: The Musical." (24 April 2012)

"Anne Hathaway's New Catwoman Outfit - First Images." (16 April 2012)


In addition, there is also an interview with Brooker at the Scottscope website accessible at http://www.scottsmindfield.com/2012/06/dark-knight-dissected-interview-with.html.

Will Brooker Returns to Batman

Will Brooker, author of Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon (Continuum, 2000), returns to the world of the Caped Crusader in a follow-up book that has received a lot of attention online. Here are the details.


Hunting the Dark Knight: Twenty-first Century Batman 
Will Brooker

Imprint: I.B.Tauris
Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

Hardback  £57.50
ISBN: 9781848852792
Publication Date: 30 May 2012
Number of Pages: 272
Height: 216
Width: 134

Paperback  £12.99
ISBN: 9781848852808
Publication Date: 30 May 2012
Number of Pages: 272
Height: 216
Width: 134


Publishing alongside the world premiere of Christopher Nolan's third Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises", Will Brooker's new book explores Batman's twenty-first century incarnations. Brooker's close analysis of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" offers a rigorous, accessible account of the complex relationship between popular films, audiences, and producers in our age of media convergence. By exploring themes of authorship, adaptation and intertextuality, he addresses a myriad of questions raised by these films: did "Batman Begins" end when "The Dark Knight began? Does its story include the Gotham Knight DVD, or the 'Why So Serious' viral marketing campaign? Is it separate from the parallel narratives of the Arkham Asylum videogame, the monthly comic books, the animated series and the graphic novels? Can the brightly campy incarnations of the Batman ever be fully repressed by "The Dark Knight", or are they an intrinsic part of the character? Do all of these various manifestations feed into a single Batman metanarrative? This will be a vital text for film students and academics, as well as legions of Batman fans.

Will Brooker is a leading expert on the Dark Knight, author of the cultural history of Batman, Batman Unmasked.  His other books include Using the Force and Alice’s Adventures. He edited the Audience Studies Reader and The Blade Runner Experience, and wrote the BFI Film Classics volume on Star Wars.  He is Reader and Director of Research in Film and Television at Kingston University, London, and is the editor of Cinema Journal.

Justice League New 52

Geoff John's Justice League was the first book of the New 52 and presents a new version of the team's origin for a post 9/11 world.The core of the team is an expected group--Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan's Green Lantern, Barry Allen's Flash, and Aquaman--but Cyborg is added to the roster, perhaps in effort to add diversity to the team, suggesting that the Titans or Young Justice are no longer feeder programs for the League (a curious omission given the popularity of the Young Justice series on The Cartoon Network). As relatively untried figures (the Age of Heroes in the New 52 books began about six years ago), the heroes are all engaging characters and the interactions between the members of the nascent team are interesting and, at times, humorous.

In a story set five years in the past, the series opens with super-powered beings being (rather like the X-Men) hated and feared by the world they are sworn to protect, but the world comes to recognize that (at least) some of these individuals are heroes, when America is suddenly attacked by (essentially) terrorists from Apokolips. Darkseid is the villain of the first arc--recently collected in hardcover as Origin--and is collecting organic matter (i.e. human beings) from across the universe (or, possibly, the multiverse) as an element of an as yet undefined grand scheme, but part of Darkseid's mission is revealed: he seeks to recover his missing (wayward?) daughter (!). The heroes--Cyborg is especially instrumental here--come together to defeat Darkseid and his minions and are recognized as positive forces, an occasion that leads into the series proper. Issue No. 6 concludes with an epilogue that ties into the earlier Flashpoint series and presents both Pandora (a new character to the DCU) and the Phantom Stranger in conflict and referencing a "Third Sinner" (they are the First and Second, as revealed in later stories) and setting the stage for future storylines. Extra material in the collected edition continues this trend of future looking and references the upcoming "Curse of Shazam" storyline.

New/Recent from Continuum

Comic Books and American Cultural History: An Anthology
edited by Matthew Pustz

Imprint: Continuum
Pub. date: 23 Feb 2012
ISBN: 9781441172624

296 Pages

Paperback  $29.95 (also in hardcover)

Description

Comic Books and American Cultural History is an anthology that examines the ways in which comic books can be used to understand the history of the United States. Over the last twenty years, there has been a proliferation of book-length works focusing on the history of comic books, but few have investigated how comics can be used as sources for doing American cultural history.

