Searching for Feminist Superheroes
Searching for Feminist Superheroes
Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Marvel Comics
How superhero narratives in the margins of the mainstream tell innovative, feminist stories.
It’s no secret that superhero comics and their related media perpetuate a model of a straight, white, male hero at the expense of representing women and other minorities, but other narratives exist. Searching for Feminist Superheroes recognizes that female-led superhero comics, with diverse casts of characters and inclusive storytelling, exist on the margins of the mainstream superhero genre. But rather than focusing on these stories as marginalized, Sam Langsdale’s work on heroes such as Spider-Woman, America Chavez, and Ironheart locates the margins as a site of innovation and productivity, which have enabled the creation of feminist superhero texts.
Employing feminist and intersectional philosophies in an analysis of these comics, Langsdale suggests that feminist superheroes have the potential to contribute to a social imagination that is crucial in working towards a more just world. At a time when US popular culture continues to manifest as a battleground between oppressive and progressive social norms, Searching for Feminist Superheroes demonstrates that a fight for a better world is worthwhile.
Sam Langsdale contributes to the critical study of gender and comics by focusing on the strengths and potential of woman-centric comics, rather than on the limitations. Through clearly and firmly grounded feminist philosophy, Searching for Feminist Superheroes makes space in criticism for optimism by establishing the feminist superhero as something that both exists in and yet defies the superhero genre.
This book is a recuperative project that presents a clear and cogent argument for the existence of feminist superhero comics. Langsdale draws from many disciplines and lenses in her work, which makes it all the more engaging and delightfully surprising. I found her references to other fields of study illuminating. Searching for Feminist Superheroes explores the possibilities of superhero comics to promote feminist concepts and ideals.
Sam Langsdale is an independent scholar and the co-editor of Monstrous Women in Comics.
- Introduction. “A Willful Method”: Searching for Feminist Superheroes
- Chapter 1. Whoa Momma! The Feminist Model of Maternity in Spider-Woman
- Chapter 2. America and the New Mestiza: Punching Star-Shaped Holes through Binaries and Borders
- Chapter 3. The Unstoppable Wasp: Diversifying Superhero Teams with Queer Science and Feminist Friendship
- Chapter 4. Sampling Ironheart: Black Feminist Thought, Superhero Ethics, and Afrofuturism
- Conclusion. Archiving Traces of Feminist Superheroes
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- References
- Index
