The Batman media franchise (comics, movies, novels, television, and cartoons) is unique because no other form of written or visual texts has as many artists, audiences, and forms of expression. Understanding the various artists and audiences and what Batman means to them is to understand changing trends and thinking in American culture. The character of Batman has developed into a symbol with relevant characteristics that develop and evolve with each new story and new author. The Batman canon has become so large and contains so many different audiences that it has become a franchise that can morph to fit any group of viewers/readers. Our understanding of Batman and the many readings of him gives us insight into ourselves as a culture in our particular place in history.

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The Batman media franchise (comics, movies, novels, television, and cartoons) is unique because no other form of written or visual texts has as many artists, audiences, and forms of expression. Understanding the various artists and audiences and what Batman means to them is to understand changing trends and thinking in American culture. The character of Batman has developed into a symbol with relevant characteristics that develop and evolve with each new story and new author. The Batman canon has become so large and contains so many different audiences that it has become a franchise that can morph to fit any group of viewers/readers. Our understanding of Batman and the many readings of him gives us insight into ourselves as a culture in our particular place in history.

This thesis deals with The International Code of Ethics of Social Work. The first part focuses on the origins, history, updates and criticism of ethical codes. It is followed by the analysis of various principles of the International Code of Ethics. This analysis was based on the scientific literature of social work and the articles published in the Czech Republic. Subsequently, for each principle the results of the research among social workers in the South Region were processed. They reveal how social workers perceive the different principles. The analysis is concluded with a brief insight into the ethical theories.

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 new “Joker” movie, directed by Todd Phillips, was released in 2019 and brought a range of fervent and controversial discussion both in critics and audiences. Nevertheless, the “Joker” persona is tightly associated with comics and the superhero movie genre, and usually depicted in a particular way. However, the new movie differs in vital points. This study aims to explore the differences that lie between the “Joker”, and his depiction in the superhero genre. In order to investigate this inquiry, we conducted an exploratory research, and used latent content analysis. From our results, we extrapolate that the new movie constructs a more humane and approachable image of the “Joker”, as opposed to the “nameless” and “cold-blooded” villain. Simultaneously, we concluded that the movie adopts a more realistic and less entertaining approach towards violence, a prominent characteristic in superhero movies

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<p>This thesis analyzes the impact of the Dark Age of comics on Grant Morrison’s comic book series The Invisibles, specifically arguing that the traditional superhero figure enacts a certain narrative violence on the characters and text itself, both through direct violence and in the limiting of potential narratives. The first chapter establishes The Invisibles’ contemporary comic tropes, establishing Dark Age superheroes as an exceptionalist figures who use extreme violence to separate themselves from a perceived corrupt society. As such, this thesis moves from a psychoanalytic approach to heroism towards a schizoanalytic approach found in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, demonstrating how similar cycles of pathologization found in their critique of psychoanalysis also apply to The Invisibles’ attempt to innoculate itself against its own sensationalized violence. In doing so, the series eventually purges itself of the hero’s underlying ideological violences and attempts to actualize a Morrison’s own notions of utopia through the medium of comics, valuing multiplicities and the production of narratives to inform the experience of reality over a limitation of narratives based on violent conflict.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

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.

Unseen, unheard and unconsidered, Qatar’s migrant worker population is building one of the richest countries in the world. They labor in Qatar’s high heat index1 climate, which is coincidentally comparable to an Oriental sauna, wearing the most rudimentary of clothes. Working up to 60 hours a week, migrant workers fall victim to heat stress and dozens are hospitalized daily, starting as early as March and increasing in numbers during the peak months of June to August. Since clothes are essentially a “second skin,” affecting the rate and efficiency with which heat is exchanged between the body and its surroundings, a concept garment was designed to improve thermal comfort. Low-tech, indigenous heat-management systems are combined with new technologies and knowledge of human physiology to design a two-layer suit that aims to optimize heat exchange mechanisms. The suit enhances radiation, convection and evaporation by having a snug-fitting inner wicking layer and a loose-cut outer shell, and by using strategically placed vents, perforations, and Phase Change Material (PCM) packs. Using fiction as a medium of social commentary and critical design, the concept suit borrows from the superhero aesthetic to present the migrant worker in a new light. The suit denotes power, symbolizing the superhuman feat these workers perform and their true worth to the economy. Its aesthetic and function aim to improve worker morale and performance. Mapping, scoping and primary and secondary qualitative and quantitative research have been used throughout the design process. This is in addition to an ethnographic study, field observations, material explorations, body storming and experimentation.