Foreword: The Industrial and Economic History of the Superhero
Blockbuster, Drew Morton
Introduction: Heroes, Converge!, James N. Gilmore and Matthias
Stork
Chapter 1: Will You Like Me When I’m Angry? Discourse of the
Digital in Hulk and The Incredible Hulk, James N. Gilmore
Chapter 2: Secret Origins: Melodrama and the Digital in Hulk, Matt
Yockey
Chapter 3: Fantastic Views: Superheroes, Visual Perception, and
Digital Perspective, Lisa Gotto
Chapter 4: From Motion Line to Motion Blur: The Integration of
Digital Coloring in the Superhero Comic Book. M.J. Clarke
Chapter 5: Assembling the Avengers: Re-Framing the Superhero Movie
through Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, Matthias Stork
Chapter 6: From Scientific Romance to Disney Superhero: Genre
Fluidity and the Marketing of John Carter, Andrew Myers
Chapter 7: The Cult of Comic-Con and the Spectacle of Superhero
Marketing, Kevin McDonald
Chapter 8: The Dark Knight Levels Up: Batman: Arkham Asylum and the
Convergent Superhero Franchise, Justin Mack
Chapter 9: The Fears of a Superhero: Batman Begins and Batman:
Arkham Asylum, Benjamin Beil
Chapter 10: “I Am Catwoman, Hear Me Roar”: Gender between Film and
Video Game, Martin Hennig
Chapter 11: Melodrama, Romance, and the Celebrity of the Superhero,
Benjamin D. Grisanti
Chapter 12: In Franchise: Narrative Coherence and the Multiverse,
Russell Backman
Chapter 13: Spectacular Superheroes on Stage: Theatre’s Unique
Contribution to Batman’s Transmedia Story, Mathias Bremgartner
Afterword: When Storyworlds Collide: Superhero Movies and
Transmedia Patchworks, Andreas Rauscher
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors
About the Editors
James N. Gilmore is a graduate student in the Cinema and Media
Studies program at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Matthias Stork is a graduate student in the Cinema and Media
Studies program at the University of California, Los Angeles. His
work has appeared in Frames Cinema Journal, Mediascape, and Media
Fields Journal, as well as several anthologies.
Stork's clarity lays bare his extensive research, which digs not
just into the financial logic of revised aesthetic approaches for
maximal capital gains, but also film theorist Rick Altman's
definition of 're-genrification,' which finally makes clear that
Marvel's strategies are not new as much as reinterpreted—'a new
presentational model of crossover synergy.' Stork's work here is a
must-read for anyone who wants to understand precisely how
corporate control yields pop-culture product. I'll be sending his
essay to my inquisitive colleague shortly—along with the rest of
Superhero Synergies.
*Slant Magazine*
Undisputably, Superhero Synergies is a strong and relevant
contribution to patterns of digital media production. Offering a
wide range of material and perspectives, it helps to elucidate the
cultural productivity of present-day superhero(in)es, and points
out blind spots of hero research through its focus on market
imperatives, boundaries of the genre and affective immersion....
[T]his present volume is a viable contribution to studies of hero
production and consumption, paving the way for future research into
cultural practices of heroisation and the cultural processing of
the heroic in the ‘digital age’.
*helden. heroes. héros.*
Fearlessly leapfrogging media from cinema and comics to gaming and
theater, this fresh, smart collection follows the superhero's
storied trajectory across formats, franchises, and fandoms, mapping
our evolving entertainment universe through innovative, risk-taking
scholarship. Whether or not you're into Batman or the Avengers, DC
or Marvel, look no further for a shining exemplar of the emerging
field of transmedia studies.
*Bob Rehak, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Film and
Media Studies, Swarthmore College*
Agile and witty as Spider-Man, brilliantly persuasive as Batman,
these essays offer a series of new perspectives on the figure of
the superhero across media platforms. The contributors are expert
in both traditional scholarship and comic-book canon: Eisenstein's
theory of shot-collisions meets 'Hulk smash,' and Bazin's view of
the cinema screen as a 'mask' illuminates the interior of Tony
Stark's helmet. This is an inspiring assembly of exciting
essays.
*Will Brooker, author of Hunting the Dark Knight*
An insightful and provocative set of case studies, bound to
unsettle the ‘bad object’ status that film studies and critics
frequently reserve for the superhero genre, even as the book
challenges the techno-centric ethos of new media theory to more
convincingly account for the complexities of genre and inter-media
content. Together, the original essays collected here provide a
useful interdisciplinary roadmap and productive critical framework
that should spur other scholars to more fully engage a wider range
of complexities—involving gender, genre, aesthetics, identity,
labor, and industrial practice—that define intermedial superhero
genre production and consumption today.
*John T. Caldwell, Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, UCLA.
Author of Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical
Practice in Film and Television*
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