Differential–Surface: Deleuze and Superhero Comics

Joshua M. Hall
Gilles Deleuze’s explicit and self-conscious entanglements with the arts are well-known,
especially his particular obsession with cinema. And as multiple theorists of the emerging
interdisciplinary field of comics studies have observed, there is a close connection between
comics and the cinema.1 More specifically, it is often argued that the comics, as an artform
consisting of a sequence of (textual and pictorial) images, is actually both a literal and
conceptual precursor of the cinema – in that cinema merely takes the individual panels of the
comic book and then animates them using the camera. Consequently, it would seem that Deleuze
and comics would almost of necessity have at least something to say to – and create with – each
other. There is of course a tremendous variety within the medium of comic books, but following
Deleuze and Guattari’s suggestion (in the Introduction to A Thousand Plateaus) that there is
something ‘special’ about the United States, I will focus on the classic comic book as it has
developed there.2 More importantly, it is in the U.S. the superhero genre has been most popular
and widespread, and I will argue forthwith that there is something special indeed about this
genre in relation to Deleuze’s thought. In short, it is in its resonances with comic books that
Deleuze’s philosophy most vividly shows itself to be a form of literature. Finally, and of
particular importance for this special edition of Transnational Literature, my analyses will reveal
distinct philosophical (super)powers of concept-creation in the forms of superhero comics
themselves (which Deleuze may have unconsciously harnessed in the development of his own
concepts).
The first section of this essay, using the recently-published first textbook for comic studies
(entitled The Power of Comics: History, Form, Culture), will begin with a brief description of
the essential points of both the form of the comic book (or graphic novel) in general, and also the
singular content of the superhero genre in particular.3 I will suggest that the central formal
concepts of relevance to Deleuze's work are the panel, the gutter and closure; and that the central
content-ful concepts are myth, powers, masks and states of grace. The second section of this
essay will then explore what Deleuze would term ‘resonances’ among each of the above-
mentioned (formal and content-ful) concepts in Deleuze’s thinking, and more specifically from
his second ‘independent’ book, The Logic of Sense. The concepts pertaining to comics form will
include series, the Stoic image, and the empty space/occupant without a place. The concepts
pertaining to superhero content will include event, incorporeal effects, phantasms, ideal games,
the heroic Hercules (with his staff and cloak) and the thunderbolt. Additionally, one could export
these concept inherent in comic books to non-comic analogues in the world. For example, one

1
See, for example, Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary
Cartoonist (New York: Norton, 2008), 5; and Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York:
HarperCollins, 1994), 212.
2
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guiattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi
(Minneapolis: Minnesota, 1987), 19.
3
The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture, ed. Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith (New York:
Bloomsbury, 2009).

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could analyze the invisibility of social injustice to entitled members of society as resulting from
the migration of those truths to the ‘gutter’ of our society/cultural imagination.
Before I begin, however, a quick word about methodology. Most English-language Deleuze
scholars have, arguably, thus far have tended to neglect the humor, playfulness and irreverence
that pervade his work and are manifested in his recorded interviews.4 And given that, for three of
many possible examples, (a) Deleuze’s philosophical heroes were Spinoza the heretic and the
irrepressibly-funny Nietzsche, (b) Deleuze wrote a book connecting the Stoics to Lewis Carroll’s
‘Alice in Wonderland,’ and (c) Deleuze once compared his own philosophy to surfing, this
neglect strikes me particularly problematic. In an attempt to revive this spirit of irreverent
playfulness, then, my method in this essay is inspired by Deleuze’s concept, from Difference and
Repetition, of the ‘dark precursor’ that causes two separate ‘series’ to ‘resonate’ together, his
(non-)image for which is the invisible connection that races from the ground to the cloud
immediately before the lightning bolt returns along that path down from the cloud to the
ground.5
In other words, I am trying in this essay to apply Deleuze’s own playful method on his own
work, to – in his terms – create a dark precursor of my own, in order to establish resonances
between the series of Deleuze’s text and the series of comic books and the secondary literature
on them. This is also one of the reasons that I approach these texts in the form of a sequential,
literary ‘reading.’ Ultimately, of course, if the reader is willing to try this experiment of reading
Deleuze – who describe his own readings of philosophers, problematically, as ‘buggering’ them
in order to cause them to give birth to ‘monsters’ – in a Deleuzian fashion (albeit, I hope, less
problematically), I would ask that s/he evaluate the results of this experiment according to
whether or not, by the end, s/he sees a new lightning bolt about to strike the ground, or perhaps
at least feels the tingling sensation of its immanent arrival. And if it does flash, the credit must
go in part to the distinctive powers of comics to philosophise with lightness and humor (along
with related media such as fantasy role-playing games, and time travel science fiction films).6

