Creating a Private Space for the 'Superhero': the Private Rooms of San Filippo Neri :: Glenys L Adams

Imitating an 'exemplary hero' in 16th & 17th Century Rome was an institutional practice adopted by religious orders as a means to reinforce their own ideology within the confines of their organizational structure, as well as operating as a means to persuade others to adopt the lifestyle of the 'hero' being promoted. Creating the condition for such a cult to survive resulted in the establishment of elaborately decorated cult sites for the purpose of public veneration. The spectacular 'baroque' display of these cult sites was very often presented in contrast to how these 'heroes' lived and worked, yet the institutions associated with these cult figures maintained and venerated very private spaces away from the public gaze, decorated in a manner consistent with the public decoration of these cult sites. This paper will explore these private spaces and the institutional practices and processes involved in protecting the 'inner sanctum' of this culture.

Bio Note :: Glenys studied the Bachelor of Letters (Hons) at the University of Melbourne completing an honors thesis on the cult of the sacra cintola in Prato, Italy. Glenys' doctoral studies are focused on the investigation of the private rooms of San Filippo Neri, at the Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) in Rome, reconstructing the memorialization of this saint through the context of his private rooms.

Email :: glenys.adams@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

The Time of Heroes - The Still Image and the Construction of an Epic Past in Miracleman :: Paul Atkinson

In this paper, I will analyse the tension between the epic past of the superhero figure and the various modes of narration and time in Miracleman.  Implicit in this analysis, is the claim that there are a number of interwoven temporal modes in comic book narration.  Unlike literary modes of narration, the particular tense in which the story is written cannot be located in any one type of enunciation but rather resides somewhere between the story, the juxtaposition and succession of still images, and the various stylistic tropes employed in the work.  The paper will draw heavily on the concepts of time elaborated by the French philosopher Henri Bergson, as well as concepts of film time.  Other comic books analysed will include The Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman.

Bio Note :: Paul Atkinson is a Lecturer in Communications & Writing, School of Humanities, Communications & Social Sciences at Monash University (Gippsland Campus, Churchill) in Victoria.

Email :: paul.atkinson@arts.monash.edu.au

Dark Angel: Kicking Ass Without A Gun - Justification for Max Guevera as a Modern Feminist Superhero :: Bronwen Auty

James Cameron and Charles H Eglee's futuristic action television series Dark Angel created an unforgettable female superhero in Max Guevera. As a genetically enhanced super soldier Max divides her life between evading her secret government Manticore creators, looking for other 'transgenic' fugitives and supporting the cyber social activist 'Eyes Only' in his efforts to protect the innocent and expose corruption.

Max is an intriguing female hero who never in two seasons of Dark Angel uses a gun. While on occasion she carries a gun, when conflict begins she refuses to use the weapon and engages in physical combat instead. So why does a Government trained killing machine refuse to use her weaponry skills? And what is the larger implication of this conscious character construct?

It is Max's ability to use her body as a weapon which significantly contributes to her status as superhero. Like most modern superheroes Max is blessed with a physical form which enables her to have enhanced abilities in the human world, her hero status is derived from her choice to use these skills to benefit others and not be exploitative for her own gain. Max further parallels the plight of the traditional superhero as initially she is unable to reveal her 'true' identity, and when this is revealed it is only to a trusted few who guard the secret.

Max's body and brain combine to be an unbeatable weapon to any opponent released by the government or military. Significantly this woman can defeat any destruction set upon her by corrupt patriarchal forces - and she does so without ever using phallic weaponry. In a broader sense Max Guevera is the archetypal modern feminist hero - a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals.

Within the construct of her character there is much that is both personally heroic and significant in relation to larger paradigms:

  • her prowess in physical combat - the female body as a weapon
  • her significant refusal to use guns - challenge to the dominant patriarchy
  • her significant intellect - knowledge as power
  • her protection of any innocent - self sacrifice for greater good
  • her loyalty to humanity in any form - strive for utopian equality
  • her commitment to the destruction of corruption - creating a just world
The power of Max Guevera is essential in the consideration of superheroes. She is proof not only that "girls kick ass" but significantly, that they can do it on their own terms and without guns.

Bio Note ::
Email :: buzzybea@bigpond.com
Plato and Pop - Aquaman, Sub-Mariner and the Morality of Myth :: Djoymi Baker

According to Plato, Socrates says "our first business is to supervise the production of stories, and choose only those we think suitable, and reject the rest" (Plato 1955: ll 377c-d). Stories may contain immoral and criminal acts (many committed by gods), that have no place in Plato's ideal state (Plato 1955: ll 377d-e, 378 a-e). Mythoi becomes a means by which the state leaders, through poets creating stories under strict supervision, teach children to be proper citizens. The Republic states that "we begin by telling children stories [mythoi]. These are, in general, fiction, though they contain some truth" (Plato 1955: ll 377a). Indeed, Plato was happy to create his own myths to serve a philosophical or moral purpose. The story of Atlantis was one of Plato's invented myths, described in his Timaeus and Critias in the 4th century B.C.E.

