CFP Second Call for Chapters: Spider-Man's Villains - Specific Villains (5/1/2025)

 

Second Call for Chapters: Spider-Man's Villains - Specific Villains

deadline for submissions: 

May 1, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Matthew McEniry, Robert G. Weiner, and Kevin Scott

contact email: 

matthew.mceniry@ttu.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/02/25/second-call-for-chapters-spider-mans-villains-specific-villains.

We invite contributons to an edited volume that delves into the complex and often nuanced villains of the Spider-Man universe. We are specifically looking for chapters about the following villains: Kraven the Hunter, Carnage, Black Cat, Lizard, Sandman, Scorpion, Shocker, and Tombstone. Other submissions may be accepted, but we are not looking for chapters on Mysterio, Doc Ock, Electro, Vulture, Venom, Punisher, Green Goblin, Rhino, Kingpin, Jackal, Sinister Six, Spidey Super Stories, Spider-Man's War on Drugs, or J. Jonah Jameson.

This volume is being published by the University of Mississippi Press. We welcome a diverse range of scholarly analyses, including but not limited to: 

• Character Analysis: In-depth explorations of specific villains and their evolutions over time
• Cultural Context: How societal issues, such as class, race, and identity, shape villain narrative
• Psychological Perspectives: The motivations and psychological profiles of Spider-Man's villains
• Comparative Studies: Analyzing Spider-Man villains in relation to other superhero antagonists
• Media Adaptations: The portrayal of Spider-Man villains in films, animated series, and video games
• Feminist and Gender Studies: The role of female villains and their representation within the Spider-Man lore.
• Mythology and Symbolis: The archetypal elements present in the characterization of Spider-Man's enemies.
• Fan Culture and Reception: How fan communities interpret and engage with these villains.

Please submit an up-to 300-word abstract oulining your proposed chapter and a brief author bio by May 1, 2025 to matthew.mceniry@ttu.edu with the Subject "Spider-Man Villains Chapter Proposal_Author Name".

Chapters should be between 5,000 - 7,000 words and will use the Chicago Manual of Style with notes and bibliography.

Important Dates:

Second Call Abstract Submission Deadline: May 1, 2025

Notification of Acceptance: May 14, 2025

First Draft Submission Deadline: August 31, 2025

Final Draft Submission Deadline: November 30, 2025

We look forward to your proposed chapters for the impact and significance of these villains in the comic book world and broader cultural narratives.

Last updated April 16, 2025

Spider-Man: Season One Revisited

Marvel's Season One series was established (like DC's Earth One series) to present more contemporary origins of its classic characters. Cullen Bunn's Spider-Man: Season One (2012) is a worthy attempt at reworking (and expanding) the hero's origin from Amazing Fantasy No. 15. To start, Bunn focuses much of the story on the perspective of our young hero, and we get a really good sense of Peter Parker here and all of the motivations that make him become Spider-Man, first as an entertainer and later as a hero. We also have a much more developed relationship between Peter and his Uncle Ben, so readers really feel for Peter when Ben is killed. Finally, Bunn gives us two Spider-Foes, both the Vulture and J. Jonah Jameson. The Vulture is very much the classic character we've come to know over the years, but Bunn adds some nuances to JJJ that really make him someone we want to hate.

Further details on the graphic novel can be found on Marvel's website at http://marvel.com/comics/issue/39689/spider-man_season_one_2011_1.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 Now on Home Video

Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is now available on home video on Blu-Ray/DVD/Ultraviolet, DVD/Ultraviolet, and Digital Video. A full review of the Blu-Ray set can be found on Blu-Ray.com at http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Amazing-Spider-Man-2-Blu-ray/63965/#Review.




