Introduction / Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins and Eric L. Berlatsky -- PART I: SUPERHEROES IN BLACK AND WHITE. 1. Guess who's coming home? Mixed metaphors of home in Spider-Man's comic and cinematic homecomings / Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins -- 2. The Ride of Valkyrie against White supremacy: Tessa Thompson's casting in Thor: Ragnarok / Jasmine Mitchell -- 3. "Which world would you rather live in?" The anti-utopian superheroes of Gary Jackson's poetry / Chris Gavaler -- 4. Flash of two races: incest, miscegenation, and the mixed-race superhero in The Flash comics and television show / Eric L. Berlatsky -- PART II: METAPHORS OF/AND MIXEDNESS. 5. "Let yourself just be whoever you are!" Decolonial hybridity and the queer cosmic future in Steven universe / Corrine E. Collins -- 6. The Hulk and Venom: warring blood superheroes / Gregory T. Carter -- 7. Monsters, mutants, and mongrels: the mixed-race hero in Monstress / Chris Koenig-Woodyard -- 8. Examining otherness and the marginal man in DC's Superman through mixed-race studies / Kwasu David Tembo -- PART III: MULTIETHNIC MIXEDNESS (OR MIXED-RACE INTERSECTIONS). 9. Talented tensions and revisions: the narrative double consciousness of Miles Morales / Jorge J. Santos, Jr. -- 10. "They're two people in one body": nested sovereignties and mixed-race mutations in FX's Legion / Nicolas E. Miller -- 11. Into the Spider-verse and the commodified (re)imaging of Afro-Rican visibility / Isabel Molina-Guzman -- 12. Truth, justice, and the (ancient) Egyptian way: DC's Doctor Fate and the Arab Spring / Adrienne Resha -- Acknowledgments -- Notes on contributors -- Index.
Summary:
"Mixed-Race Superheroes examines representations of racial mixedness, literal, metaphorical, and symbolic, that take on, challenge, or complicate the stereotypes and romanticization of mixed-race identities and the idea of the superhero. Racial mixedness has long been associated with weakness, abnormality, impurity, transgression, shame, and various pathologies on the one hand, while also ironically connoting genetic superiority, exceptional beauty/physicality and unique potential. In contemporary discussions, this romanticization of racial mixedness is linked to the idea of the mixed-race individual as a kind of savior figure who has unique abilities to free us from racial tensions and divisions. While racial mixedness is now sometimes viewed as a superpower in itself, the origins of superhero stories are much more substantively rooted in the opposed rhetoric and practice of racial purity and white supremacy. In short, racial mixedness and superheroes are both historically and currently linked"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.