I. Superheroes’ Comic Forms and Content

The first relevant point in Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith’s The Power of Comics is that
comic books constitute their own unique artform, which is a sub-category of the category of
sequential art, the latter of which is distinguished from other forms of visual art by focusing on
story-telling. Aside from the obvious example of comic books, other members of this sub-
category, according to the authors, include ‘cave paintings, Grecian urns, tapestries, stained glass
windows’ and more.7 Each is said to involve, as its basic unit of storytelling, the panel, defined

4
For one important interview, see L’abécédiare de Gilles Deleuze. And for several examples of what Nietzsche
would call “the spirit of gravity” in Deleuze scholarship, see Deleuze: The Difference Engineer, ed. Keith Ansell-
Pearson (New York: Routledge, 1997).
5
For more on this concept, see Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1995), 119.
6
For more on time travel cinema in connection to philosophy, and Deleuze’s philosophy in particular, see Joshua
M. Hall, “Time-Travel-Image: Gilles Deleuze on Science Fiction Film,” Journal of Aesthetic Education
(forthcoming).
7
The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture, ed. Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith (New York:
Continuum, 2009), 3.
2

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Transnational Literature Vol. 7 no. 2, May 2015. Special feature on Philosophy and Literature.
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as ‘a discernible area that contains a moment of the story.’8 And this means that the panel is an
essentially fluid and variable unit, given that the size, shape, contents, and interrelationships of
panels in the artforms enumerated above vary considerably. A panel could also be said to
correspond to the single frame of the cinema, which is the basic unit that Deleuze begins with in
his analyses in Cinema 1: The Movement-Image.9
Moreover, in terms of comic books’ philosophical powers, the phenomenon of the panel
enables them to resist the tendency, in exclusively written-language philosophy, of visually
homogenizing each concept into an apparent isomorphism of structure and importance. Instead,
comics can dramatise individual concepts, their relationships, and their ecologies (using the
different sizes, shapes and interrelationships of the frames). Put briefly, comics, properly
utilised, could facilitate more heterogeneous concept geography, thus mirroring the unavoidably
heterogeneous varieties of our worlds.
Having elaborated the characteristics of the genus to which comic books belong, Duncan and
Smith are then prepared to give the comic book its classical genus-differentia definition: ‘a
volume in which all aspects of the narrative are represented by pictorial and linguistic images
encapsulated in a sequence of juxtaposed panels and pages.’10 Notice here that the basic
ontological unit is the image, which is the same unit that Bergson deploys in Matter and
Memory, inspiring Deleuze to do the same in Cinema 1 and Cinema 2. Furthermore, the image is
characterised as being both visible and legible, which characteristic Bergson and Deleuze also
attribute to the image. Narrative, in turn, Duncan and Smith then define as ‘an account of an
event or a series of events.’11 Here, then, one finds one of the central concepts in the whole of
Deleuze’s philosophy – the event – and of singular importance, as I will show below, in The
Logic of Sense.
Zooming back out to the level of comics’ powers in general, these imagistic and evental
qualities facilitate comics’ illumination of temporality, historicity, change and process – which
could be especially useful in philosophizing about phenomena in which these characteristics are
essential (such as the rise of a political movement, or the diminishing respect afforded to a given
scientific model in the wake of massive technological changes).
Returning to Duncan and Smith, they also observe that these narratives at the base of the
comic book are actually re-spliced narratives taken from the medium of the newspaper comic
strips – one might say differential repetitions of that other medium. There are important
differences that emerge in this borrowing, however, including a different method of
‘encapsulation,’ defined as ‘the selection of key moments in action.12 More specifically, ‘though
there might be sharing of vocabulary, each is a medium with its own language.’13 Paraphrased
slightly, the claim appears to be that there is a shared semantics, but a different syntax.
Having defined the comic book initially in reference to the genre of sequential art in general,
and having further clarified the issue by reference to the sister species of comic strips, Duncan

8
Comics 3.
9
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (Minneapolis:
Minnesota, 1986), 12.
10
Comics 4.
11
Comics 4.
12
Comics 5.
13
Comics 6.
3