Aquaman and his predecessor Sub-Mariner were comic book superheroes based on this Greek myth of Atlantis. Both superheroes were transferred to television in the mid 1960s. Richard Reynolds has argued that comic books borrowed from myth and legend in order "to give their disregarded medium a degree of moral and intellectual uplift" (1992: 53). However, for many cultural commentators the mythological foundations of comic book superheroes such as Aquaman and Sub-Mariner were ignored or disparaged. Variety argued that animations such as Sub-Mariner tapped into Pop art, camp, and "post-high school hippies addicted to the old comics" (1966). The morally corrupting force of comic books upon children had simply been transferred to the equally dubious effects of television on children and young adults alike.
Indeed, by the mid-1960s, "comic-strip" had become a generic, disparaging term for simplistic, children's texts, applied in reviews to television programs such as Star Trek or Land of the Giants. This attitude toward comic books was undoubtedly a debt to a long-standing controversy surrounding comic books and children, particularly promoted by Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent of 1953. Wertham argues that "Classic books, mutilated in comic-book form, have been adapted to the television screen" (Wertham 1953: 381). In other words, comic books and the television programs based on them, may rework older, "classic" texts, including myths, but in a "mutilated" form that thereby robs them of all worth. Although comic book heroes transferred to television were not to peak for nearly another decade, the heritage of the Wertham attack helps to explain why the mythological content of such programs went largely unnoticed. This paper explores the way the Aquaman and Sub-Mariner TV programs adapt and rework both Plato's myth of Atlantis and their own comic book back-story, in the context of the moral debates surrounding comic books, children's television, and myth.

Bio Note :: Djoymi Baker is a PhD candidate with the Cinema Studies program at the University of Melbourne. Her research explores the adaptation of myth on television and the changing concept of myth in popular culture. She is a sessional lecturer for The School of Creative Arts, and Cinema Studies, including Myth and Media: From Homer to Hollywood , a new subject based upon her dissertation research. Her work has been published in Refractory and Popular Culture Review.

Email :: djoymib@unimelb.edu.au


"Worlds Within Worlds" - The Role of Superheroes in the Marvel and DC Universes :: Jason Bainbridge

The Marvel and DC universes constitute the two largest and arguably longest-running examples of world-building in any media. They are the products of thousands of comics, artists and writers over seventy and forty year periods respectively and home to dozens of the world's most recognised brands including Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Hulk and the X-Men.

This paper compares and contrasts the role of the superhero in each of these universes by examing the mechanics of each universe and how this impacts on the superheroes therein. The core texts in this assessment are the recent JLA/Avengers cross-over, featuring the "first" meeting of the two premier superhero teams from each universe and each universe's response to the real-world events of September the 11th.

I suggest that the Marvel and DC universes are dissimilar in two main ways. Marvel maintains a connection to the real world, through the location of New York and its basis in a kind of dark "comic book"science, (almost a horror tradition as Stephen King sees it). DC on the other hand uses abstracts, the cities of Metropolis and Gotham and mythological archetypes, like Superman and Batman. DC superheroes are therefore idolised, representing the ideal we all should aspire to while Marvel's heroes are distrusted and must often go on "soap opera-like" subplots of individual advancement. This is highlighted in the companies' reactions to the events of September 11th. Marvel commenting directly on events through characters like Captain America and Spiderman, whereas DC chose more escapist fare for its superhero titles, distancing itself from the "real" world with the metaphorical Imperiex War and Lex Luthor's presidency. Such a position reveals the very real differences between the universes and each company's stance on what it means to be a superhero.

Bio Note :: Jason Bainbridge is a Lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Tasmania, Hobart. He has previously contributed papers on comics and is an avid comic collector. His current work includes co-editing a special issue of Continuum: The Journal of Popular Culture devoted to "Popular Cultures and the law" and a chapter for the book Galactic Jurisprudence (Cavendish, forthcoming) on superheroes and the law.

Email :: Jason.Bainbridge@utas.edu.au


Super Heroes in Future Pedagogies :: Mark Balnaves & Kim Tomlinson-Baillie

Children, in particular boys, are a major market for media products, via traditional broadcasting and multimedia, from games through to lifestyle advertising. It would be no exaggeration to say that children are 'media saturated' in modern society. Much of the media activity, however, is not 'passive' in the traditional sense of viewing audiences. Through media saturation children are immersed in rich fantasy worlds where they take on and try out identities and socially reconstruct themselves, they become the super hero or… sometimes the villain. Modern media and media-tied products, like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and the interactive gaming, associated with these engage and immerse children. In a world of convergence, these products are likely to become more sophisticated and the engagement and immersion more complex and global. In this paper the authors explore the emerging literature on media saturated sub-cultures and the role of the characters or superheroes in the educational literature. The paper will discuss a future study based on this literature and how new media that create a rich learning environment and identity through the narrative of the story might change modern pedagogical thought.

Bio Note :: Kim Tomlinson-Baillie is a lecturer in the School of Education at the Edith Cowan University, Perth.

Mark Balnaves is Professor of New Media in the School of Communications and Multimedia at the Edith Cowan University.

Email :: m.balnaves@ecu.edu.au

The Stunt Double and the Heroic Body :: Miranda J. Banks

Stunt doubles perform the vast majority of the action sequences in most adventure-oriented programs on television. While a character might be adored for her looks, her wit, or her intelligence, it is her body, the body in action that that is the most beloved by many of the action hero's fans. But the media's coverage of the stars of these action programs, it is the star, not the double, who is celebrated as the strong, heroic performer. Today there are over two hundred professional stuntwomen working in Hollywood . Yet their contributions to the film and television industry are barely understood, let alone acknowledged.

Early in the history of cinema, film directors discovered that producing exciting action sequences necessitated the use of stunt doubles, as well as realizing the importance of making these doubles-as individuals distinct from their actor counterparts-virtually disappear. While the stunt double is invaluable, and her work is designed to impress the audience with its bravado, the double herself is intended to go unnoticed. This not only occurs within the film itself, but also in the credits sequences, and in the minds of most audience members, as well.

The subtle erasure of the stunt double, or the downplaying of her role in the creation of the female action hero, is not unique. While the star is the primary actor in the role of the heroine, she does not necessarily play her in the moments of the program when the heroine is the most heroic. It is often the stunt double who animates the heroine, making her into the uniquely powerful woman that she is. What I wish to offer here is a study of the history of this simultaneous fascination with and erasure of the stunt double in the television production, within the text of these programs, with audiences through articles in the popular press, as well as with television scholars. While my point is not to cast blame, this analysis hopefully offers an examination of what virtually amounts to a unwritten conspiracy to negate the work of the stunt performer.

