Description
Book SynopsisWhile much of the scholarship on superhero narratives has focused on the heroes themselves, Batman’s Villains and Villainesses: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Arkham’s Souls takes into view the depiction of the villains and their lives, arguing that they often function as proxies for larger societal and philosophical themes. Approaching Gotham’s villains from a number of disciplinary backgrounds, the essays in this collection highlight how the villains’ multifaceted backgrounds, experiences, motivations, and behaviors allow for in-depth character analysis across varying levels of social life. Through investigating their cultural and scholarly relevance across the humanities and social sciences, the volume encourages both thoughtful reflection on the relationship between individuals and their social contexts and the use of villains (inside and outside of Gotham) as subjects of pedagogical and scholarly inquiry.
Trade ReviewFor serious readers of Batman comics and graphic novels, this book offers something for everyone. Many of the villains in Batman’s world are described and dissected, including corrupt politicians and police.
-- Robin S. Rosenberg, University of California, San Francisco
Table of ContentsIntroduction. Not Exactly a Cowardly Lot: Gotham’s Villains
Marco Favaro and Justin F. Martin
Chapter 1. Death, Monk, and Strange: The Predecessors to the Supervillain in Detective Comics
John Darowski
Part I. Arkham City: The Asylum, the City and the Ones Who Rule Them
Chapter 2. “This Place Isn’t a Prison”: Institutions, Choice, and the Case of Arkham Asylum
Tony Spanakos and Damien K. Picariello
Chapter 3. “You Can’t Fight City Hall!”: The Villains Hidden in Gotham’s Government
Ian J. Drake and Matthew B. Lloyd
Chapter 4. The Owls Nesting in the Bat’s City: Secrecy, Gotham’s Social Structures, and the Court of Owls
James C. Taylor
Part II. Confronting Batman: Outsiders, Doppelgängers and Parodies
Chapter 5. The Mutants, the Sons of Batman, and the Long Shadow of the Bat
Damien K. Picariello
Chapter 6. Bane: the Man Who “Doppelgängered” the Bat
Jesús Jiménez-Varea
Chapter 7. Outcasts and Oppressors: Killer Moth and Killer Croc
Jason D. DeHart
Part III Creating a Villainous Identity: Form, Function, and Reboots
Chapter 8. Flesh, Scars and Clay: The Role of Pain and Bodies in the Creation of Identity and Meaning
Marco Favaro
Chapter 9. Controlling the Appearances: Thomas Elliot’s Hush, His Masks, and the Desire to Dominate Perceptions
Sean C. Hadley
Chapter 10. “My relationship with Batman has never been what I’d call ‘stable’”: Catwoman’s Flirtations with Superheroism and Her Evolving Role as the Monstrous Feline Fatale. Carl Wilson
Chapter 11. “Kite Man, Hell Yeah!”: Revisionism, Masculinity, and the Role of the D-tier Supervillain
Nicholas T. James
Part IV. Dangerous Women: Victims, Vixens, and Villainesses
Chapter 12. From Good Girl to Bad Girl to…Something In-Between: Harley Quinn as a Morally Complex Character
Nathan Miczo
Chapter 13. “There Is One Thing You Have Never Understood About Me, Batman”: The Liminality of Talia al Ghul
Tosha R. Taylor
Chapter 14. Militant Earth Mother: Viewing Poison Ivy as an Ecofeminist rather than as an Ecoterrorist
Christina M. Knopf
Chapter 15. “Hear me Roar”: Trauma Representation of Catwoman in Comic Books and Cinema from 1983-1995
Sean Travers
Chapter 16. Arkham’s Sirens: Analyzing the Roles of the Body and the Transcendental Subject in Arkham’s Villainesses and Antiheroines
Marco Favaro
Part V. We Are What We Believe: Ethics, Theology, and Motivations
Chapter 17. The Demon’s Head and the Ethics of the Anthropocene
Daniel Goff
Chapter 18. Cold-Hearted: Mr. Freeze and Moral Development
Justin F. Martin
Chapter 19. The Pleasure of Fear: the Scarecrow as an Extremely Immoral, Vicious and Pro-Passion Character According to Stoicism
Francisco Miguel Ortiz
Chapter 20. Batman, Defender of the Status Quo?: On Anarchy and Anarky (Guest Villain: The Ventriloquist)
Eduardo Veteri and Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns
Chapter 21. The Hole in Things: Dr. Hurt’s Textual History, Religious Significance, and Role in Grant Morrison’s Batman Run
Matthew Brake
