Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 264
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9½
978-1-4422-3211-2 • Hardback • March 2014 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
978-1-4422-3212-9 • eBook • March 2014 • $122.50 • (£95.00)
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.
Foreword: The Industrial and Economic History of the Superhero Blockbuster, Drew MortonIntroduction: Heroes, Converge!, James N. Gilmore and Matthias StorkChapter 1: Will You Like Me When I’m Angry? Discourse of the Digital in Hulk and The Incredible Hulk, James N. GilmoreChapter 2: Secret Origins: Melodrama and the Digital in Hulk, Matt YockeyChapter 3: Fantastic Views: Superheroes, Visual Perception, and Digital Perspective, Lisa GottoChapter 4: From Motion Line to Motion Blur: The Integration of Digital Coloring in the Superhero Comic Book. M.J. ClarkeChapter 5: Assembling the Avengers: Re-Framing the Superhero Movie through Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, Matthias StorkChapter 6: From Scientific Romance to Disney Superhero: Genre Fluidity and the Marketing of John Carter, Andrew MyersChapter 7: The Cult of Comic-Con and the Spectacle of Superhero Marketing, Kevin McDonaldChapter 8: The Dark Knight Levels Up: Batman: Arkham Asylum and the Convergent Superhero Franchise, Justin MackChapter 9: The Fears of a Superhero: Batman Begins and Batman: Arkham Asylum, Benjamin BeilChapter 10: “I Am Catwoman, Hear Me Roar”: Gender between Film and Video Game, Martin HennigChapter 11: Melodrama, Romance, and the Celebrity of the Superhero, Benjamin D. GrisantiChapter 12: In Franchise: Narrative Coherence and the Multiverse, Russell BackmanChapter 13: Spectacular Superheroes on Stage: Theatre’s Unique Contribution to Batman’s Transmedia Story, Mathias BremgartnerAfterword: When Storyworlds Collide: Superhero Movies and Transmedia Patchworks, Andreas RauscherBibliographyIndexAbout the ContributorsAbout the Editors
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