Superhero Culture Wars

Judith Leggatt and Monica Flegel are Associate Professors of English at Lakehead University, Canada.

• Introduction: Mockingbird and Milkshakes: Comicsgate, Identity, and the Politics of Marketing in an Age of Outrage Chapter One: From Stan’s Soapbox to Twitter: Politics and Story-Telling in the Marvel Universe Chapter Two: Diversity Done Right?: Miles Morales and Kamala KhanChapter Three: “Captain America is Black and Thor is a Woman”: Gender- and Race-Bent Mantle Passing in Marvel’s All-New, All-Different CampaignChapter Four: Rethinking Secret Empire: Writing and Marketing Political Comics in an Age of Rising FascismConclusion: Marvel Legacy and Fresh Start: Selling (and Selling Out) Progressive Politics Works CitedIndex

With its starting point that superhero comics are and have always been political, Superhero Culture Wars is a welcome examination of Marvel’s moves toward diversifying its characters in the 2010s. It illuminates not only the tensions between fans and storytellers, but also the tensions inherent in a company’s neoliberal strategy of marketing its products and itself as progressive in order to increase its profits.