Mixed-Race SuperheroesSika A. Dagbovie-Mullins, Eric L. Berlatsky American culture has long represented mixed-race identity in paradoxical terms. On the one hand, it has been associated with weakness, abnormality, impurity, transgression, shame, and various pathologies; however, it can also connote genetic superiority, exceptional beauty, and special potentiality. This ambivalence has found its way into superhero media, which runs the gamut from Ant-Man and the Wasp’s tragic mulatta villain Ghost to the cinematic depiction of Aquaman as a heroic “half-breed.” The essays in this collection contend with the multitude of ways that racial mixedness has been presented in superhero comics, films, television, and literature. They explore how superhero media positions mixed-race characters within a genre that has historically privileged racial purity and propagated images of white supremacy. The book considers such iconic heroes as Superman, Spider-Man, and The Hulk, alongside such lesser-studied characters as Valkyrie, Dr. Fate, and Steven Universe. Examining both literal and symbolic representations of racial mixing, this study interrogates how we might challenge and rewrite stereotypical narratives about mixed-race identity, both in superhero media and beyond. |
Contents
Introduction | |
Superheroes in Black and White | |
ADRIENNE RESHA | |
Guess Whos Coming Home? Mixed Metaphors of Home in SpiderMans Comic | |
Tessa Thompsons Casting in Thor | |
Which World Would You Rather Live In? The Antiutopian Superheroes of Gary | |
Incest Miscegenation and the MixedRace Superhero in | |
Let Yourself Just Be Whoever You Are Decolonial Hybridity and the Queer | |
The MixedRace Hero in Monstress | |
Examining Otherness and the Marginal Man in DCs Superman through MixedRace | |
The Narrative Double Consciousness of Miles | |
Nested Sovereignties and MixedRace | |
Into the SpiderVerse and the Commodified Reimagining of AfroRican Visibility | |
DCs Doctor Fate and the Arab Spring | |
Acknowledgments | |
Warring Blood Superheroes | |
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Accessed 13 Oct actors African American alien Amazing Spider-Man Aquaman Arcanics argues audiences Barry Bendis biracial body Brock casting character cinematic color color-blind comic book context cultural Cumaea Daken DC Comics depiction diverse Doctor Fate edited experience fantasy father fiction film Flash fusion Gavaler gender global heroes Homecoming Hulk human hybrid imagined incest Indigenous inker interracial Jackson Kerry and Cary Kerry-Cary Khalid Kryptonian Latina/o Latino Liu and Takeda Maika marginal Marvel Comics Marvel Studios metaphor Miles Morales Miles's miscegenation mixed race mixed-race mixedness mongrel Monstress movie mulatto multiracial mutant narrative Native penciller Peter Parker poem political postracial queer racial identity racial mixing racism relationship representations represents Savitar scene sexual social sovereignty Spider-Verse stereotypical Steven Stevonnie story superhero comics Superman symbiote symbolically Talented Tenth television tension Tessa Thompson Thor University Press Valkyrie Venom viewers visual Wally warring blood white supremacy writer X-Men