Papers by Christopher Maverick
The Journal of American Culture
International Journal of Comics Arts, 2018
Frederic Wertham’s 1954 treatise, Seduction of the Innocent sparked a witch hunt that changed the... more Frederic Wertham’s 1954 treatise, Seduction of the Innocent sparked a witch hunt that changed the landscape of American comics for decades. The medium has come a long way since the creation of the Comics Code Authority. We no longer worry about the subliminal homosexual influence of single adult male Bruce Wayne raising an impressionable teenaged Dick Grayson. We do not fear that our children will be driven to suicide in a romantic quest to experience the glory of hanging. We certainly don’t worry that they will be driven to Satanism by seeing the word “Zombie” on a cover. However, we continue to fear the depiction of sexuality and especially sexual violence. We loathe women in refrigerators! Sexual assault is rare in mainstream comics; rape is all but unheard, and sparks mass controversy whenever it is addressed. And yet, sexual violence is one of the most prevalent issues facing out society today.
DC Comics' 2016 animated adaptation of 1988’s Batman: The Killing Joke set off an Internet fervor over the glamorization of sexual violence in comics. Similarly, fans were outraged when DC solicited a commemorative cover that referenced the event for Batgirl #41 in 2015. The cover was eventually pulled. While increased concern by both fans and creators over the problem of rape and sexual assault as well as the objectification of women is commendable, perhaps downplaying the issue is the wrong solution.
Other popular media frequently address the issue. Television shows like Law & Order: SVU and Game of Thrones feature rape and its aftermath as major plot points. It is a driving narrative behind films like Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Room, and The Accused. Yet, very few rapes and sexual assaults actually occur in mainstream comics. Barbara Gordon is likely the most famous survivor. The events of The Killing Joke may be disturbing. Some may argue that it is a prime example of Women In Refrigerator Syndrome. But the story, its aftermath and her subsequent transformation from Batgirl into Oracle present one of the very few survivors tales of the superhero world. And yet, the film adaptation was still commonly critiqued as reducing her even further into a sexual object — And with good reason. In many ways, Barbara is the least significant character in the story. The focus on Batman, Joker and her father arguably reduce her to a nearly insignificant bystander in a story that should by all rights be the most traumatic event in her life.
Have comics lost something by white washing rape from the medium? In ignoring the crime do we disavow the victims? Is there a responsible way to address and explore the issue of sexual assault in mainstream comics? And if there is not then perhaps it is our responsibility to find one. Can we read this narrative, and the relative few other survivors' tales like Marvel’s Alias, as more than the thoughtless objectification of women? Can comics deal with sexual crime? Or must we be content to wipe it all away?
U.S. Studies Online: Forum for New Writing
Frederic Wertham’s 1954 treatise Seduction of the Innocent and the cover of EC Comics Crime Suspe... more Frederic Wertham’s 1954 treatise Seduction of the Innocent and the cover of EC Comics Crime SuspenStories #22 sparked a witch hunt that changed the landscape of American comics for decades. In many ways, we are still recovering to this day. The medium has come a long way since the creation of the Comics Code Authority. We no longer worry about the subliminal homosexual influence of single adult male Bruce Wayne raising an impressionable teenaged Dick Grayson. We do not fear that our children will be driven to suicide in a romantic quest to experience the glory of hanging. We certainly don’t worry that they will be driven to Satanism if they see the word “Zombie” on a cover. However, we continue to fear the depiction of sexuality and especially sexual violence. We loathe women in refrigerators! Sexual assault is rare in mainstream comics. The crime of rape is all but unheard, and sparks mass controversy whenever it is addressed. The chances of seeing a beheaded woman on modern cover are nil. And yet, sexual violence is one of the most prevalent issues facing out society today. Film, television and novels explore the issue frequently, bringing insight and awareness. Have comics lost something by white washing it from the medium? In ignoring the crime do we disavow the victims? Is there a responsible way to address and explore the issue of sexual assault in mainstream comics? And if there is not then perhaps it is our responsibility to find one.
