Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2007. / Title from screen (viewed on May 23, 2007) Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-110)

Published from 1985 to 1986, DC Comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths created the expectation that each crossover will result in numerous deaths and alter the structure or history of the DC Universe. Since many of these changes, such as the death of a popular or iconic character, cannot be sustained long term, the success and influence of Crisis on Infinite Earths led to the erosion of the very elements that made it shocking. Entire worlds can be destroyed, but superreaders eventually suspect that no change is ever permanent and, as more iconic characters are revived or rebooted, death is no longer meaningful.

This thesis looks at the contemporary superhero comic Hawkeye and its depiction of able-bodiedness and non-able-bodiedness, in general and more specifically the portrayal of deafness that takes place in the last story arc. Issues and depictions of various levels of functionality in comics, as a visual media, and superhero comics in particular, have been and are frequently present. They, however, rely heavily on old stereotypes, both in the visual and the textual elements. The small intersection of disability studies, crip theory and the study of superhero comics have mostly focused on the comics published between 1960 and 1980. The superhero genre is a genre known for idealized depictions of healthy and strong bodies, which is why it is such an interesting and complex theme to analyse. Matt Fraction and  David Aja’s Hawkeye comic utilizes the tools and elements inherent in the comic book style to portray disability and deafness in new enriching ways both in narrative terms and in the reader’s response to the text. Looking at both the visual and textual elements of the comic this thesis finds that the comic medium and the Hawkeye comic in particular manages to depict disability in an engaging and thought provoking way. / Inspirerad av min personliga reaktion av att läsa Matt Fraction och David Ajas superhjälteserie Hawkeye, och speciellt tidningen där protagonisten i serien plötsligt blir döv, har jag undersökt hur serien arbetar med föreställningar och normer om funktionalitet. Tidigare forskning inom just den smala intersektionen av cripteori och/eller handikappforskning samt forskningen av superhjälteserier har främst fokuserat på superhjälteseriernas så kallade Silverålder, vilket är åren mellan 1960 och 1980. Efter en kort introduktion till Hawkeyes fiktionella historia i förlaget Marvels serieuniversum och hanteringen av handikapp i tidigare tecknade serier diskuterar jag i analysen hur tematiken av funktionsduglighet och funktionsnedsatthet porträtteras. Jag undersöker såväl den visuella som den textuella skildringen samt hur denna tematik problematiseras, i själva berättelsen men även för läsaren, i seriens utformning. Jag använder mig av Mitchell och Snyders teorier om narrativa proteser och handikapp-narrativ för att undersöka hur Hawkeye förhåller sig till dessa. I början av Fraction och Ajas berättelse om Clint Barton följer handikapp-tematiken deras teori om narrativa proteser och det nedtystande och/eller ignorerande av handikappet som litterära skildringar av funktionsnedsättningar vanligtvis följer. När dövheten sedan tar plats i berättelsen förändras den attityden och Hawkeye #19 och senare serier bryter starkt mot dessa konventioner. Resultatet av denna analys är att tecknade serier, i egenskap av sin speciella medieform, är synnerhet är väldigt bra lämpad för att skildra alternativ funktionalitet och serieskaparna till Hawkeye använder detta till sin fördel för att avbilda Clints upplevelse av tillfälliga skador och dövhet.

