Capitalist Superheroes

The blockbuster superhero movie: popular entertainment or capitalist propaganda? This book investigates the 21st-century superhero's underlying political agenda.

Throughout his films, Christopher Nolan champions the Anglo-American Neo-Liberal world order. Nestled within this order, his characters are free to undergo their ludic creation of little worlds of selfhood.

Hollywood’s live-action superhero films currently dominate the worldwide box-office, with the characters enjoying more notoriety through their feature film and television depictions than they have ever before. This book argues that this immense popularity reveals deep cultural concerns about politics, gender, ethnicity, patriotism and consumerism after the events of 9/11. Superheroes have long been agents of hegemony, fighting for abstract ideals of justice while overall perpetuating the American status quo. Yet at the same time, the book explores how the genre has also been utilized to question and critique these dominant cultural assumptions.

This book argues that “race” and “whiteness” are central to the construction of the modern world. Constructive Theology needs to take them seriously as primary theological problems. In doing so, Constructive Theology must fundamentally change its approach, and draw from the emerging field of Philosophy of Race. Christopher M. Baker develops a genealogy of race that understands “whiteness” as a kind secular soteriology, and develops a counternarrative theological method informed by resources from Philosophy of Race. He then deploys that method to read science fiction cinema and superhero stories as cultural, racial, and theological documents that can be critically engaged and redeployed as counternarratives to dominant racial narratives.

"Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound . . . It's Superman!" Bending Steel examines the historical origins and cultural significance of Superman and his fellow American crusaders. Cultural historian Aldo J. Regalado asserts that the superhero seems a direct response to modernity, often fighting the interrelated processes of industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and capitalism that transformed the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present. Reeling from these exciting but rapid and destabilizing forces, Americans turned to heroic fiction as a means of explaining national and personal identities to themselves and to the world. In so doing, they created characters and stories that sometimes affirmed, but other times subverted conventional notions of race, class, gender, and nationalism. The cultural conversation articulated through the nation's early heroic fiction eventually led to a new heroic type--the brightly clad, super-powered, pro-social action heroes that first appeared in American comic books starting in the late 1930s. Although indelibly shaped by the Great Depression and World War II sensibilities of the second-generation immigrants most responsible for their creation, comic book superheroes remain a mainstay of American popular culture. Tracing superhero fiction all the way back to the nineteenth century, Regalado firmly bases his analysis of dime novels, pulp fiction, and comics in historical, biographical, and reader response sources. He explores the roles played by creators, producers, and consumers in crafting superhero fiction, ultimately concluding that these narratives are essential for understanding vital trajectories in American culture.

This fun and accessible guide offers super advice for business success. Top venture capitalist and self- proclaimed ?comic book geek? Sean Wise reveals how to create a winning business persona through valuable strategies from great comic book icons. In this engaging and insightful guide, Wise takes readers on a guided tour through the world of superheroes and their lessons, directly relating them to essential business tactics people need to master in order to succeed in today?s workplace. Featuring modern-day examples of business icons who best illustrate superhero strategies?as well as cautionary lessons from infamous supervillains?this is the book for anyone who dreams of donning a cape instead of a suit, taking an oath instead of swearing at the copier, and seeing the big picture instead of getting mired in the daily grind.

Who you gonna call? One-Star Squadron! Meet DC’s superhero team where heroism meets capitalism. This ragtag group of heroes led by Red Tornado is here to provide service with a smile. All you must do is send a request via their on-demand hero app and they’ll answer any call. Whether it’s a children’s birthday party or an alien invasion, no job is too small or too big! Brought to you by Eisner nominee Mark Russell (The Flintstones, Wonder Twins, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles) and Eisner winner Steve Lieber (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen), you’ll want to invest early in this one-of-a-kind miniseries that promises a story filled with heart, heroism, and humor.

Beginning with Schuster and Seigel's adolescent creation of Superman in 1938, Grant Morrison charts the history of the superheroes to their modern, multiplex incarnations.