Bio Note :: Doctoral Candidate Dept. of Film, Television, and Digital Media University of California, Los Angeles

Email :: mbanks@ucla.edu

Someone to Watch Over Me: the Guardian Angel as Superhero in Seicento Rome :: Lisa Beaven

This paper examines the origins and development of the cult of the Guardian Angel in Baroque Rome. The idea of a Guardian Angel developed from the ancient Book of Tobit, and specifically from the figure of St Raphael, the archangel who had watched over the young Tobias on his journey. This paper investigates when, and why, the cult of the guardian angel became so popular that it transcended its origins to become an officially sanctioned religious cult. It proposes that the superheroes of twentieth century cinema with their supernatural powers, ability to fly, and battle the forces of evil are directly derived from the concept of the Guardian angel as it manifested itself in Baroque Rome.

Bio Note :: Lisa Beaven is a Lecturer in Art History and Visual Studies at La Trobe University, Bendigo. She has published widely in her area of expertise - C17th art, culture and patronage.

Email :: l.beaven@bendigo.latrobe.edu.au
Anthropomorphic Superbeings and Future Societies :: Russell Blackford

This paper considers Martha Nussbaum's attempts to ground a conception of ethical and political philosophy in an Aristotelian account of what it means to be human. Nussbaum appeals to mythology, particularly to accounts of the anthropomorphic but non-human beings in Homeric myth, to distinguish humans from beasts and gods. She consistently argues that a godlike life is not an appropriate life for us. However, both ancient myth and the contemporary "mythology" of superheroes and villains display our fascination with the possibility of beings who stand between us and transcendent godlike beings, as we may be said to stand between the latter and non-human animals. Research in such fields as genetic engineering and psychopharmacology offers the prospect that we or (more likely) our descendants may actually come to possess capabilities beyond any historical level of human functioning.

I argue that we should not be disturbed by the prospect that changes to ourselves and/or our descendants might ultimately lead to a society of transcendent, godlike beings whose values would be radically different from our own. It is not clear that such an eventual outcome would be morally repugnant or even morally salient. Nor should we necessarily be disturbed by the more plausible prospect of a society of enhanced humans or of less-than-godlike superbeings. The danger is that a lack of political vigilance could lead to a technologically-supported two-tier society, such as imagined by Lee Silver (e.g. in his Beyond Eden). It is difficult to see how unenhanced humans could flourish in such a society, even if they were subjectively "happy" like the citizens of Huxley's Brave New World. Accordingly, we should attempt to avoid such a society coming into existence, preferably not by suppressing enhancements of our capabilities but by ensuring that they become widely available, rather than restricted to a privileged economic class.

Bio Note :: Russell Blackford is a graduate student and a sessional teacher in the School of Philosophy and Bioethics, and an honorary research associate in the School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies, Monash University. His current research relates to the political implications of creating enhanced human beings. His recent publications include a trilogy of novels, Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles; an article on The Matrix and its sequels in Mathew Kapell and William Doty's new collection Jacking into the Matrix Trilogy; and an article in the current edition of Meanjin entitled "Mutants, Cyborgs, AI & Androids. He is also a leading critic in the field of sf prose and cinema. More information is available at http:// www. russellblackford. com.

Email :: RussellBlackford@bigpond.com

Hercules, Sensitivity Counselor :: Ruby Blondell

The hero of the TV show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is a devoted family man. There is little trace of the many women who, in the early mythological tradition, fall innocent victim to his violent (and often extramarital) lust. When such characters do appear, they are typically transformed into sexual predators whom Hercules must either resist or flee. The most unrestrained of Greek heroes is replaced by an icon of the self-controlled man at risk from female erotic aggression. The classical Greek Hercules is thus transformed almost beyond recognition. This is marked, among other things, by the fact that he typically carries no weapons. In Greek tradition, his array of signature weapons (bow, no lion-skin, club) mark him as the complete hero. In his modern reincarnation, the very lack of weapons makes him an icon of complete manhood.

Hercules' new identity as a model of "enlightened" late twentieth-century American masculinity is constructed via his encounter with the Amazons in the pilot movie, Hercules and the Amazon Women. In Greek tradition, Amazons are typically presented as a military threat on an equal footing with the male. It is therefore vital that they be shown as defeated or dying at the hands of heroic Greek males (including Hercules). The televisual Amazons, by contrast, pose no real threat to Hercules. Nor does he pay any of them the compliment of killing her. To do so would seem merely brutal, and brutality is no longer part of his persona. Instead, he tames them in a peculiarly late-twentieth century fashion.

The Amazons of the TV show are not, as in Greek tradition, the products of an autonomous matriarchy, but are descended from a group of women who seceded from an ordinary village because they were mistreated by their husbands. Hercules initially embodies the same patriarchal insensitivity, but after encountering the Amazon queen, he is transformed into a "sensitive" late twentieth-century male. This enables him to serve in turn as a sensitivity counselor for the village men. Their changed behavior ignites the Amazons' secret yearning for normative domesticity and (hetero)sexuality. The village returns to "normal" and its inhabitants putatively live happily ever after. The Greek Amazons are thus domesticated much as Hercules himself is, through incorporation into a bourgeois pseudo-enlightened model of the household.

In both cases, this domestication involves a rejection of what makes these mythic figures remarkable in Greek tradition. The Amazons are deprived of their exceptional power and the threat it poses to the patriarchal order. And Hercules is deprived of the promiscuous sexual energy that characterizes his Greek counterpart as extraordinary in a way that sets him outside the pale of civilized life, even as his exploits make that life possible for others. Yet despite the curtailing of his hyper-masculine energy, he is--unlike the Amazons--allowed to retain the heroic capacity for extraordinary deeds that is fueled, in the Greek tradition, by that very energy. He is thus reinvented as a bourgeois fantasy hero of late twentieth-century popular culture.