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and Smith make a second beginning to the task, this time borrowing the rhetoric of information
theory. ‘Comic books,’ they now claim, ‘are acts of communication.’14 This emphasis on activity
and on communication also resonates strongly with Deleuze’s emphasis on action and
communication. As acts of communication, comic books can be understood as being composed
of various ‘sources’ including writers and artists, ‘gatekeepers’ including editors and
corporations, ‘encoded messages’ including story and encapsulation, ‘delivery’ including
distributors and retail stores, and ‘decoded messages’ including the cognitive and affective
reactions of the comic book readers.15 Importantly for its connection to Deleuze, then, comic
book theory is going to involve economic and political analyses as well as formal ones. Such
political and economic analyses are also necessary, therefore, in thinking through the process by
which comic creators’ philosophical work may be inflected, distorted, and actively suppressed,
between the artist’s drawing board and the comic book retailers’ shelves.
Zooming in on the level of encoded messages, and more specifically the final level of
encapsulation, called ‘composing,’ one finds more of the formal properties unique to the
medium of comic books. Duncan and Smith begin by comparing-contrasting this phenomenon in
comics and in the theater/cinema, thereby buttressing the connection between comic books and
Deleuze-via-film. ‘Most of the mise-en-scéne elements present on stage or screen –,’ they
explain, ‘color, lighting, distance, angle, movement, setting, and décor – can be depicted in a
comic book panel.’16 Even more interesting, though, and in support of my Deleuze-comics
linkage, are the following four elements of composition, unique to the comic book medium:

First, variations in the shape of the frame can affect the meaning of what is framed.
Second, the expressive potential of lines means that the brush strokes with which a picture
is inked can create affective and/or cognitive reactions to an image. Third, any sound that
is introduced into a comic book story has to visual and is therefore an element of
composition. Fourth, comic books must effectively blend words and pictures.17

I will now attempt to elaborate the superiorities of comic books to the cinema that these four
factors suggest in terms of serving as a vehicle and creative force – not just for Deleuze’s
philosophy – but also for any original philosophical content of its own, as endowed by its human
creators.
First, the comic book panel is much more flexible and variable than the screen onto which the
film image is projected, thus allowing it to express and produce much more difference than its
cinematic counterpart. Second, the use of human brushstrokes (as opposed to the photographic
perfection of the camera) also allows for much greater diversity and multiplicity of images.
Third, the collapsing of sound into visual images aligns better with Deleuze’s monism in
particular than non-silent films (as perhaps indicated by the awkward and parenthetical place of
sound in the Cinema volumes). And fourth, the word/picture blending goes even farther than the
imagery of cinema to dethrone verbal language from its fascistic position vis-à-vis other forms

14
Comics 7.
15
Comics 7.
16
Comics 10.
17
Comics 10.
4

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Transnational Literature Vol. 7 no. 2, May 2015. Special feature on Philosophy and Literature.
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of language, expression and communication. This final point is perhaps of the greatest
philosophical significance (of the four), since a perennial problem in Western philosophy has
been how to accurately depict (and positively impact) a meta-verbal world using exclusively
verbal language. Put positively, comic books are able to generate philosophical concepts which –
like the world to which they refer – are a blend of the verbal and the visual.
Zooming back out to the model of information-theory, and then zooming in to the ‘decoded
message’ level, one finds another major resonance with Deleuze’s work. ‘The receiver [i.e.,
reader] performs closure between the encapsulated moments in order to create a completed
whole out of fragments.’18 This is perhaps the most important superiority of comic books to film
as Deleuzian artform. Instead of the camera combining the frames into one overarching,
uniform, and apparently seamless and continuous whole, the eye of each reader does this, in an
infinite number of different ways for different eyes/readers, at the level of the virtual. No two
repetitions of the comic book reading experience are identical, and there are only open-ended
wholes, imaginatively constructed. This also suggests another philosophical power of the comic
book medium, namely to preserve the idiosyncrasies of the philosopher against standardization,
specifically by multiplying the original idiosyncrasies in the mind of each reader who performs
this philosophical closure.
My next analyses will focus primarily on a separate chapter in The Power of Comics devoted
to the superhero genre in particular, but I begin with two significant moments from an earlier
chapter, entitled ‘Creating the Story.’ There, Duncan and Smith borrow the concept of
‘proliferating narrative’ from literary theorist Marie-Laure Ryan to describe the most common
type of narrative for comic books. This is in contrast to (a) ‘simple narrative,’ in which there is
one event enacted and resolved; (b) ‘complex narrative’ which includes ‘backstory, character
development, and ongoing subplots’; (c) ‘antinarrative,’ in which ‘narrative elements’ ‘do not fit
together to form a comprehensible story’; and (d) ‘braided narrativity,’ as found in, for example,
a typical soap opera.19 Quoting Ryan, the authors explain that in this latter type of narrative, ‘the
main plot functions mostly as support for the telling of adventures and anecdotes (Ryan 373).’20
Duncan and Smith describe this ‘braided narrativity’ as, ‘not so much a story as it is a mythos.’21
And this emphasis on proliferation, and the implication that the story is always in the middle,
reminds one of Deleuze’s concept of the rhizome from A Thousand Plateaus.22 Secondly, this
‘Creating the Story’ chapter introduces, for the first time, comic creator Neil Gaiman’s concept
of the ‘state of grace,’ which Duncan and Smith describe as ‘a set of powers, appearance,
supporting characters, and behaviors that are preserved in a recognizable form for the economic
interests of the corporation that owns the character,’ which phrase can also be found in
Deleuze’s Logic of the Sense.23 Note, from Duncan and Smith’s articulation, the emphasis on
power, appearance, behavior-qua-separate-from-individuals, and economics – all four of which
are critical for Deleuze’s thought.