These original essays illustrate ways in which comic books can be used as resources for scholars and teachers. Part 1 of the book examines comics and graphic novels that demonstrate the techniques of cultural history; the essays in Part 2 use comics and graphic novels as cultural artifacts; the third part of the book studies the concept of historical identity through the 20th century; and the final section focuses on different treatments of contemporary American history. Discussing topics that range from romance comics and Superman to American Flagg! and Ex Machina, this is a vivid collection that will be useful to anyone studying comic books or teaching American history.


Table of Contents:

Introduction
“Comic Books as History Teachers”
By Matthew Pustz
Part I: Doing Cultural History Through Comic Books
1. “How Wonder Woman Helped My Students ‘Join the Conversation:’ Comic Books as Teaching Tools in a History Methodology Course”
By Jessamyn Neuhaus
2. “Comics as Primary Sources: The Case of Journey into Mohawk Country”
By Bridget M. Marshall
3. “Transcending the Frontier Myth: Dime Novel Narration and (Jesse) Custer’s Last Stand in Preacher”
By William Grady
4. “ ‘Duel. I’ll Give You a DUEL’: Intimacy and History in Megan Kelso’s Alexander Hamilton Trilogy”
By Alison Mandaville
Part II: Comic Books as Cultural Artifacts
1. “American Golem: Reading America through Super-New Dealers and ‘the Melting Pot’”
By Martin Lund
2. “ ‘Dreams May End, But Love Never Does’: Marriage and Materialism in American Romance Comics, 1947-1954”
By Jeanne Emerson Gardner
3. “Parody and Propaganda: Fighting American and The Battle Against Crime and Communism in the 1950s”
By John Donovan
4. “Grasping for Identity: The Hands of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu”
By Peter Lee
5. “ ‘Paralysis and Stagnation and Drift’: America’s Malaise as Demonstrated in Comic Books of the 1970s”
By Matthew Pustz
6. “The Shopping Malls of Empire: Cultural Fragmentation, the New Media, and Consumerism in Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!”
By Matthew J. Costello
Part III: Comic Books and Historical Identity
1. “Transformers and Monkey Kings: Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese and the Quest for Identity”
By Todd S. Munson
2. “Agent of Change: The Evolution and Enculturation of Nick Fury”
By Philip G. Payne and Paul S. Spaeth
3. “The US HIV/AIDS Crisis and the Negotiation of Queer Identity in Superhero Comics, or, Is Northstar Still a A Fairy?”
By Ben Bolling
Part IV: Comic Books and Contemporary History
1. “The Militarism of American Superheroes After 9/11”
By A. David Lewis
2. “Septemeber 11, 2001: Witnessing History, Demythifying the Story in American Widow ”
By Yves Davo
3. “ ‘The Great Machine Doesn’t Wear a Cape!’: American Cultural Anxiety and the Post-9/11 Superhero”
By Jeff Geers

Author(s)

Matthew Pustz is the author of Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers. He has a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Iowa and currently teaches history and American Studies at a variety of schools in the Boston area.

Reframing 9/11Film, Popular Culture and the “War on Terror” 
edited by Jeff Birkenstein, Anna Froula, and Karen Randell

Imprint: Continuum
Pub. date: 13 May 2010
ISBN: 9781441119056

256 Pages

Paperback $39.95 (also in hardcover and as an e-book)

