The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero: 19 (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies)

Over the last several decades, comic book superheroes have multiplied and, in the process, become more complicated. In this cutting edge anthology an international roster of contributors offer original research and writing on the contemporary comic book superhero, with occasional journeys into the film and television variation. As superheroes and their stories have grown with the audiences that consume them, their formulas, conventions, and narrative worlds have altered to follow suit, injecting new, unpredictable and more challenging characterizations that engage ravenous readers who increasingly demand more.

Angela Ndalianis is the Head of Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne. Her publications include Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment (MIT Press 2004) and the co-edited books Super/Heroes: from Hercules to Superman (New Academia 2006) and Stars in Our Eyes (Praeger 2002).