18
Comics 12, emphasis original.
19
Comics 129.
20
Comics 130.
21
Comics 130.
22
See, for example, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota, 1987), 3-25.
23
Comics 131.
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Transnational Literature Vol. 7 no. 2, May 2015. Special feature on Philosophy and Literature.
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 I turn now to the chapter of The Power of Comics entitled ‘Comic Book Genres: The
Superhero Genre.’ It begins by noting the distinctly mythic-American source of the superhero:
‘Even the superhero’s penchant for individual initiative, and “regeneration through violence” has
always been engrained in the American mythos (Mark Nevins, 27; Early 71).’24 At the level of
direct (as opposed to symbolic) causation, Duncan and Smith reference scholar Peter Coogan’s
claim that ‘the earliest comic book superheroes were derived from three primary streams of
adventure-narrative figures: the science-fiction superman, the pulp magazine übermensch, and
the dual-identity vigilante.’25 Science fiction has long been a predominantly U.S. genre, the pulp
magazine is an entirely U.S. invention, and the dual-identity vigilante too has arguably achieved
its peak popularity here (in figures like the Lone Ranger and the Shadow).
Turning to specific and famous superheroes, Duncan and Smith claim that Superman, for one,
‘is the culmination of all three [of these] traditions,’ and Batman, for another, ‘looks to have
been inspired by a number of pulp magazine adventure-heroes.’26
The next section of this superhero chapter is further divided into subsections devoted to the
following four conventions of the superhero genre: ‘character types, themes, narrative patterns,
and visual conventions.’27 I will now consider each of these subsections in turn. In the first,
under ‘character types,’ Duncan and Smith define three ‘key elements,’ namely, ‘mission,
powers, and identity.’28 They define powers as ‘fantastic abilities or skills far superior to those of
ordinary humans.’29 The description continues as follows:

Part of the appeal of superheroes, and one of the reasons they have always worked better
on printed paper than in any other medium, is that many of the powers, such as shooting
energy beams from their eyes or lightning bolts from their fingertips, make for an exciting
visual display on the page.30

To relate this back to Deleuze, note first that the emphasis is on the appearance, or superficial
indicators, of the hero’s powers, more so than on the powers themselves. Second, the lightning
bolt is a recurring and central image throughout Deleuze’s writings.31
In the second subsection, which deals with superhero ‘themes,’ and begins by noting that
‘What makes these protagonists heroic is not their power, but their persistence,’ as the superhero
‘is often the underdog’ and is ‘often beaten in the first encounter with a supervillain,’ and yet,
finally, ‘always return to the fray.’32 Also in sympathy with the creator of the nomadic war-

24
Comics 222.
25
Comics 222.
26
Comics 223, 224.
27
Comics 226.
28
Comics 226.
29
Comics 227.
30
Comics 227.
31
See, for example, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy?, (New York: Columbia, 1994), 38, 48,
55; Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, (New York: Continuum, 2004), 36, 144, 156, 240, 345; Gilles
Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy (New York Continuum, 2005), x, 165, 166; Gilles Deleuze, Essays Critical and
Clinical , trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco (New York: Verso, 1998), 83, 88, 130, 134, 200; and here,
perhaps significantly, in the very last paragraph of LS (249).
32
Comics 227.
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Transnational Literature Vol. 7 no. 2, May 2015. Special feature on Philosophy and Literature.
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machine (which itself, incidentally, sounds like a character of trope from a superhero comic
book), superheroes ‘teach the lesson that justice is more important than law,’ and are thereby
‘essentially outlaws.’33
Third, the ‘narrative patterns’ subsection returns to the image of the lightning flash by nothing
that ‘superpowers are often acquired in a flash of lightning.’34 Thus, it is not just the stylised
representation of the superhero’s powers (such as a lightning flash to represent an energy beam)
but also the originary transformation of the superhero that partakes of an evental quality. This
subsection also returns to Gaiman’s ‘state of grace’ concept, noting that it is also deployed by
comics theorist Mark Singer. Duncan and Smith’s example in this instance, using the example of
the Marvel superhero called ‘Hulk’, is ‘‘Hulkness’ – a huge green guy in purple pants who gets
stronger as he becomes angry.’35 A reader of Deleuze might be reminded here of the infinitive
form of the event, the most frequent example of which in Deleuze, ironically, is ‘to green.’ One
could generalise this point for comics’ philosophical powers in general by saying that comics
can ‘infinitise’ concepts more naturally and easily than traditional philosophical media (like
journal articles). That is, comics can take concepts to their logical extremes by stripping them
more completely of their associations with specific individuals (and the latters’ identity
conditions).
And the fourth subsection, on ‘visual conventions,’ begins by noting the two foundational
conventions, namely ‘detailed musculature’ and ‘dynamic movement.’36 The first is linked to the
obvious eroticism of the superhero genre, with ‘skintight spandex stretched over impossibly
muscled and improbably proportioned bodies.’37 Monstrosity, dynamism and the pervasiveness
of the sexual are of course all three ‘conventions’ of Delueze’s philosophy as well.
This superhero chapter then concludes with the following apology for the superhero, which
will also serve as a fitting transition to the work of Deleuze, as a kind of superhero of late
twentieth-century continental philosophy: ‘Superhero tales are not so much a fulfillment of a
wish for power as they are an optimistic statement about the future and an act of defiance in the
face of adversity.’38