Here are the complete details about Blu-Ray and DVD extras as  posted on EW.com in June (http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/06/16/amazing-spider-man-2-blu-ray/):

Blu-ray & DVD Bonus Features Include:
4 All-New Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Marc Webb
Filmmaker Commentary
Alicia Keys “It’s On Again” music video

Exclusively Available on Blu-ray:
9 Additional Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Marc Webb, including “Peter Meets His Father”
“The Wages of Heroism: Making The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” featuring revealing, in-depth segments including:
“Lessons Learned: Development and Direction” — Filmmakers and cast discuss their approach to the sequel and their efforts to make it the best Spider-Man yet.
“Heart of the City: Shooting in New York” — A behind-the-scenes look at the film’s unprecedented access to 
New York City during production.
“Triple Threat: Attack of the Villains” — An inside look at the development of Spider-Man’s fearsome foes, Electro, 
the Green Goblin and Rhino.
“A More Dangerous World: Transforming Electro and the Green Goblin” — From make-up to costuming, see what it took to transform Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan into their fearsome alter-egos.
“A Bolt From the Blue: Visual Effects” — Sony Pictures Imageworks artists and animators show how they created the gravity defying, web-slinging and pumped-up action in the new film.
“Spidey Gets His Groove Back: Music and Editing” — Learn how the film’s soundtrack and score came together in this behind-the-scenes look at jam sessions with Composer Hans Zimmer and the team of master musicians he assembled, including Pharrell Williams, Johnny Marr, Michael Einziger and more.

Exclusive to the DVD:
New Public Service Announcement for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO), featuring Andrew Garfield & WWO CEO Dr. Jane Aronson

Song of Spider-Man

An interesting read offering insight into the creation of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark: 

Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History
By Glen Berger

Simon & Schuster
384 pages
Hardcover (ISBN 9781451684568) $25.00
eBook (ISBN 9781451684582) $12.99
November 2013

Trade Paperback (ISBN 9781451684575) $17.00
November 2014

As one can imagine, writing a Broadway musical has its challenges. But it turns out there are challenges one can’t imagine when collaborating with two rock legends and a superstar director to stage the biggest, most expensive production in theater history.

Song of Spider-Man is playwright Glen Berger’s story of a theatrical dream—or nightmare—come true. Renowned director Julie Taymor picked Berger to cowrite the book for a $25 million Spider-Man musical. Together—along with U2’s Bono and Edge— they would shape a work that was technically daring and emotionally profound, with a story fueled by the hero’s quest for love—and the villains’ quest for revenge. Or at least, that’s what they’d hoped for.

But when charismatic producer Tony Adams died suddenly, the show began to lose its footing. Soon the budget was ballooning, financing was evaporating, and producers were jumping ship or getting demoted. And then came the injuries. And then came word-of- mouth about the show itself. What followed was a pageant of foul-ups, falling-outs, ever-more-harrowing mishaps, and a whole lot of malfunctioning spider legs. This “circus-rock-and-roll-drama,” with its $65 million price tag, had become more of a spectacle than its creators ever wished for. During the show’s unprecedented seven months of previews, the company’s struggles to reach opening night inspired breathless tabloid coverage and garnered international notoriety.

Through it all, Berger observed the chaos with his signature mix of big ambition and self-deprecating humor. Song of Spider-Man records the journey of this cast and crew as a hilarious memoir about friendship, collaboration, the foibles of hubris, and the power of art to remind us that we’re alive.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

From the Tony Awards (nominated for 5 Tonys):

Spider-Man Studies

Web-Spinning Heroics: Critical Essays on the History and Meaning of Spider-Man

Edited by Robert Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner
Foreword by Tom DeFalco; Afterword by Gary Jackson

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4627-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-7864-9167-4
notes, bibliographies, index
271pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2012

About the Book
This volume collects a wide-ranging sample of fresh analyses of Spider-Man. It traverses boundaries of medium, genre, epistemology and discipline in essays both insightful and passionate that move forward the study of one of the world’s most beloved characters. The editors have crafted the book for fans, creators and academics alike. Foreword by Tom DeFalco, with poetry and an afterword by Gary Jackson (winner of the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments v
Foreword: My Pal Pete
TOM DEFALCO 1
Elegy for Gwen Stacy
GARY JACKSON 3
Introduction
ROBERT G. WEINER and ROBERT MOSES PEASLEE 4

