onceandfuturelaura's review against another edition
3.0
Takes its title from literary critic Leslie Fiedler who (the internet tells me) championed genre and who (the book tells me) gave a talk at Rutgers University titled “The New Mutants” contending:
Felder also suggested that this “new sensibility” included “the willful relinquishing of attachments to traditional masculinity and an increasing identification among American youth with the outcast elements of American society: racial minorities, the homeless, and woman.” (35).
Appropriating this or riffing on this, Fawaz suggests the big two superhero was “radically transformed” from “local do-gooder and loyal patriot” to “cultural outsiders and biological freaks capable of upsetting the social order in much the same way that racial, gendered, and sexualized minorities were seen to destabilize the image of the ideal U.S. citizen.” Superheroes became “a cultural corollary to the cosmopolitan worldviews of movements for international human rights, civil rights , and women’s and gay liberation.” (4). From the Justice League’s adoption of “ethical citizenship” that emphasizes good deeds that make the world a better place and Superman’s renunciation of his U.S. citizenship (41, 282) to the X-Men’s ongoing embrace of the excluded, there’s definitely some there there.
I did learn a lot about comic history I missed. I learned that the Justice League came together to fight “Starro the Conqueror, a giant, space-faring starfish” who was ultimately defeated by lawn care. (42, 47). Fawaz makes quite a compelling case that The Fantastic Four is struggling with becoming a non-hetronormative family with a family patriarch who never comes to grips with how his own body undermines the role he doesn’t question he plays – which makes me want to take another look at Matt Fraction’s run.
I also learned that Jane Gray’s turn as The Dark Phoenix was riffing on 1970s concerns about narcissism, including a conservative backlash that feminism was about really narcissism, not liberation. (202, 2016). The Dark Phoenix storyline moved easily into concerns about demon possession, which I forget people in 1980s were really worried about. Some people. Then in the 1990s, it shifted into a story about “The Legacy Virus” which struck many mutants and gave the X-Men and opportunity to explore the consequences of HIV and the role pop-genetics play in exclusion and inclusion. (266-67).
Wraps up with a discussion of the assassination of Captain America; killed on the New York District Courthouse steps as he is summoned to answer for resisting immoral laws. (269). I only dipped my toe in the Civil War story line. I liked what I read. I’m getting too old to be engaged by the “who would win in a fight, Captain America or Captain Marvel” thing (and duh – Captain Marvel). But I get that stories are about conflict and soothing that gnawing foundational, ontological doubt that makes us wonder whether the game is worth the candle, and the question of the moral response to an immoral law is worth that candle. And also both foundational AND ontological. But I never read to the end of it, in large part because my sense is that the story never resolved; it just . . . ended. I’m struck by positioning Captain America as the capstone transgressive figure; this Übermensch created to fight Übermensch who solidly places himself in the deep American history of resisting unwarranted authority.
Generally enjoyed reading it. I was, however, frustrated by how cherry picked this text felt. There was no discussion of the counter narrative of highly influential conservative comic book writers like Frank Miller, for example. And weirdly for a book that seems delighted by transgressive comic texts, no discussion of that champion of polymorphous perversity, Grant Morrison. Nary a mention in the text or an entry in the index for either. I thought Matt Fraction got mentioned, but there’s nothing in the index backing me up on that. And the myriad examples of the earnest but cringeworthy attempts to tackle sexuality, race, gender, and power in major story lines are just ignored. Though maybe in this age where folks like to tear down more than build up, that’s kinda charmingly transgressive in its own way.
I did wish for a clearer thesis and a deeper dive.
that the counterculture youth of the 1950s and 1960s . . . represented a ‘new mutant’ generation defined by a rebellious disengagement from the traditions of liberal humanism. This included turning away from the values of human reason and progress and embracing ‘anti-rational’ aesthetics, or forms of art and literature that parody the supposedly foundational institutions and narratives of American social life, including the family, romantic love, and upward mobility. (35).
Felder also suggested that this “new sensibility” included “the willful relinquishing of attachments to traditional masculinity and an increasing identification among American youth with the outcast elements of American society: racial minorities, the homeless, and woman.” (35).
Appropriating this or riffing on this, Fawaz suggests the big two superhero was “radically transformed” from “local do-gooder and loyal patriot” to “cultural outsiders and biological freaks capable of upsetting the social order in much the same way that racial, gendered, and sexualized minorities were seen to destabilize the image of the ideal U.S. citizen.” Superheroes became “a cultural corollary to the cosmopolitan worldviews of movements for international human rights, civil rights , and women’s and gay liberation.” (4). From the Justice League’s adoption of “ethical citizenship” that emphasizes good deeds that make the world a better place and Superman’s renunciation of his U.S. citizenship (41, 282) to the X-Men’s ongoing embrace of the excluded, there’s definitely some there there.
I did learn a lot about comic history I missed. I learned that the Justice League came together to fight “Starro the Conqueror, a giant, space-faring starfish” who was ultimately defeated by lawn care. (42, 47). Fawaz makes quite a compelling case that The Fantastic Four is struggling with becoming a non-hetronormative family with a family patriarch who never comes to grips with how his own body undermines the role he doesn’t question he plays – which makes me want to take another look at Matt Fraction’s run.