II. Deleuze’s Super-heroics

Before getting to the actual content of The Logic of Sense, one encounters a Deleuzian
‘resonance’ already in the formal structure of the book, in that it is divided into ‘series’ instead of
chapters, and comic books are of course a serial artform.39 James Williams, in his monograph on
Logic of Sense (hereafter LS) argues that this label is of the utmost importance. ‘Though the
series follow on from one another in some key ways, and though in some sense the series are all
connected, they also operate independently of the order they are presented in.’40 This is also true,

33
Comics 231.
34
Comics 232.
35
Comics 234.
36
Comics 235.
37
Comics 235.
38
Comics 243.
39
I am indebted for this insight to my friend and Deleuze scholar Christopher Davies.
40
James Williams, Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense: A Critical Introduction and Guide (Edinburgh: Edinburg UP,
2008), 15.
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of course, for comic books, since the numerical ordering of their issues does not preclude (either
in theory or practice) a reader from starting right in the middle. One is also reminded in this
passage of The Power of Comics’ theory of proliferating narrativity.
Turning to the actual content LS, the first formal resonance one encounters there appears as
early as the first page of the Preface. It has do with one of the two primary sources for the book,
namely Stoic philosophy (the other primary source being the work of Lewis Carroll), and more
specifically that the exceptional contribution from this school of philosophy can be encapsulated
in an image. ‘The privileged place assigned to the Stoics is due to their having been the initiators
of a new image of the philosopher which broke away from the pre-Socratics, Socratic
philosophy, and Platonism’ (xiii-xiv). Now, obviously the Stoic philosophers produced
philosophy, and philosophy is produced primarily in written language. Therefore, the nature of
one of the two primary inspirations for Deleuze’s book coincides with the formal uniqueness of
comic books – namely the interdependency or interpenetration of words and images (one might
add at the same ontological and/or discursive level). In other words, both (Deleuze’s version of)
the Stoics and comic books in general achieve their art by combining linguistic and pictorial
images. Moreover, Deleuze closes his Preface by going so far as to describe LS as an ‘attempt’
at a kind of ‘novel’ composed of various ‘figures,’ and a functional synonym for the comic book
is the graphic novel, which also tells its story with recourse to various kinds of figures (including
superheroes) (xiv).
LS’s first series, entitled ‘of Paradoxes of Pure Becoming,’ opens by establishing Deleuze’s
concern with the event, and I have already observed the centrality of the event in the form of the
comic book (1). The second series, ‘of Surface Effects,’ introduces an emphasis on the surface as
the locus or topos of the event, which resonates with the essentially two-dimensional form of the
comic book (6). Deleuze elaborates on these surface events in terms of surface-effects, and notes
that they are ‘effects in the causal sense, but also sonorous, optical, or linguistic “effects’,’ and
comic book surfaces, too, can be analyzed into representations of visual, auditory and linguistic
phenomena (typically represented by images, onomatopoeia, and word/thought balloons,
respectively) (7). Moreover, this surface-emphasis recurs throughout LS, particularly in the
seventeenth series, where he claims (a) that the surface ‘is the product of the actions and
passions of the body (like a comic book surface produced by the actions of both ‘external’
creator-bodies and ‘internal’ fiction-bodies); (b) that ‘a surface energy, without even being of the
surface, is due to every surface formation; and from it a fictitious surface tension arises as a
force exerting itself on the plane of the surface’; and finally, (c) that ‘[s]ense is that which is
deployed at the surface’ (124-125).
This second series in LS also introduces the important connection between the surface-event
and humor, which evokes the etymological basis of the ‘comic’ book, so called because of its
origin in political satire cartoons, and on a broader level, the predominantly silly, happy, positive
content and narrative structure of most comic books. ‘Humor,’ Deleuze writes, ‘is the art of the
surface’ (9). In this connection, he also references the near two-dimensionality of the famous
‘card figures’ from Carroll’s Alice stories, and one could fairly describe all comic book
characters as (physically/metaphysically) of necessity card figures (9). Finally from this series,
Deleuze invokes ‘the strip,’ reminiscent of the comic strip (from which the comic book, at least