Bio Note :: I received my PhD in classics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984. I am now a Professor of Classics at the University of Washington in Seattle. Major publications include The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues (Cambridge University Press 2002); Women on the Edge: Four Plays by Euripides (with Bella Zweig, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Mary-Kay Gamel; Routledge 1999); Helping Friends and Harming Enemies. A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (under the name Mary Whitlock Blundell; Cambridge University Press 1989). Works in progress include Representations of Ancient Mediterranean Women in Modern Mass Media (volume co-edited with Mary-Kay Gamel).

Email :: blondell@u.washington.edu

Super-simulacra :: Lucian Chaffey

This paper will examine the nature and function of the television superhero as a fictional manifestation of the simulacrum. The simulacrum, commonly recognised as a 'copy without an original', is also emblematic of an ongoing exchange between identity and alterity. Drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze and using examples from Birds of Prey, this paper will establish that through the momentum of this exchange the super-simulacrum narrative both problematises and reinforces normative social, subjective and narrative binaries.

As the foremost disseminator of ideology in Western culture, television is an ideal medium for the construction and reinforcement of hegemonic notions of identity and alterity. Accordingly, television superhero narratives commonly take a more conservative form and perform a more forcefully recuperative function than their comics counterparts, thus requiring close attention in order to identify the transgressive potential of the simulacrum.

Plato's elevation of identity and his exclusion of alterity (and the simulacrum) provides one of the most fundamental models for Western thought and society, attempting to legitimise an essentialist hierarchy of knowledge and subjectivity. Deleuze's critique of Platonism and liberation of the simulacrum, in contrast, challenges this model and thus threatens to dissolve our conventional (binary) notions of self and society. The simulacrum however, paradoxically exists within the model it wants to dissolve, leading to an ongoing cycling of the transgression and recuperation of hegemonic subjective, social and aesthetic structures. The television superhero narrative, like many 'Doubles Narratives', establishes an expanding network of Doubles relationships or exchanges. The superhero is first Doubled in the relationship between his or her 'normal' and 'super' identities, and is then further Doubled against the supervillain who may themselves also have a Doubled 'normal' identity. It is in these exchanges, fraught with pathos and irony, that the simulacrum can be seen in operation.

The superhero may be troubled by his or her super powers and/or 'dark' past, which are at once the source of their exclusion from mainstream human society, their means of 'protecting' this society, and their fuel for this project. In Birds of Prey for example, Helena Kyle a.k.a. Huntress is half metahuman - a human / superhuman hybrid with animal-like powers. She protects humans, but enjoys her use of violence and her super abilities, and thus remains excluded from humanity. Helena Kyle/Huntress exists in a limbo between heroism and alterity, with the distinction between her physicality and morality and that of the various villains she is pitted against repeatedly blurred. Inevitably however, the conflict is resolved by a return to an essentialist, humanist morality, which serves to homogenise the differences represented by Huntress' metahuman characteristics and realign her with Helena's normative human identity and a Western humanist social/ontological agenda.

The simulacral exchange between super and normative identities propels an ongoing cyclical transformation: problematising this binary, then reinstating it. Although the dissembling effect of the simulacrum is inevitably betrayed by genre television's hegemonic recuperation, attention to the transformative processes engendered by the simulacrum still leaves room for their flourishing in the fictional imagination of the audience.

Bio Note :: Lucian Chaffey is a PhD student in the Cinema Studies Program at Melbourne University.

Email :: l.chaffey1@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

Panel Beating: Adapting Comics to Cinema Through 'Panelling' :: Michael Cohen

When transferring superheroes to the cinema screen filmmakers have deployed a number of different visual strategies for adapting the mechanisms and conventions of comics. Mise-en-scène of heightened artifice, through the use of bold colouring, matte paintings, and conspicuous studio sets and backlots, is a strategy to create an 'aesthetic of artifice.' The 'aesthetic of artifice' is a substitute for the artifice of a comic by drawing attention to the fabrication of the superhero's diegesis. 'Cartooning' is another strategy where the artifice of cinematic fabrication is heightened, through the behaviour and actions of characters, and through the makeup and prosthetics which create the outlandish characters and villains that populate the comic-style diegesis. However, it is through 'panelling' that some filmmakers have attempted to adapt the enunciatory system of comics to the cinema.

Both comics and cinema use the sequential relationship of images to progressively develop narrative, yet the relationship of images upon a page and in cinema is fundamentally different. The cinematic process is dependant upon the syntagmatic order of frame following frame, a linear order that is beyond the control of the spectator. Although the sequence of panels in a comic is traditionally left to right, and then down the page, the page itself presents a paradigmatic arrangement of panels. Panels upon the page are perpetually present to each other so that the reader is able to experience their spatial proximity. The 'panelling' in superhero films attempts to replicate the effect of comic panels, even though they cannot replicate the ontology of the comics medium.

By using examples from Dick Tracy, The Shadow, Tank Girl, Unbreakable, and Hulk, I will demonstrate the various techniques these filmmakers have deployed to create cinematic 'panels.' One strategy used throughout Dick Tracy is a stationary camera, with the intention that the single shot contain localised narrative information in the same way that a comic panel is a single unit of narrative meaning. According to Vittorio Storaro, the cinematographer on Dick Tracy, "we were trying to use elements from the original Chester Gould drawings. One of the elements is that the story is usually told in vignette. So what we tried to do is never move the camera at all. Never. Try to make everything work in the frame." Another technique used in Dick Tracy is the conspicuous and repeated use of a diopter lens. This lens allows the foreground plane on one side of the frame to be juxtaposed against the background plane on the opposite side of the frame. With this lens the filmmakers have created 'panels' where two images are 'read' or experienced through their spatial relationship, and not solely through the temporal linearity of cinema.