I also learned that Jane Gray’s turn as The Dark Phoenix was riffing on 1970s concerns about narcissism, including a conservative backlash that feminism was about really narcissism, not liberation. (202, 2016). The Dark Phoenix storyline moved easily into concerns about demon possession, which I forget people in 1980s were really worried about. Some people. Then in the 1990s, it shifted into a story about “The Legacy Virus” which struck many mutants and gave the X-Men and opportunity to explore the consequences of HIV and the role pop-genetics play in exclusion and inclusion. (266-67).
Wraps up with a discussion of the assassination of Captain America; killed on the New York District Courthouse steps as he is summoned to answer for resisting immoral laws. (269). I only dipped my toe in the Civil War story line. I liked what I read. I’m getting too old to be engaged by the “who would win in a fight, Captain America or Captain Marvel” thing (and duh – Captain Marvel). But I get that stories are about conflict and soothing that gnawing foundational, ontological doubt that makes us wonder whether the game is worth the candle, and the question of the moral response to an immoral law is worth that candle. And also both foundational AND ontological. But I never read to the end of it, in large part because my sense is that the story never resolved; it just . . . ended. I’m struck by positioning Captain America as the capstone transgressive figure; this Übermensch created to fight Übermensch who solidly places himself in the deep American history of resisting unwarranted authority.
Generally enjoyed reading it. I was, however, frustrated by how cherry picked this text felt. There was no discussion of the counter narrative of highly influential conservative comic book writers like Frank Miller, for example. And weirdly for a book that seems delighted by transgressive comic texts, no discussion of that champion of polymorphous perversity, Grant Morrison. Nary a mention in the text or an entry in the index for either. I thought Matt Fraction got mentioned, but there’s nothing in the index backing me up on that. And the myriad examples of the earnest but cringeworthy attempts to tackle sexuality, race, gender, and power in major story lines are just ignored. Though maybe in this age where folks like to tear down more than build up, that’s kinda charmingly transgressive in its own way.
I did wish for a clearer thesis and a deeper dive.
crosberg's review against another edition
1.0
This is quite possibly one of the worst books I've ever read. Riddled with factual errors (Page 9 "…DC Comics (creator of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) and Marvel (creator of Captain America)…") and logical fallacies (including but not limited to Fawaz's belief that characters have agency of their own), the entire book was a struggle to get through. Racism and sexism abound.
I absolutely understand the desire to see one's self in the media we consume. But trying to reframe hetero-normative but slightly different characters as somehow "queer" is disingenuous at best and frankly pretty dangerous. I have no belief that Fawaz knows much about the comics he covered or the creators that made them. If he did, he certainly wouldn't like Stan Lee as much as he appears to.
He repeatedly uses ableist language and treats actual trans people as objects to demonstrate his point, refusing to recognize the breadth and depth of what it means to be queer. He never deviates from a gender binary (to the point where he believes the Hulk to be "feminine" because he is "not explicitly masculine" and "ruled by his emotions" which is a "female trait").
Don't even risk losing brain cells while you read this. Go read Ten Cent Plague instead, safe the time and heartache.
(Full review on The Learned Fangirl: http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2016/05/book-review-the-new-mutants-superheroes-and-the-radical-imagination-of-american-comics/)
I absolutely understand the desire to see one's self in the media we consume. But trying to reframe hetero-normative but slightly different characters as somehow "queer" is disingenuous at best and frankly pretty dangerous. I have no belief that Fawaz knows much about the comics he covered or the creators that made them. If he did, he certainly wouldn't like Stan Lee as much as he appears to.
He repeatedly uses ableist language and treats actual trans people as objects to demonstrate his point, refusing to recognize the breadth and depth of what it means to be queer. He never deviates from a gender binary (to the point where he believes the Hulk to be "feminine" because he is "not explicitly masculine" and "ruled by his emotions" which is a "female trait").
Don't even risk losing brain cells while you read this. Go read Ten Cent Plague instead, safe the time and heartache.
(Full review on The Learned Fangirl: http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2016/05/book-review-the-new-mutants-superheroes-and-the-radical-imagination-of-american-comics/)
ckeeve's review
4.0
Probably the best cultural critique of the superheroic genre that I've seen in a while. Fawaz engages superhero comics from the 1960's to 2000's through the lens of queer theory, focusing on bodies, mutation, and monstrosity, matching shifting impressions and effects of the superheroic body to shifts in American social and political life. It would have benefited the text for Fawaz to have been more bold and "weird" with it, and make a more original intervention (drudging through the X-Men as a queer allegory isn't saying anything new). For the first half of the book (1960's - 1970's), Fawaz relies on tenuous logical connections that aren't immediate to the reader or well explained, but the latter part (1980's to 2000's) of the text is where he really hits his stride.
The close readings of archived comics aren't spectacular, but Fawaz has a compelling talent for sociopolitical contextualization. Also, the inclusion of fan letters as sites of analysis, critique, and debate was clever.
The close readings of archived comics aren't spectacular, but Fawaz has a compelling talent for sociopolitical contextualization. Also, the inclusion of fan letters as sites of analysis, critique, and debate was clever.
More...