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in one sense, derives) (although Deleuze had in mind, instead, the Möbius strip, i.e. a continuous
surface that has only one side, since he invokes it explicitly later in LS).41
Finally, in the eighth series, ‘of Structure,’ Deleuze returns to an earlier line of thinking,
wherein there is a strange object or paradoxical element or ‘differentiator,’ which is
simultaneously (on one series) ‘an extremely mobile empty space’ and (on a second series) ‘a
rapidly moving object, an occupant without a place, always supernumerary and displaced’ (41).
And this eighth series concludes with the claim that ‘there is no structure without the empty
square, which makes everything function’ (51). I would suggest that the empty square is like
what is termed in comic books the ‘gutter,’ or the white space between and around individual
panels. And the nomadic occupant is like each panel itself, always moving on, always in a sense
restless against the disjointed background of the gutter/empty white page. The first series would
be constituted of all the blank white pages and gutters, and the second series would be
constituted by the totality of the panels.
If the reader finds the number of resonances between LS and comic book form in the
preceding subsection underwhelming, I expect that the plenitude of examples regarding LS and
the superhero genre (which has nevertheless many important connections to form, largely
because the superhero genre has been far and away the most popular) will be reassuring, and
perhaps even overpowering. I begin again with part of the extra-textual structure of LS (in this
case a definition of one of the words from the book’s title), before returning to the beginning of
LS in order to proceed with a kind of differential repetition of my previous section (of comic
book form).
Regarding the title of LS, James Williams’ critical guide offers a definition of the concept
‘sense’ as ‘the alteration in the intensity of relations of series of infinitives’ and then offers the
example of ‘“He is green” alters the relation of “to green”, “to blunder’ and “to excuse” when
state about a particular new recruit.’42 Similarly, one could understand the sense or expression of
the comic book – in its (dominant) superhero incarnation – as alternation in the intensities of
relations of series of infinities of superpowers such as ‘to fly,’ ‘to become invisible,’ ‘to become
super-strong’ and ‘to read another’s thoughts,’ as dramatised by the conflicts among beings
(such as ‘Superman,’ ‘Invisible Woman,’ ‘the Hulk,’ and ‘Professor X,’ respectively), who have
been constituted as singular by being the sites of those infinitives. To put it in Deluezian
terminology, the superhero comic book is a kind of ‘plane of immanence’ on which are deployed
a variety of events or ‘lines of flight’ defined as pure differences.
The first superhero content resonance that one encounters in the text of LS itself is found on
the first page of the Preface (as was also true, the reader might recall, with the first resonance
with comic book form), and that resonance is that LS is a book about an author of speculative
fiction (Lewis Carroll). (It seems to me that classifying superhero comic books as a subgenre of
speculative fiction is uncontroversial, given that fantasy and science fiction are already
acknowledges subgenres, and it is from them that superhero narratives of comic books draw
most extensively for their material).
In LS’s first ‘series,’ Deleuze emphasises how, in Lewis Carroll’s fiction, the character
‘Alice’ becomes both larger and smaller at the same time; and this ability to change size is a

