BOBC

1 Introduction (9)
1.1 “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s …” (9)
1.2 Setting the Study Question (13)
1.3 Defining Boundaries (23)

2 Superhero Comics and Popular Geopolitics: Defining Nations, Defining Identities (33)
2.1 Origin of a Species: A Short History of Superhero Comics (34)
2.2 Embodying the Nation: Defining America through Popular Geopolitics (54)

3 Imagining Super-Men: Masculinity in the Superhero Comic  (75)
3.1 Calling for (Super)Heroes: White Masculinity in Crisis (81)
3.2 Displaying Deviance: Sexual (and Textual) Others (107)
3.3 Women in Refrigerators: The Problem of the Female in Superhero Comics (136)

4 Fantastical Forces: The Superhero, Violence, and Power (159)
4.1 From Dark Knight to Kick-Ass: Justifying Vigilante Violence (163)
4.2 All Men Are Not Created Equal: Power, Subjectivity and Resistance in Superman: Red Son  (191)

5 Confusion of Powers: The Superhero in a State of Exception (208)
5.1 Exceptions within the State, or, How the Superhero is a Fascist in Disguise (210)
5.2 Freedom and Security: Marvel’s Civil War (230)

6 After 9/11: From Defense to Offense (246)
6.1 United We Stand: Narrating American Identity after 9/11 (249)
6.2 No More Heroes: Evil and Fractured Identities in The Death of Captain America (273)

Conclusions: … to Be Continued? (291)

Works Cited (296)