I. Historical, Cultural and Pedagogical Angles
Donald Glover for Spider-Man
PHILLIP LAMARR CUNNINGHAM 22
Have Great Power, Greatly Irresponsible: Intergenerational Conflict in 1960s Amazing Spider-Man
PETER LEE 29
"Continually in the Making": Spider-Man’s New York
MARTIN FLANAGAN 40
Hegemonic Implications of Science in Popular Media: Science Narratives and Representations of Physics in the Spider-Man Film Trilogy
LISA HOLDERMAN 53
Teaching Peter Parker’s Ghosts of Milton: Anxiety of Influence, the Trace, and Platonic Knowing in Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 1
JAMES BUCKY CARTER 63

II. Considering Specific Graphic Novels
Weaving Webs and True Lies: Revisiting Kraven’s Last Hunt Through the Lens of Brooklyn Dreams
DAVID WALTON 70
The Hermeneutics of Spider-Man: What Is Peter Parker Doing in Elizabethan England?
CHRISTINA C. ANGEL 74
Strategies of Narration in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Spider-Man: Blue
DEREK PARKER ROYAL 81

III. The J. Jonah Jameson Problem
Spider-Man: MENACE!!! Stan Lee, Censorship and the 100-Issue Revolution
AARON DRUCKER 90
J. Jonah Jameson--Hero or Villain? Spider-Man’s Nemesis Hard to Pigeonhole
ANDREW A. SMITH 101
Spider-Management: A Critical Examination of the Business World of Spider-Man
MATTHEW MCGOWAN and JEREMY SHORT 113

IV. Spider-Man and Other Sequential Art Characters
Anti-Heroes: Spider-Man and the Punisher
CORD A. SCOTT 120
The Sinister Six: Anti-Villains in an Anti-Heroic Narrative
RICK HUDSON 128
Spider-Man and Batman, Disordered Minds: Friendship Through Difference
PHILLIP BEVIN 134

V. Trauma Textual and Extra-Textual
The Loss of the Father: Trauma Theory and the Birth of Spider-Man
FORREST C. HELVIE 146
Artificial Mourning: The Spider-Man Trilogy and September 11th
TAMA LEAVER 154

VI. Issues of Gender in the Spider-verse
Three Stories, Three Movies and the Romances of Mary Jane and Spider-Man
ROBERT G. WEINER 166
Women’s Pleasures Watching Spider-Man’s Journeys
EMILY D. EDWARDS 177
The Incorrigible Aunt May
ORA C. MCWILLIAMS 187
Spidey Meets Freud: Central Psychoanalytic Motifs in Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2
ROBERT MOSES PEASLEE 195

VII. Under-Examined Spider-Texts
Reinterpreting Myths in Spider-Man: The Animated Series
DAVID RAY CARTER 210
Finding the Milieu of the Spider-Man Music LPs
MARK MCDERMOTT 222
Games Are Not Convergence: Spider-Man 3, Game Design and the Lost Promise of Digital Production and Convergence
CASEY O’DONNELL 234
Afterword
GARY JACKSON 249
About the Contributors 251
Index 255

About the Author
Robert Moses Peaslee is an assistant professor in the College of Mass Communications at Texas Tech University. He has written for Visual Communication Quarterly, Tourist Studies, and NMEDIAC: Journal of New Media & Culture, and edited volumes related to visual culture. He lives in Lubbock, Texas. Robert G. Weiner is associate humanities librarian at Texas Tech University. His works have been published in the Journal of Popular Culture, Public Library Quarterly, Journal of American Culture, International Journal of Comic Art and Popular Music and Society. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.

Spidey Art Book

Spider-Man turns 50 next year, and Marvel begins the celebration with The Art of Spider-Man Classic, a visual survey of the character's history in the comics. I won't say it is a "must have", but it is interesting to look at to explore the character's evolution on the comics page. Further details at Westfield Comics.

Teasers

Marvel News

I've been remiss of late in reporting on affairs in Marvel Comics. Important stories of late include the death of Ultimate Peter Parker/Spider-Man in a truly heart-wrenching tale (details at Comics Alliance, as reported by David Uzumeri) by creators Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley and published in Ultimate Spider-Man No. 160 that paves the way, ultimately, for the introduction of a new multiracial Spider-Man and, as also reported by Uzumeri at Comics Alliance, the end of the long-running Uncanny X-Men series in anticipation of the launching of a new Uncanny X-Men series and Wolverine and the X-Men featuring a splintering of the team as result of the Schism crossover event.