In The Shadow there are a couple of sequences that display allusion to comic panels. The use of lightening effects during a long tracking shot, which fragments the depiction of a spatially contingent shot, creates an effect similar to a 'superpanel' in a comic that is also divided into separate panels. During the film's climax a sequence involving multiple reflections in mirrors enables an allusion to both comic panels, as well as The Lady from Shanghai (dir. Orson Welles). In Tank Girl the allusion is subtler through 'jump cutting,' which performs a similar function to the stationary camera in Dick Tracy: the isolated shot communicates narrative information specific to the shot. In this way the individual shots do not rely on the 'language' of cinema, editing, to drive communication.

Unbreakable is another film in which the individual shot contains and communicates narrative information, however the techniques are different to these other films. An early sequence depicts a long conversation in a single take, during which the camera pans slowly back and forth between the two characters. By shooting through a narrow gap between two train seats, the shot is temporally continuous, and the two characters spatially contingent, yet they are divided by the camera's conspicuous oscillation.

Hulk provides the most comprehensive and determined examples of 'panelling.' Using various multiple image techniques, such as split-screens and complicated transitions between images that required the work of a special effects house, Industrial Light and Magic, to realise them, this film fully tests the limits of a formal adaptation of the comics medium. Some sequences rely solely on the division of the frame into a number of different shots, presenting a sequence from multiple angles. In other scenes, the dramatic relationship of characters in different shots plays out through the spatial juxtaposition. During an action sequence, the camera pulls back to reveal a 'page' of separate 'panels,' then moves forward after selecting the next with which to proceed. This particular example of 'panelling' attempts to mimic the way in which a comic reader might take their eyes from one panel to another.

The procedure for this demonstration would be through the use of examples from comics, to explain their function within this medium. These examples would then be compared with scenes and images from these films, to explain the development and deployment of each example of 'panelling.' Cinematic 'panels' cannot transcend the ontology of their own medium, so this argument will explore the limits to which 'panelling' is a genuine adaptation of real comic panels.

Bio Note :: Michael has completed a Masters thesis in Cinema Studies, at La Trobe University in Australia, which explores the relationship between superhero films and the comics from which they are derived. He is adapting this research into a chapter for publication in 2005. He is also the editor for film reviews at TheScene.com.au, an editor for the online editing service WordsRU.com, and a freelance reviewer for MobileXP magazine.

Email :: mickcohen@optusnet.com.au
The Definition of the Superhero :: Peter Coogan

Just what is a superhero?  On the face of it, it seems pretty obvious. Superman is a superhero; Captain Marvel is a superhero; Spider-Man is a superhero.  On the other hand, it also seems pretty obvious which characters are not superheroes.  The Virginian is a cowboy, not a superhero.  Sherlock Holmes is a detective, not a superhero.  Rico "Little Caesar" Bandello is a gangster, not a superhero.  But the question that arises is, how do we know which of these characters are superheroes and which are not?

We know these things because of conventions.  Conventions-particularly those of plot, setting, character, icon, and theme-combine to create genre.  Once the conventions of a genre are enumerated, isolated, and reduced to their minimum, the definition of a genre, and its hero, can be adduced.  The definition of the superhero is:

Su.per.he.ro (soo'per hîr'o) n., pl. -roes.  1. A heroic character with a selfless, pro-social mission; who possesses superpowers, advanced technology, or highly developed physical and/or mental skills; who has a superidentity and iconic costume, which typically express his biography or character, powers, and origin (transformation from ordinary person to superhero); and is generically distinct, i.e. can be distinguished from characters of related genres (fantasy, science fiction, detective, etc.) by a preponderance of generic conventions.  Typically superheroes have dual identities, the ordinary one of which is kept secret. -superheroic, adj. Also super hero, super-hero (Trademark).

In this paper I define the superhero in terms of genre by establishing that the superhero genre is a distinct genre and establishing its core definitional elements-mission, powers, identity, and generic distinction. Clearly the superhero has been studied previously without this definition in place, so the question arises, why do we need it?  The answer to this question is that we already have it and it is already in use.  My definition brings forth the unstated assumptions that generally guide the study of the superhero and the production of superhero comics.

Bio Note :: Dr. Peter Coogan is the writing specialist for the Kinkel Center for Academic Resources at Fontbonne University in St. Louis, Missouri.  In 2002 he completed his dissertation, The Secret Origin of the Superhero: The Emergence of the Superhero Genre in America from Daniel Boone to Batman, for his doctorate in American Studies at Michigan State University.  In 1992 he co-founded and continues to co-chair the Comics Arts Conference, an academic conference held at the San Diego Comic-Con International designed to bring comics scholars and professionals together to discuss comics in a public venue.

Email :: coomics@hotmail.com
Touched by a Superhero: The Astronaut-Avatar in Cyberspace :: Leonie Cooper
I've been touched by an Apollo astronaut!
No you haven't Julie, his avatar just passed through your avatar.

No, you are wrong. I feel it in my body, I have been touched by an Apollo astronaut and I will never forget this!

(excerpt from chat log of the Virtual Walk on the Moon, a re-enactment of the Moon Landing hosted by Digital Space Commons, July 20th 1999)
Both the astronaut and the superhero enact an ambivalence towards embodiment: the desire to escape the gravitational forces that bind the physical body to its terrestrial conditions and the just as important need to have a body-a body that can sense, can touch and make contact with other bodies, even if it is just the brush of an avatar's 'virtual' body against your own. On July 20th 1969 , ordinary men escaped the gravitational limits of the Earth and set foot on the Moon. With this act, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin were transformed into extraordinary beings-a transformation that depended upon all the accoutrements of the Hollywood star system that were capable of converting men into superheroes, decked out in suits of very "Peculiar Polymer". Thirty years later, this superhero is rebooted: brought to life in cyberspace in such a way that the participants in the event can claim to have "been touched by an Apollo astronaut!"