41
Comics 123.
42
Williams 50.
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frequent superpower in superhero comics (as for example with the Hulk, who gets much larger
when he transforms from Bruce Banner, and Ant-man, who gets much smaller). Moreover, given
Deleuze’s paradoxical observation that ‘it is at the same time that one becomes larger than one
was and smaller than one becomes,’ it seems that it is, in a (non-Deleuzian) manner of speaking,
the instant of becoming – the moment that transforms the normal body into the extraordinary –
that Deleuze is isolating; and this is arguably the paradigmatic moment of the superhero (1).
Speaking of (secret) identities, moreover, Deleuze then goes on to talk about how Alice’s
identity and her proper name are both disrupted, or come into question, as a result of her
transformative experiences. And the classic use of secret identities and alter egos seem like a
classic case of this.43 ‘All these reversals appear in infinite identity have one consequence: the
contesting of Alice’s personal identity and the loss of her proper name’ (3). Infinite identity also
seems a fitting turn of phrase for the identity of the kind of beings who inhabit a fictional world
defined above by ‘proliferating narrativity’; that is, superheroes are those beings whose role in
proliferating narratives grants them a kind of infinite identity. The take-home points from the
first series, therefore, seems to be that (a) Carroll’s ‘Alice’ can be thought of as a kind of
superhero, and, more importantly, (b) literal superheroes (such as ‘Spiderman’ could perhaps
serve equally well (if not better) than Alice as examples/illuminations of Deleuze’s conception
of identity.
LS’s second ‘series’ offers five distinctive new resonances between Deleuze and superheroes.
First, its emphasis on incorporeal entities – ‘not physical qualities and properties, but rather
logical or dialectical attributes’ – also finds a strong resonance in the world of superhero comic
books, particularly (again) with regard to the superhero’s powers, whose sources, structure,
techniques, applications, etc. are often of an incorporeal nature (4-5). Consider, for example,
telepathic and telekinetic powers, which are a mainstay of the genre. Secondly, this series also
introduces the concept of ‘extra-Being,’ which would be one appropriate way of talking about
the being that is characteristic of superheroes in general (as compared with the being
characteristic of ordinary human beings) (7). Thirdly, this second series valorises surface-ness or
superficiality per se, which is in marked contrast to the stereotypical denouncing of the
superficiality of comic books (7-11). In other words, perhaps the superficiality (in, perhaps,
various senses of the word) of comic books is a resource that needs to be tapped into and
explored for philosophical insight into Deleuze’s thought. Fourthly, and most important from
this series for my purposes, the concept of ‘phantasm,’ of pivotal importance later in the book, is
here introduced, specifically as more or less a synonym for ‘surface effects.’
The OED defines a phantasm as (1a) ‘illusion; deceptive appearance’; (1b) ‘a thing or being
which apparently exists but is not real; a hallucination or vision; a figment of the imagination; an
illusion’; (2a) ‘An apparition, spirit, or ghost; a visible but incorporeal being.’ All of these
elements remind one of the comic book superhero as well. Fifth, and finally, this series speaks of
the how the ‘most concealed becomes the most manifest’ in the form of ‘a new youthfulness –
transmutation’ (8). This un-concealment could be related to the artificial means of making

43
There is an interesting analysis of how issues of identity intersect with moral and legal judgments, in an essay
called “Questions of Identity: Is the Hulk the Same Person as Bruce Banner?” by Kevin Kinghorn, in the anthology
Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way, ed. Tom Morris and Matt Morris (Chicago:
Open Court, 2005), 223-236.
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manifest invisible powers (such as telepathy represented by colored lines emanating from a
telepath’s forehead) or to the superhero identity emerging from the hiddenness of her secret
identity. And the youthfulness of transmutation seems particularly apt for one of the most
popular superhero comics in U.S. history, namely the ‘X-men,’ a group of (initially) teenagers
defending human society by utilizing special powers granted them by various genetic mutations.
LS’s fifteenth series, like its second series, is a veritable powerhouse of superhero resonances,
and thus also deserves extended attention here. First, Deleuze claims that ‘the battle’ is ‘the
Event in its essence,’ and near-perpetual combat has always constituted the heart of the
superhero genre (100). Second, he writes of that which ‘leaps from one singularity to another,’
which reminds one of the many superheroes (such as ‘Spider-Man’) for whom leaping is an
essential trait/power (107). Third, he defines ‘this new discourse’ of events and singularities as
dealing with (in contrast to ‘the form’ and ‘the formless’) ‘the pure unformed’ which might
remind the reader again of the colorful representations of energy-discharge powers (107). This
connection is buttressed by the following sentence, which refers back to Nietzsche’s thought on
monstrosity, followed a few sentences later by a reference to the Nietzsche’s ‘Over-man’ or,
more accurately, super-person.
LS’s sixteenth series is similarly rich in resonances, beginning with the idea that singularities
(like superpowers) create individuals (like superheroes), in that they ‘preside over the
constitution of individuals (111). Second, multiple worlds (like multiple superhero series, one or
more for each popular hero/team) ‘appear as instances of solution for one and the same problem’
(and in the superhero case, this problem is almost always how to save the world from super-
villains) (114). In this vein, there have been instances in the superhero genre of multiple
superheroes like the ‘“vague Adam,” that is, a vagabond, an Adam = x common to several
worlds,’ (the most famous instance being DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths series, in which each
Earth has its own Superman) (114). Finally, superheroes are defined by their powers as
‘predicates which define persons synthetically, and open different worlds and individualities to
them as so many variables or possibilities,’ which is reminiscent of Gaiman’s abovementioned
concept of the superhero’s ‘state of grace’ (115).
The importance of the eighteenth series is similar, although in its case primarily due to one
idea/image, and that is ‘the hero of Seneca’s tragedies and of the entire Stoic thought,’ namely
Hercules (131). Hercules, with his superhuman powers, his quasi-divine origin, and his elaborate
missions, is arguably the paradigmatic proto-superhero. According to Deleuze, Hercules fights
monsters both ‘[i]nside the depths’ and ‘in the sky,’ which are common tropes in superhero
narratives (131-132). Moreover, Deleuze considers Hercules’ traditional accoutrements, ‘his
club and lion skin’ as analogues to the ‘staff and mantle’ or ‘reversible cloak’ of the Stoics, and
as necessary complements to the Stoic image of the philosopher alluded to in his Preface (133).
There has been more than one superhero that wore lion skins and carried clubs, and quite a few
who brandish a cloak and staff, so these additional aspects of the Stoic image could be
understood to strengthen its resonance with the comic book superhero.
The twenty-first series deals with ‘becoming a citizen of the world,’ which seems to be the
ultimate aspiration/achievement of almost all of the most popular superheroes (148). (Also
interestingly in this context, in a recent issue of Superman, the titular character renounces his