Book Reviews by Christopher Maverick
The Journal of Comics & Culture, 2019
Winston Churchill once said, "History is written by the victors." Or maybe he didn't. The quote i... more Winston Churchill once said, "History is written by the victors." Or maybe he didn't. The quote is often attributed to him, despite the fact that it appears in other print sources prior to World War II and Churchill's appointment to the office of British Prime Minister. However, apocryphal it may be, the attribution of the quote to Churchill in many ways illustrates the point that he-or whoever the originator is-was trying to make. We view war through the historical lens of the victorious side, or at the very least through the lens of our current cultural ideology applied to the conflict of the past. The majority of our memoirs of World War II focus on the lives and actions of soldiers in the Allied Forces and the civilian victims of the Holocaust. Unsurprisingly, given the atrocities committed by the Axis, relatively few narratives focus on the experiences of the participants on the losing side. However, war is a complicated subject and regardless of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, these participants were human beings with very real fears, emotions and lives. Two recent graphic novels published by Dead Reckoning attempt to explore these lives and do the difficult work of humanizing them without valorizing them.
Journal of American Culture, 2019
Book review of Jessica Jones, Scarred Superhero.
ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies
Books by Christopher Maverick
Adapting Superman: Essays on the Transmedia Man of Steel, 2021
The Ages of the Black Panther: Essays on the King of Wakanda in Comic Books, 2020
A cultural Analysis of the brief point in Marvel Comics history when creators attempted to avoid ... more A cultural Analysis of the brief point in Marvel Comics history when creators attempted to avoid addressing contemporary racial politics by changing the name of the company's preeminent African superhero, the Black Panther, to the Black Leopard so as to avoid association with the American political party of the same time while paradoxically tying the character even more deeply to the struggle against South African apartheid in the 1970s.
Thesis Chapters by Christopher Maverick
Since the 1938 introduction of Superman, superheroes have been ever-present in American popular c... more Since the 1938 introduction of Superman, superheroes have been ever-present in American popular culture. Indeed, with the modern preponderance of comic book movies dominating the American cinematic box-office, superhero fantasy is arguably the most important genre of fiction being produced in the contemporary moment. Peter Coogan, Kurt Busiek and many other scholars have discussed the prominence and relevance of the superhero fantasy as a genre. Still others, including Umberto Eco and Marco Arnaudo, have asserted that the superhero is not so much a genre and as it is the evolution of mythology. In Sex and the Superman, I argue that the superhero fantasy is in truth more than myth; the superhero fantasy is the monomyth. That is to say that over the course of the twentieth century, the superhero fantasy has replaced Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey as the dominant template for epic allegorical storytelling in America.
I trace the evolution of the superhero monomyth from its beginnings as a rough set of genre conventions and tropes into its current matured form as an established thematic paradigm. I theorize that the superhero monomyth creates a malleable template for seeking social justice that is only vaguely defined but can be articulated through performance of masculine violence and feminine sexuality in a kind of exchange economy as the building blocks of heroic narrative. First, I distinguish the superhero fantasy genre from the superhero monomyth and then speak to the ways in which each reflects and informs the other. I then analyze the thematic paradigm that constructs the superhero monomyth and the ways in which it has evolved from but remains distinct from earlier incarnations of the monomyth. I further examine the evolution of the monomyth as it responded to changes in conceptions of gender, race, class and youth culture over the middle of the twentieth century. Finally, I theorize that the superhero monomyth has become the dominant template for heroic storytelling across media and genres. In doing so it creates a framework for how we consider the very construction of gender in social contexts especially in relationship to social justice.
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Papers by Christopher Maverick
DC Comics' 2016 animated adaptation of 1988’s Batman: The Killing Joke set off an Internet fervor over the glamorization of sexual violence in comics. Similarly, fans were outraged when DC solicited a commemorative cover that referenced the event for Batgirl #41 in 2015. The cover was eventually pulled. While increased concern by both fans and creators over the problem of rape and sexual assault as well as the objectification of women is commendable, perhaps downplaying the issue is the wrong solution.
Other popular media frequently address the issue. Television shows like Law & Order: SVU and Game of Thrones feature rape and its aftermath as major plot points. It is a driving narrative behind films like Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Room, and The Accused. Yet, very few rapes and sexual assaults actually occur in mainstream comics. Barbara Gordon is likely the most famous survivor. The events of The Killing Joke may be disturbing. Some may argue that it is a prime example of Women In Refrigerator Syndrome. But the story, its aftermath and her subsequent transformation from Batgirl into Oracle present one of the very few survivors tales of the superhero world. And yet, the film adaptation was still commonly critiqued as reducing her even further into a sexual object — And with good reason. In many ways, Barbara is the least significant character in the story. The focus on Batman, Joker and her father arguably reduce her to a nearly insignificant bystander in a story that should by all rights be the most traumatic event in her life.
