Skip to main content

Week 13- Reconsidering the Superhero

The reinventing of superhero has been an almost routine process throughout the past few decades, from iconic symbols of ideals to relatable "every-men" to representations of diversity to psychological explorations, the "super" hero has been put through many a test to stand as its own archetype of a character. Still closely tied to their classical variants of the characters, modern superheroes often dip into both comedy and tragedy, while including moments of action and moments of stillness/tenseness. While one exploration of the superhero, “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” might be more closely associated with the explosive, over the top fantasy of the superhero persona, the gritty “realism,” and psychopathic ideology of “Arkham Asylum,” shift the focus away from action focused into almost purely abstract character narration and exploration. But comics don’t have to be one or the other, “The Dark Knight Returns” by Frank Miller serves as a combination of the two extremes; exploring the mental stability of Batman, (and later Superman) and the Joker, while also including multiple fantastical scenes of pure action. (Batman punches superman with construction equipment while wearing power armor! No psychological exploration here!) Comics have evolved to be adaptable by numerous pacts of society and the super-hero has routinely proven to be a flexible archetype that can reach all audiences. Whether amazed by the dazzling visuals as a youth, interested in the moral and political repercussions of these unique individuals as an adult, or a mixing of the two, the superhero is well cemented as a solid archetype of all colors, sexes, backgrounds, and futures. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Analysis of early adventure comics (Week 4)

The likes of Herge's "The Adventures of Tintin," to the original "Batman" comics by Bob Kane, despite being wildly different in seemingly every regard, basic narrative, characters, even locations and approaches to adventure literature; both are equally capable of inspiring morals along with having many similar approaches to conveying their individual narratives. For example, one massively popular trop of visual narrative is to start off with establishing shots that familiarize new comers to the literature or old fans to the location or characters, often with mental narrative of the protagonist informing the audience whats going on. Both comics also use sequential, action to action art where the start, climax, and ending of a particular action or gesture is explored by the artists, showing these characters "move" despite only showing static poses. Adventure comics as a whole create these larger than life heroes and characters that, regardless of their ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 10 - Manga

For this week, I decided on reading “Death Note,” written by Osamu Tezuka, and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. A chilling murderous mystery based around Japanese folk lore and dark magic, specifically about the  Shinigami Ryuk, a dark spirit/god that drops magic into the human world out of boredom. Following the ensuing chaos that results from a young man and woman trying to use the murderous artifact known as the “Death Note,” the story has been very highly respected for decades, being translated into numerous other languages, has acquired world-wide publication, and even been reimagined as several live action films, an anime television series, and even a musical. While trying to rid the world of it’s villains, our main character, “Light” ends up being corrupted by his newfound power and even declares himself a “God of this New World,” prior to being betrayed, (once again, out of boredom) by the same Shinigami, Ryuk. Showing very dark results of good intentions creates an interest...
Post a Comment
Read more

Analysis of Shaun Tan's, "The Arrival"

Jarod Frank Analysis of Shaun Tan’s, “The Arrival.” Shaun Tan's, “The Arrival,” is a fantastic example of conveying narrative themes and complex character interactions without the use of dialogue. Through the emphasis on gestures, body positioning, and facial expressions, we are able to “fill in” to a great degree what we imagine the characters are conveying; regardless of anything literally being said. One such fantastic example of this is when the main immigrant man is trying to find an apartment, beginning by asking another man where it could be. We see the quizzical look he local man as he looks over the immigrant, who pulls out a drawing pad and draws a bed, pointing to it. Such a natural progression of actions, reactions and continued actions are the basics of human communication, not necessarily needing words to convey an experience we all are familiar with: questioning. While the situation is mundane, the comic being able to convey this series of emotions here and n...
Post a Comment
Read more