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U.S. citizenship).44 Moreover, this cosmopolitanism for Deleuze is accomplished by trying ‘not
to be unworthy of what happens to us,’ which is the paradigmatic challenge in the origin story of
the superhero, epitomised in Stan Lee’s dictum (from his Spider-Man comic) that ‘With great
power comes great responsibility.’45 Also significant from the twenty-first series is Deleuze’s
characterization of ‘the actor’ as an ‘anti-god,’ which would make an oft-appropriate descriptor
of various vigilante superheroes (150). Finally in this vein, Deleuze’s description of the
(temporal) present of the actor as ‘the most narrow, the most contracted, the most instantaneous,
and the most punctual’ hearkens back to Umberto Eco’s criticism of the comic book superhero
Superman as existing in a temporality which in-authentically denies the reality of human being-
toward-death.46
The most important work done by the thirtieth series, finally, is to introduce and valorise one
of the (retrospectively) most important concepts of the entire book, and one which offers perhaps
the most direct justification for my entire superhero-based reinterpretation of LS, namely the
‘phantasm’ (210). The three characteristics of the phantasm, according to Deleuze, are that it is
(1) ‘pure event,’ and I have repeatedly shown the centrality of the event for superhero narratives;
(2) it ‘is the movement whereby the ego opens itself up to the surface and liberates the a-cosmic,
impersonal, and pre-individual singularities which it had imprisoned,’ and this could
appropriately describe the transformation of both person-to-superhero and outsider-to-reader;
and (3) it ‘represents the event according to its essence, that is, as a noematic attribute,’ much in
the same way that superhero comics could be understood as foregrounding superpowers (relative
to every other aspect of the narrative/world) (210, 212, 214).

III. Conclusion: Deleuzian Philosophy as Comic Book Literature, or Comics as Philosophy

The primary benefit of the preceding analyses vis-à-vis Deleuze are that they suggests a
concrete, accessible and wildly popular new medium through which to approach his singularly
difficult thought. And the primary benefit from these analyses vis-à-vis comic books is that they
illuminate comic books’ power, complexity, and status as both a mature subgenre of literary art,
and also a productive site of philosophical expression. Consequently, the superhero genre is not
merely a kind of infancy or backwardness for the comic book medium, but instead constitutes
content that is naturally appropriate for that medium's forms, and perhaps even takes those forms
to their highest philosophical development, thereby offering itself to serious philosophers as a
uniquely powerful medium for creating new philosophical concepts.

Joshua M. Hall is currently a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Samford University,

and his recent research includes a co-edited anthology on philosophy’s relationship to the prison
system (Philosophy Imprisoned) and 22 peer-reviewed journal articles (including in Philosophy
and Literature, Southern Literary Journal and Dance Chronicle). His related work in the arts

44
For more, see the following New York Times blog: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/superman-
renounces-his-u-s-citizenship/.
45
Spoken by the narrator in the comic in which the character of Spider-Man debuted, namely Amazing Fantasy
(15), (August, 1962).
46
Umberto Eco, “The Myth of Superman,” in Diacritics (2:1, 1972), 14-22.
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and social justice includes a chapbook collection and 58 poems in literary journals such as
Xavier Review, 20 years’ experience as a dancer/choreographer, and consulting for Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas’ upcoming MTV documentary on race in the
United States.

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Differential-Surface: Deleuze and Superhero Comics. Joshua Hall.

Transnational Literature Vol. 7 no. 2, May 2015. Special feature on Philosophy and Literature.
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