Have comics lost something by white washing rape from the medium? In ignoring the crime do we disavow the victims? Is there a responsible way to address and explore the issue of sexual assault in mainstream comics? And if there is not then perhaps it is our responsibility to find one. Can we read this narrative, and the relative few other survivors' tales like Marvel’s Alias, as more than the thoughtless objectification of women? Can comics deal with sexual crime? Or must we be content to wipe it all away?
Book Reviews by Christopher Maverick
Books by Christopher Maverick
Thesis Chapters by Christopher Maverick
I trace the evolution of the superhero monomyth from its beginnings as a rough set of genre conventions and tropes into its current matured form as an established thematic paradigm. I theorize that the superhero monomyth creates a malleable template for seeking social justice that is only vaguely defined but can be articulated through performance of masculine violence and feminine sexuality in a kind of exchange economy as the building blocks of heroic narrative. First, I distinguish the superhero fantasy genre from the superhero monomyth and then speak to the ways in which each reflects and informs the other. I then analyze the thematic paradigm that constructs the superhero monomyth and the ways in which it has evolved from but remains distinct from earlier incarnations of the monomyth. I further examine the evolution of the monomyth as it responded to changes in conceptions of gender, race, class and youth culture over the middle of the twentieth century. Finally, I theorize that the superhero monomyth has become the dominant template for heroic storytelling across media and genres. In doing so it creates a framework for how we consider the very construction of gender in social contexts especially in relationship to social justice.
DC Comics' 2016 animated adaptation of 1988’s Batman: The Killing Joke set off an Internet fervor over the glamorization of sexual violence in comics. Similarly, fans were outraged when DC solicited a commemorative cover that referenced the event for Batgirl #41 in 2015. The cover was eventually pulled. While increased concern by both fans and creators over the problem of rape and sexual assault as well as the objectification of women is commendable, perhaps downplaying the issue is the wrong solution.
Other popular media frequently address the issue. Television shows like Law & Order: SVU and Game of Thrones feature rape and its aftermath as major plot points. It is a driving narrative behind films like Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Room, and The Accused. Yet, very few rapes and sexual assaults actually occur in mainstream comics. Barbara Gordon is likely the most famous survivor. The events of The Killing Joke may be disturbing. Some may argue that it is a prime example of Women In Refrigerator Syndrome. But the story, its aftermath and her subsequent transformation from Batgirl into Oracle present one of the very few survivors tales of the superhero world. And yet, the film adaptation was still commonly critiqued as reducing her even further into a sexual object — And with good reason. In many ways, Barbara is the least significant character in the story. The focus on Batman, Joker and her father arguably reduce her to a nearly insignificant bystander in a story that should by all rights be the most traumatic event in her life.
Have comics lost something by white washing rape from the medium? In ignoring the crime do we disavow the victims? Is there a responsible way to address and explore the issue of sexual assault in mainstream comics? And if there is not then perhaps it is our responsibility to find one. Can we read this narrative, and the relative few other survivors' tales like Marvel’s Alias, as more than the thoughtless objectification of women? Can comics deal with sexual crime? Or must we be content to wipe it all away?
I trace the evolution of the superhero monomyth from its beginnings as a rough set of genre conventions and tropes into its current matured form as an established thematic paradigm. I theorize that the superhero monomyth creates a malleable template for seeking social justice that is only vaguely defined but can be articulated through performance of masculine violence and feminine sexuality in a kind of exchange economy as the building blocks of heroic narrative. First, I distinguish the superhero fantasy genre from the superhero monomyth and then speak to the ways in which each reflects and informs the other. I then analyze the thematic paradigm that constructs the superhero monomyth and the ways in which it has evolved from but remains distinct from earlier incarnations of the monomyth. I further examine the evolution of the monomyth as it responded to changes in conceptions of gender, race, class and youth culture over the middle of the twentieth century. Finally, I theorize that the superhero monomyth has become the dominant template for heroic storytelling across media and genres. In doing so it creates a framework for how we consider the very construction of gender in social contexts especially in relationship to social justice.