Description
Book SynopsisThe reimagining of Aquaman in The New 52 transformed the character from a joke to an important figure of ecological justice. In
Aquaman and the War against Oceans, Ryan Poll argues that in this twenty-first-century iteration, Aquaman becomes an accessible figure for charting environmental violences endemic to global capitalism and for developing a progressive and popular ecological imagination.
Poll contends that The New 52
Aquaman should be read as an allegory that responds to the crises of the Anthropocene, in which the oceans have become sites of warfare and mass death. The
Aquaman series, which works to bridge the terrestrial and watery worlds, can be understood as a form of comics activism by its visualizing and verbalizing how the oceans are beyond the projects of the “human” and “humanism” and, simultaneously, are all-too-human geographies that are inextricable from the violent structures of capitalism, white supremacy, a
Trade Review"While at times a mocked superhero, DC's Aquaman has much to teach its readers about environmental justice, the Ocean, and fighting oppression during the Anthropocene."—Nicole Rehnberg,
Journal of Popular Culture“
Aquaman and the War against Oceans couldn’t be more important to read. It is the book for our times. Ryan Poll has written a page-turner, and not many academic texts can be called that. It is probably the smoothest integration of scholarly and journalistic sources I have yet encountered, written in a style that could be enjoyed by superhero fandom, undergraduates in an environmental humanities course, and scholars doing research on ecocriticism and superhero politics.”—Marc DiPaolo, author of
Fire and Snow: Climate Fiction from the Inklings to “Game of Thrones”“In this scholarly tour de force, Poll sonar-maps new scholarly biomes. He radically reorientates research frames and opens scholarly slipstreams to vital new ways of engaging with and adding to blue humanities, Black Atlantic, ecofeminist, and critical race studies. This is superhero comics scholarship at its best!”—Frederick Luis Aldama, author of the Eisner Award–winning
Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream ComicsTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Series Editors’ Introduction
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The New 52
Aquaman’s Allegorical Project to See beyond the Anthropocene
1. Deep in the Trenches: Monsters, Humanism, and Ecological Allegories
2. Waves of Feminism: Mera, Paradigm Shifts, and Allegories of Reading
3. The Apocalyptic Ocean: Orm, Frames of Justice, and Allegories of Radical Politics
4. Allegories of White Supremacy: Black Manta and the Black Atlantic
Afterword: The Ocean’s Black, Queer, Brown, and Indigenous Futures
Notes
Bibliography
Index