Remediating NASA's theatrics of space, the Moon Landing re-enactment was designed to focus attention upon the heroic figure that embodied the actual possibility of escaping the gravitational limits of terrestrial existence. However, in this contemporary media environment, moral "man" is not encased within the familiar bulky spacesuit required to actually voyage into space, but "wears" an avatar-a graphical representation of an astronaut that represents its "user" within a 3-dimensional networked virtual world. The incarnation of an astronaut (Rusty Schweickart, the Apollo 1X Lunar Module Pilot) in a 3D networked environment highlights that this act of embodiment is (and was) fundamentally ambivalent. The assembly of the astronaut in the sixties created a kind of hollow 'man', an empty figure into which the mythic qualities of the hero could be injected which, in turn, meant that the body (and the material effects of gravity) was erased.

In a way that speaks to the tradition of the masked superhero (Batman, Spiderman), the astronaut-avatar is also a 'hollow' body-an empty vehicle that each participant can occupy in order to experience the 'virtual' conditions of (computer generated) artificial gravity. This occupation of the astronaut-avatar as mask or data-set amplifies the erasure of the body as mortal meat. And yet, as this paper will argue, the body still matters. Indeed, it is the presence of a material body-a body that bears the traces of extra-terrestrial gravity but remains "hidden" behind the avatar-that gives the act of touching (and even occupying) the 'virtual' body of the astronaut-avatar an emotional and phenomenological force.

Bio Note :: Leonie Cooper is writing her doctorate in the School of Art History, Cinema Studies, Classics & Archaeology, The University of Melbourne, on the figure of the Astronaut and contemporary media space/s. She has published work in the anthology Stars in Our Eyes: The Star Phenomenon in Contemporary Media (Praeger: 2002) and in Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media and presented at numerous international conferences. She has taught in cinema and new media at The University of Melbourne and Monash University. Interested in the aesthetics of new technologies their emergence in everyday space/s and use in a pedagogical context, Cooper is currently developing online teaching environments and has two creative projects on Donnie Darko and BTVS in development.

Email :: cool@unimelb.edu.au

Power Up :: Patrick Crogan

Drawing on Paul Virilio's speculations (in a discussion of Stelarc's art) about the post-Nietzschean figure of the 'super-excited man', this paper will explore the solicitation of the action computer gameplayer as superhero, or at least, as player posessed of super-powers. High performance martial art manouevres, high-speed reflexes, invulnerability bonuses, instant power-ups, and high impact weapon menus position the player as the prosthetic double of the action superhero figure; itself an emblem of the transforming power of technological modernity. While Virilio will see a fascist trajectory in the passage toward the super-excited man in his critique of Stelarc's gestures toward the post-human envelope, the gameplayer can play along this trajectory in the playspace of contemporary entertainment, a space in which technocultural dynamics are both played out and suspended.

Bio Note :: Patrick Crogan teaches film and media at the University of Adelaide. He co-edited the inaugural issue of Scan and has published work on film, new media, computer games and animation.

Email :: patrick.crogan@adelaide.edu.au
Reclaiming the Castrated Criminal: Comic Book Logic and Racial Binary in M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable :: Eliahiu Crudup II

Whether in Richard Wright's Native Son, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, or John Singleton's Boyz N The Hood, two images of the African American male continuously resurface in our literature and entertainment media: that of the menacing black criminal, and the deficient subordinate made victim via some handicap. "Reclaiming the Castrated Criminal" seeks to underline M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable as a point of entry into this stream of racial representation by reconciling its African American male images, which are heavily influenced by comic book logic, to their obscured literary and cinematic origins.

The first (and most widespread) depiction forces audiences to visualize a violently unstable black villain who is often able to haphazardly create his own demise. His behavior is marked by illegal acts loaded with social stigma; he is a murderer, rapist or fugitive, whose characterization usually owes fictional resemblance to Wright's Bigger Thomas. The second popular construction of the African American male is the debilitated, handicapped peon, whose attributes typify his role as sidekick or antagonist to a dominant white hero. This image differs arguably from the hateful villain, and relies on the partial, even utter crushing of the black male body and its human strength. With this image, the non-hero's sexual presence and physical potential are invariably blotted out, casting him as a symbolic victim of castration. Recalling Kunta Kinte's mutilation in Alex Haley's Roots or the handicapping of Stevie, (the eccentric, wheelchaired comic foil) from FOX's Malcolm in the Middle, these representations clearly involve amputating the bodily and mental soundness attendant to the black male.

M. Night Shyamalan's 2000 film Unbreakable employs comic book characterizations of good and evil, which summarily code for representations of whiteness and blackness. While David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is uncovered as the film's hero, his antagonist, Elijah Price (portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson) embodies both of these problematic African American images. He is first presented as a physical oddity born with a rare bone disease, osteogenesis imperfecta, making him susceptible to easy fractures. Subsequently, he is unveiled as the neurotic criminal mastermind of various tragedies (i.e., train wrecks and factory explosions). Nicknamed "Mr. Glass" because of his physical condition, Elijah represents the psychological law-breaking proclivities associated with the film's valuation of evil. David, however, a caucasian security guard, possesses a hidden superhero nature that allows him to code for conceptions of "good" and "justice" in Unbreakable.

This film artfully consolidates two of the most crippling constructions of African American male psyche and physicality, and in so doing isolates a binary of white dominance and black subordination. This binary inflicts irreversible damage on the African American male body, while strengthening that of the white hero. "Reclaiming the Castrated Criminal" posits that Mr. Glass is not merely a pitiable criminal or unfortunate victim of genetics, but a prefigured signifier of evil. Further, this study entertains Shyamalan's film as a vibrant visual space in which to critique the comic book logic that promotes such a racial binary.