El siguiente trabajo de investigación tiene como objetivo analizar el tratamiento de la sexualidad de las villanas y antiheroínas en los cómics de DC, Marvel e Image Comics, entre los años 2017 y 2020. En consecuencia, la hipótesis sostiene que el movimiento #MeToo, viralizado en el 2017, ha generado un cambio en la representación gráfica de las mujeres en los cómics de superhéroes. Por comprobarla, se ha realizado un análisis de contenido de veinticuatro números en total, seleccionando un personaje por editorial: Poison Ivy, Emma Frost y Jessica Priest, respectivamente. Se tomaron en consideración herramientas del lenguaje visual y su valor dentro del contexto narrativo. Igualmente, se realizaron entrevistas a una ilustradora de cómics, así como una especialista en cómics y estudios de género. Los resultados evidencian que Marvel presenta un tratamiento adecuado de Emma Frost, mientras que DC exhibe un diseño de personaje inconsistente con respecto a Poison Ivy. Por otro lado, la representación de Jessica Priest, por parte de Image Comics, muestra mayor disonancia en cuanto a decisiones artísticas y valor narrativo. Asimismo, la única editorial en la que se observa la inclusión de artistas mujeres en relación a estos personajes es DC, aunque aún no logran la paridad. Es posible concluir que el tratamiento de las villanas y antiheroínas no ha cambiado significativamente desde la aparición del movimiento #MeToo. Esto se debe a que la mirada masculina continúa viéndose reflejada en la libertad artística de las casas independientes y a la falta de la perspectiva femenina. / The following research aims to analyze the treatment of the sexuality of female villains and antiheroines in DC, Marvel and Image Comics between 2017 and 2020. Consequently, the study’s hypothesis holds that the #MeToo movement, that grew in popularity in 2017, has sparked a change in the graphic representation of women in superhero comics. Thus, twenty-four issues were examined using a content analysis method, selecting a character per publisher: Poison Ivy, Emma Frost and Jessica Priest, respectively. Visual language tools and their value within the narrative were considered in the investigation. Similarly, interviews were conducted with a comic illustrator and a specialist in comics and gender studies. The results show that Marvel presents an adequate treatment of Emma Frost, while DC exhibits an inconsistent character design when it comes to Poison Ivy. On the other hand, Image Comics’ handling of Jessica Priest shows greater dissonance in terms of artistic decisions and their narrative value. Likewise, the only editorial in which the inclusion of female artists is observed is DC Comics, although they have yet to achieve equality in job opportunities. In conclusion, the treatment of female villains and antiheroines hasn’t changed significantly since #MeToo went viral. This is evidenced in the way the male gaze continues to be reflected in the artistic choices of independent houses and also, in the lack of a female perspective in the superhero genre. / Trabajo de investigación

The figure of the cyborg, or more latterly, the posthuman body has been an increasingly familiar presence in a number of academic disciplines. The majority of such studies have focused on popular culture, particularly the depiction of the posthuman in science-fiction, fantasy and horror. To date however, few studies have focused on the posthuman and the comic book superhero, despite their evident corporeality, and none have questioned comics’ readers about their responses to the posthuman body. This thesis presents a cultural history of the posthuman body in superhero comics along with the findings from twenty-five, two-hour interviews with readers. By way of literature reviews this thesis first provides a new typography of the posthuman, presenting it not as a stable bounded subject but as what Deleuze and Guattari (1987) describe as a ‘rhizome’. Within the rhizome of the posthuman body are several discursive plateaus that this thesis names Superhumanism (the representation of posthuman bodies in popular culture), Post/Humanism (a critical-theoretical stance that questions the assumptions of Humanism) and Transhumanism (the philosophy and practice of human enhancement with technology). With these categories in mind the thesis explores the development of the posthuman in body in the Superhuman realm of comic books. Exploring the body-types most prominent during the Golden (1938-1945), Silver (1958-1974) and contemporary Ages of superheroes it presents three explorations of what I term the Perfect Body, Cosmic Body and Military-Industrial Body respectively. These body types are presented as ‘assemblages’ (Delueze and Guattari, 1987) that display rhizomatic connections to the other discursive realms of the Post/Human and Transhuman. This investigation reveals how the depiction of the Superhuman body developed and diverged from, and sometimes back into, these realms as each attempted to territorialise the meaning and function of the posthuman body. Ultimately it describes how, in spite of attempts by nationalistic or economic interests to control Transhuman enhancement in real-world practices, the realms of Post/Humanism and Superhumanism share a more critical approach. The final section builds upon this cultural history of the posthuman body by addressing reader’s relationship with these images. This begins by refuting some of the common assumptions in comics studies about superheroes and bodily representations. Readers stated that they viewed such imagery as iconographic rather than representational, whether it was the depiction of bodies or technology. Moreover, regular or committed readers of superhero comics were generally suspicious of the notion of human enhancement, displaying a belief in the same binary categories -artificial/natural, human/non-human - that critical Post/Humanism seeks to problematize. The thesis concludes that while superhero comics remain ultimately too human to be truly Post/Humanist texts, it is never the less possible to conceptualise the relationship between reader, text, producer and so on in Post/Humanist terms as reading-assemblage, and that such a cyborgian fusing of human and comic book allow both bodies to ‘become other’, to move in new directions and form new assemblages not otherwise possible when considered separately.