Description

September 11th, 2001 remains a focal point of American consciousness, a site demanding ongoing excavation, a site at which to mark before and after “everything” changed. In ways both real and intangible the entire sequence of events of that day continues to resonate in an endlessly proliferating aftermath of meanings that continue to evolve. Presenting a collection of analyses by an international body of scholars that examines America’s recent history, this book focuses on popular culture as a profound discursive site of anxiety and discussion about 9/11 and demystifies the day’s events in order to contextualize them into a historically grounded series of narratives that recognizes the complex relations of a globalized world. Essays in Reframing 9/11 share a collective drive to encourage new and original approaches for understanding the issues both within and beyond the official political rhetoric of the events of the “The Global War on Terror” and issues of national security.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword: Reza Aslan
Introduction: Jeff Birkenstein, Anna Froula, and Karen Randell
Section One: (Re)Creating Language
Chapter One: Fear, Terrorism and Popular Culture, David L. Altheide
Chapter Two: The Aesthetics of Destruction: Contemporary US Cinema and TV Culture , Mathias Nilges
Chapter Three: 9/11, British Muslims, and Popular Literary Fiction, Sara Upstone
Chapter Four: Left Behind in America: The Army of One at the End of History, Jonathan Vincent
Chapter Five: 9/11, Manhood, Mourning, and the American Romance, John Mead
Chapter Six: An Early Broadside: The Far Right Raids Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Jeff Birkenstein
Chapter Seven: The Sound of the “War on Terror”, Corey K. Creekmur
Section Two: Visions of War and Terror
Chapter Eight: Avatars of Destruction: Cheerleading and Deconstructing the “War on Terror” in Video Games, David Annandale
Chapter Nine: The Land of the Dead and the Home of the Brave: Romero’s vision of a Post 9/11 America, Terence McSweeney
Chapter Ten: Superman is the Faultline: Fissures in the Monomythic Man of Steel, Alex Evans
Chapter Eleven: The Tools and Toys of (the) War (on Terror): Consumer Desire, Military Fetish and Regime Change in Batman Begins, Justine Toh
Chapter Twelve: “It was like a movie”: The impossibility of representation in Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center (2006), Karen Randell
Chapter Thirteen: The Contemporary Politics of the Western Form: Bush, Saving Jessica Lynch, and Deadwood, Stacy Takacs
Section Three: Prophetic Narratives
Chapter Fourteen: Governing Fear in the Iron Cage of Rationalism: Terry Gilliam’s Brazil through the 9/11 Looking Glass, David Price
Chapter Fifteen: Cultural Anxiety, Moral Clarity and Willful Amnesia: Filming Philip K. Dick After 9/11, Lance Rubin
Chapter Sixteen: Prolepsis and the “War on Terror”: Zombie Pathology and the Culture of Fear in 28 Days Later…, Anna Froula
Afterword: John Cawelti
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index

Author(s)

Jeff Birkenstein is an Associate Professor of English at Saint Martin's University in Lacey, Washington. Birkenstein's major interests lie in American Literature post-1865, American and world short story, the short story sequence, and cultural and food criticism. An edited collection of essays, Cultural Representation in the International Short Story Sequence (co-edited with Robert M. Luscher, University of Nebraska at Kearney) has just been accepted for publication. He has published several papers in academic journals as well as book reviews, commentaries, essays and a short story. He teaches a range of classes, from Freshman Seminar and Composition to African American Literature, The Short Story, Food & Fiction, and Narratives from the Aftermath of 9/11. Birkenstein received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in 2003; he has a second MA in Teaching English as a Second/Other Language.

Anna Froula is an Assistant Professor of film studies at East Carolina University. Froula teaches courses on war literature and film, American outlaws, national mythology, and film history, theory, and fundamentals. She has published and presented on on representations of military women, masculinity, and World War II, Vietnam, and the “War on Terror.” She is currently working on a manuscript that explores popular representations of American military women from World War II to the present.

Karen Randell is a Principal Lecturer in Film at Southampton Solent University, UK where she is Programme Leader for Film and Television. She teaches contemporary cinema and film history and her research interests include: war genre, trauma, masculinity and early cinema. She is published on trauma in film in Art in the Age of Terrorism (London: Holberton Publication: 2005) and in SCREEN. She is co-editor (with Sean Redmond) of The War Body on Screen (Continuum, NY: 2008) and Screen Methods: Comparative Readings in Film Studies (Wallflower Press: 2005) with Jacqueline Furby.

New Trailers for the End of the Year

Here's two more trailers for upcoming films based on comics:

I'm unsure about the first one here. The Dark Knight was a bad film in so many ways, and The Dark Knight Rises (despite its hope-filled title) paints a bleak picture for Batman and Gotham (plus the end tag here--"The Legend...Ends"--suggests a depressing conclusion for all).




One the other hand, The Men in Black films are always fun; let's hope the latest installment does not disappoint.