Bio Note :: University of Maryland
Email :: dovesoul@hotmail.com
'No Apologies, No Regrets': Making the Margins Heroic on Queer as Folk :: Joanna Di Mattia

'Rage is exploding out of the closet and into the world to fight intolerance and defend the fabulous citizens of Gayopolis.' (Rage Volume 1 Issue 1, comic book launched on Queer as Folk, season 2, episode 20).

At the centre of Showtime's acclaimed drama, Queer as Folk, is Brian Kinney (Gale Harold)-sexy, sexual, masculine, heroic, and queer. If the dominant white straight ideal of American masculinity has always been a heroic one, what does it mean for the stability of this ideology/iconography when it is re-imagined in a marginalized narrative space? How does the performance of heroism by a gay male contest the already unstable terrain defining hegemonic masculinity? How does this revision interrogate the idea of heroism itself?

This paper explores the social and representational threat that a queer (super)hero poses to the terms of American masculinity. By examining how Queer as Folk interrogates 'masculinity' and 'heroism,' I offer a critical rethinking of the construction of these identities at the exclusion of gay men's bodies. Unlike most prime-time gay characters, the men on Queer as Folk are not asexual and inoffensive victims leading dysfunctional lives. While many critics have argued that Queer as Folk creates stereotypes of its own, this paper suggests that it offers a potent challenge to the dominant representational economy of American masculinity, challenging hegemonic notions of what 'acts' define a man. Drawing on feminist cultural studies, television studies, and current social anxieties about heteronormative masculinity, this paper explores the increasing instability around maintaining discretely straight and gay, heroic and non-heroic identities.

As an unapologetically queer, sexual and masculine figure, Brian explicitly challenges not only television conventions for the representation of gay men, but also the complexities of the American heroic ideal. Importantly, Queer as Folk does not insist on reconciling Brian's heroism with his less laudable traits-Brian is often concurrently Queer as Folk's hero and villain. Engaging with the homosociality and homoeroticism of comic book culture and its heroic tropes (through the fandom of Brian's best friend and 'boy wonder', Michael, and Michael's creation of Rage: Gay Crusader, the intertextual comic book hero that Brian inspires), Queer as Folk repeatedly questions what makes a man heroic, and how a queer man's actions might be defined as 'super' in the specific context of their performance?

Brian is both an 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary' gay man: the most beautiful and most desirable man on Liberty Avenue , and a 'superhero' who repeatedly protects and rescues his friends in times of crisis. He is a man of action who proves himself by what he does, not what he says. Throughout three seasons, Brian performs numerous heroic rescue missions, including the donation of sperm to his lesbian friend, the emotional/sexual healing of his lover after he is viciously bashed, and facilitating Michael's comic book store dream through financial aid. Brian lives a life shaped by his own personal code of ethics and justice. And yet, as an 'ordinary' extraordinary man, Brian maintains an ambivalent relationship to his (super)heroic status.

In the tradition of emotionally wounded, masked superheroes like Batman, Brian often performs these heroic acts under a veil of secrecy-like a superhero, his 'true' identity remains unknown to many. While Brian is defiantly 'out', the existence of a secret, 'superhero' identity can be understood as a metaphor for being gay. Brian's sexual confidence and forthright behavior mask feelings of loss, insecurity, and isolation. In Season 3, Brian becomes Rage saving the people of Pittsburgh from the election of a homophobic mayoral candidate. He heroically gives up nearly everything he has for what he believes is right and just, and does it all without being asked-no apologies, no regrets.

Bio Note :: Joanna Di Mattia was awarded her PhD in 2005 for her thesis, The Hard Body Goes Soft: Anxious Men and Masculinity in the Films of the Clinton Era, completed in the Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, Monash University, where she is an Honorary Research Associate. Recent publications include a chapter in Reading Sex and the City (I.B. Tauris: 2004), and two entries for Men and Masculinities: A Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio Press: 2004). Essays on Six Feet Under (I.B. Tauris: 2005) and Seinfeld are forthcoming. She is currently developing a project that explores the challenge posed to hegemonic masculinity by the increasing cultural visibility of gay men and women. It addresses, among other things, the recent same-sex marriage debate, HBO's Angels in America, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Email :: jodimattia_24­_1999@yahoo.com.au Joanna.DiMattia@arts.monash.edu.au


Super Villains and Not-So-Superheroes :: William Douglas

During the late 1980's there was somewhat of a Renaissance in the comics industry in the United States of America . One aspect of this growth in the industry was the publication of more challenging works, in particular texts such as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" [1986-7], and Frank Miller's "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" [1986]. Geoff Klock has identified these texts as "revisionary superhero narratives", re-readings - or 'misreadings' - of a particular poetic tradition. While the arguments for the existence of these texts as reflexive works which revise and update the Superhero narrative tradition are strong, I would argue that they represent an already present move away from a previous narrative tradition of the Superhero, towards a new representation of not just the Superhero, but also the Supervillain.

In both of these texts we see examples of a narrative device begun earlier by Katsuhiro OTOMO, in his Manga "Akira" [1982-90]. In both Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, efforts are made by the writers and artists to portray heroes who possess fewer or none of the superhuman attributes of a previous generation of Superheroes. Ambiguous anti-heroes such as Rorschach in Watchmen are an example of this new hero-type, who faces up against (also ambiguous) foes such as Doc Manhattan. Significantly, Doc Manhattan is an example of many such foes who still possess a widely varied array of powerful, superhuman attributes. In the same manner the characters in Otomo's epic Manga are divided, with characters such as the criminally insane and phenomenally powerful Tetsuo, facing off against the more mundane talents of characters such as Kaneda, Kei (who is merely a medium), and Lady Miyako (who is blind, and with far weaker mental powers than either Tetsuo or Akira). By highlighting the manner in which Otomo sets up this opposition between more mundane heroes and superpowered villains, I hope to show the beginning of a movement in Manga, and later in Comics, away from idolization towards identification. That is, the change in the presentation of heroes within the graphic-novel tradition of Superhero narratives, away from a position as idols to whom the reader can look up but never aspire to be, towards (admittedly still unrealistic but) more mundane characteristics and traits with which we can identify.

