The Meaning of Superhero Comic Books ALSOEDITEDBYTERRENCER.WANDTKE The Amazing Transforming Superhero! Essays on the Revision of Characters in Comic Books, Film and Television (McFarland, 2007) The Meaning of Superhero Comic Books Terrence R. Wandtke McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA Wandtke, Terrence R. The meaning of superhero comic books / Terrence R. Wandtke. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-6491-3 softcover : acid freepaper 1. Comic books, strips, etc.—History and criticism. 2. Superheroes in literature. I. Title. PN6710.W36 2012 741.5'9—dc23 2012017518 British Library cataloguing data are available © 2012 Terrence R. Wandtke. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, i ncluding photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without p ermission in writing from the p ublisher. Cover illustration © 2012 Digitalvision Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com For Griffin and Reuben, my wonder twins (with their joyous smiles, unaware of their positive effect on me) For Walter, one of my mentors (with his kind smile, unaware of his positive influence on me) Acknowledgments I give special thanks to: Anna Wandtke (for your encouragement), Bella and Ripley Wandtke (for your inspiration), Adam Davis and John Walter (for your expertise), the department of Communication Arts at Judson University (for your support), and book stores around the world (for your uncanny knack for always having something I desperately need). vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments vi Introduction: How Comic Books Speak to Me and What I’ve Heard About Superheroes 1 1. Moving Beyond the Standard Arguments: The Superhero Revised (Again) 7 2. The Emergence of Orality: When Industry Becomes Epic 28 3. Orality and a New Medium: The History of the Man of Tomorrow 53 4. Amplification Through Simplification: The Traditional Basis for Superhero Iconography 80 5. The Persistence of Traditionality: When Industry Workers Become Artisans 105 6. The Failed Attempt to Impose High Culture: Literacy in Crisis 133 7. More Than Service to the Publishers: Artists Aware of Technology (and the Audience) 161 8. Eternal, Self-Conscious Recurrence (or More Revision): The Aesthetes of New Traditionality 191 Conclusion: Everything Old Is New Again (and Again and...): An Open Invitation to an Open Ending 221 Chapter Notes 225 Works Cited 251 Index 259 vii This page intentionally left blank Introduction How Comic Books Speak to Me and What I’ve Heard About Superheroes The stories of superhero comic book collectors are often like stories of fishermen who simultaneously cast a nostalgic eye on the naive days of youth and lament the ones that got away. Setting aside the melodramatic haze of memory as much as possible, I can say that I initially relied on my parents for the gift of new four-color reading material and was never quite sure when I might receive that gift. Even once I started to earn a regular allowance, it would never be enough to follow all the superheroes that I knew and loved on a monthly basis. In addition, I had established a pattern of choosing my comic books more on the basis of flashy cover art or the quick skim of the interior splash pages, something done in front of the disapproving local drug store owner. (He used classic lines like “This is not a library!” or “If you read it, you buy it!”) My comic books would (sometimes literally) be thrown into an old cardboard box, ill-suited to its comic-book-carrying purpose, as it allowed the comic books to slide around as I carried them to my best friend’s house. I had no organizational schema that took into account alphabetical order or issue number; instead, the comic book at the top of the pile would necessarily be the comic book most recently read and the majority of those on top were the most well loved. I can’t say that I cared about the condition of the disposable pamphlets called comic books any more than the average comic book consumer of the 1970s and most of my comic books became yellowed and tat- tered at the edges. Even though I could not be properly called a collector or investor until sometime later, I was very invested in the fantastic worlds owned and produced by DC, Marvel, and other comic book publishers. I traded my comic books with my friends for other comic books with little regard for the condition but great attention paid to finding the conclusion of a three-issue story arc in which the Fantastic Four teamed up with the Silver Surfer. Based on some sort of arcane formulation to which only comic readers were fully privy, an issue in which Batman matches wits with a major villain like the Joker couldn’t be traded for anything less than three comic books of the same size. Even with the formulas in place and the dramatic yield from a trade in mind, there were those specific comic books from which certain readers would never part due to whatever idiosyncratic reason made them love them so. I’m not exactly sure when I moved from being an avid reader of superhero comic books to being an obsessive collector but I have pretty good idea. While the transition from occa- sional reader to the obsessive collector took place for many reasons, I know for certain that 1