Bio Note :: William Douglas is a PhD Candidate, Literature, Screen & Theatre Studies Program, School Of Humanities, Australian National University Canberra, ACT, Australia

Email :: william.douglas@anu.edu.au
'Oy gevalt!': A Peek at the Development of Jewish Superheroines :: Jennifer Dowling with Steven Saporito

In 1980, Marvel introduced a new, teenaged mutant into their X-Men series: Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men 129, January 1980), later known as ShadowCat. She was among the first ethnic heroines to receive major character treatment and plot development in comic books. Kitty's characterisation contrasted starkly with that of the contemporary young Israeli superheroine, Sabra, (Hulk 256, February 1981), who had had a cameo six issues earlier (Hulk 250, August 1980). Until that time, most heroines in the American comic book industry were overtly White Anglo-Saxon American, (e.g., Invisible Girl or Marvel Girl), exotic (the Amazonian Wonder Woman), or from another planet (Supergirl). This heralded a movement to further the representations of ethnic minorities with in the pages of comics, yet, while most are easily identifiable through physical features, Jewish characters typically relied on personality, often being caricatures that resorted to stereotype and clichéd phrases.

This paper is concerned the evolution of the Jewish superheroine from the emergence of Kitty Pryde until the late 1990s. In particular, it will focus on four characters: Marvel's Sabra (after Hulk, the New Warriors) and Kitty (X-Men, Excalibur and Pryde and Wisdom); Image Comics' Masada (of TeamYoung Blood); and Rebecca Golden, a.k.a. Fathom, (of the "undead" superhero team, the Elementals), published by Comico. All four are Jewish: two are Israeli, two American; one is introduced as a teenager, the other three as adults; two were fairly long running, the other two had more limited runs in the 1980s.

What are the similarities/differences between the characters? How much of their characterisation was a result of the predominantly male creators' influences and how much a result of audience, again predominantly male, reception? What part did political events and propaganda play in the characterisation of the heroines? Lastly, how did the conflux of the events of the 80s and 90s affect the maturation of the Jewish super heroine from her first appearance until today?

Bio Note :: Jennifer Dowling (BA and M.Lib.Stds, The Ohio State University; DPhil, University of Oxford ) is the Lecturer in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture at the University of Sydney . Before her arrival in Australia , Dr. Dowling taught Yiddish and Hebrew language in the US and the UK and concentrated her research on the characterisation of the feminine in seventeenth and eighteenth century Yiddish literature. Dr. Dowling has published articles in English and Yiddish on Yiddish folklore and literature. Recent conference presentations have included such diverse topics as "The State and Fate of Yiddish Language Programmes in Australian Universities" (the proceedings of which are forthcoming), "The Feminine and the Struggle for Power in Early Modern Yiddish Literature", "Mayse fun Shloyme hameylekh: The Hazards of Understanding Animals", "Before Frankenstein: The Golem Cycle" (publication forthcoming) and "'We are not demons': Homogenising the Heroes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel" (in Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, vol. 2). In July 2004, she will be hosting an international conference in Australia on Yiddish, aptly entitled "Yidish mitn kop arop: Yiddish in the Southern Hemisphere". Dr Dowling is also a contributing editor of The Encyclopedia of Buffy Studies and the forthcoming Feasts and Fasts: Festschrift in Honour of Alan David Crown.

Email:: jennifer.dowling@arts.usyd.edu.au

Steven Saporito (BA English, California State University Fullerton; Juris Doctor, Western State University) has had a life long affair with comic books, with his present collection numbering over 10,000. He has contributed articles, editorials and reviews in a number of journals, among them Clawmarks Magazine and Boing! Magazine. With the advent of the Internet, he has been a frequent participant in various newsgroups relating to comics, fantasy/sci fi and television. Mr. Saporito spent a fair amount of time in the various usenet forums dedicated to Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, where he met his co-author, Dr. Dowling. Currently Mr. Saporito is working on two novels (Limbo Lounge and Telltale Wisp), and a comic book serial (Zero Squad), which he expects will honor the genres he enjoys so much. Or at least not stink up the place.

Dreaming Superman: Exploring the Action of the Superhero(ine) in Dreams, Myth, and Culture :: Jamie Egolf

This paper reviews the archetype of the Superhero(ine) in dreams, in mythology and in culture.  It explores the action of the Superhero myth and its meaning  in the individual and in culture from a Jungian perspective.  Jungian analysts and mythologists including Joseph Campbell have written about the hero myth in such figures as Odysseus in Greece , Parcival in medieval British Isles , and Superman in America .  Comic book analysts have written about the creation of Superman, which to some of them represented the force in immigrants and orphans who arrived early on in America , often with few resources, and must somehow survive and fulfill their destiny.  Their progress was nothing less than superheroic.  Individuation, the goal of Jungian work, involves heroic activity as well.  This paper will explore this heroism as it relates to the individual in culture and as it compares to the hero in mythology.

Bio Note :: Jamie Egolf, MSW (The Catholic University of America), is a Jungian Psychotherapist and psychodramatist who has been practicing and teaching for 34 years.  Currently she is  in private practice in Laramie, Wyoming, and works with individuals, groups, and families in Wyoming, Montana, California, Hawaii, and Washington.  She is also an artist/writer (co-author of The PreMarital Inventory) who enjoys reading Superman comics and restoration of historic buildings.  

Email :: jegolf@sprynet.com