Christopher B. Zeichmann

Christopher B. Zeichmann

A Wordpess Site

Category: comics

X-Men

By on July 30th, 2018 in Academics, comics

This page collects all links for my book chapter “X-Men Films and the Domestication of Dissent: Sexuality, Race, and Respectability”

Last updated: 30 July 2018

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Ahmed, Sara. 2004b. “Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-performativity of Anti-Racism.” borderlands 3/2: n.p. Available from http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/ahmed_declarations.htm.

Brothers, David. 2013. Professor X Isn’t Martin Luther King, and Magneto Isn’t Malcolm X, Either. 4th Letter, 2013. Available from http://4thletter.net/2013/04/professor-x-isnt-martin-luther-king-and-magneto-isnt-malcolm-x-either/.

Brown, Michael. 2011. “Mutant” as a Codeword for “Gay” in the X-Men Movies. Townhall, 2011. Available from https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2011/11/03/mutant-as-a-codeword-for-gay-in-the-x-men-movies-n1216545.

Burrows, Cedric Dewayne. 2005. The Contemporary Rhetoric about Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X in the Post-Reagan Era. M.A. thesis, Miami University. Available from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=miami1118689456&disposition=inline.

Clark, P. Djèlí. 2015. On Malcolm, Martin and that X-Men Analogy Thing. The Musings of a Disgruntled Haradrim, 2015. Available from https://pdjeliclark.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/on-malcolm-martin-and-that-x-men-analogy-thing/.

Dussere, Erik. 2000. The Queer World of the X-Men. Salon, 2000. Available from https://www.salon.com/2000/07/12/x_men/.

Ealey, Shani. 2013. What “The Butler” Didn’t Reveal About The Black Panther Party. In Black Women Unchecked. Available from https://blackwomenunchecked.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/what-the-butler-didnt-reveal-about-the-black-panther-party/.

Evans, Angel. 2013. ‘The Butler’ Movie Review: New Film, Old Stereotypes. In Mic. Available from https://mic.com/articles/60669/the-butler-movie-review-new-film-old-stereotypes#.wGdEVP4Ij.

Godoski, Andrew. 2011. Professor X and Magneto: Allegories for Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, 2011. Available from http://www.screened.com/news/professor-x-and-magneto-allegories-for-martin-luther-king-jr-and-malcolm-x/2316/.

Goldstein, Hilary. 2006. “Xavier vs. Magneto: A Philosophical Debate. IGN.com, 2006. Available from http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/05/05/xavier-vs-magneto-a-philosophical-debate.

Independent Gay Forum. 1998. About IGF CultureWatch. Independent Gay Forum, 1998. Available from https://igfculturewatch.com/about/.

LaCapria, Kim. 2016. Chants Encounter. Snopes, 2016. Available from https://www.snopes.com/black-lives-matter-protesters-chant-for-dead-cops-now-in-baton-rouge/.

Lamb, J. 2013. Magneto Was Right. Nerds of Color, 2013. Available from https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2013/09/18/magneto-was-right/.

Lund, Martin. 2015. “The Mutant Problem: X-Men, Confirmation Bias, and the Methodology of Comics and Identity.” European Journal of American Studies 10/2: n.p. Available from https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/10890.

Martin, Orion. 2013. What If the X-Men Were Black? The Hooded Utilitarian, 2013. Available from http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/12/what-if-the-x-men-were-black/.

Miller, Stephen H. 2016. Cop Lives Matter. Independent Gay Forum, 2016. Available from https://igfculturewatch.com/2016/07/08/cop-lives-matter/.

Nair, Yasmin. 2015a. The Gay Marriage Campaign Shamelessly Exploits Martin Luther King, 2015a. Available from http://yasminnair.net/content/gay-marriage-campaign-shamelessly-exploits-martin-luther-king.

———. 2015b. The Secret History of Gay Marriage, 2015b. Available from http://yasminnair.net/content/secret-history-gay-marriage.

Pulliam-Moore, Charles. 2017. It’s Time for the X-Men’s Stories About Discrimination to Evolve. io9, 2017. Available from https://io9.gizmodo.com/its-time-for-the-x-mens-stories-about-discrimination-to-1818715399.

Rose, Charlie. 2000. Bryan Singer. Charlie Rose, 2000. Available from https://charlierose.com/videos/3806.

Smith, Nigel M. 2015. Ian McKellen: ‘X-Men Was a Gay Man’s Delight, Because It Was Full of the Most Amazing Divas’ 2015. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/21/ian-mckellen-x-men-was-a-gay-mans-delight-because-it-was-full-of-the-most-amazing-divas.

Thompson, Chad. 2006. More than Mutants. Relevant, 2006. Available from  https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/film/features/3383-more-than-mutants.

Wheeler, Andrew. 2013. Avengers Assimilate: Identity Politics in ‘Uncanny Avengers’. In Comics Alliance. http://comicsalliance.com/uncanny-avengers-5-rick-remender-identity-politics-mutants/.

Yearwood, Smiley. 2015. For the Billionth Time, Magneto Is Not Malcolm X: Thoughts on Appropriation and Mutants of Color, 2015. Available from https://smileyyearwood.com/2015/09/11/for-the-billionth-time-magneto-is-not-malcolm-x-thoughts-on-appropriation-and-mutants-of-color/.

Guest post at the University of Toronto Press blog!

By on November 26th, 2017 in Academics, comics

Getting the rights to publish images of Superman in my recent article was far more complicated than I had expected, so I wrote a blog post about it at the UofT Press blog.

I would just want to add, as an addendum to the post, that DC Comics granted me the rights to publish two of the four images requested, but did not elaborate on the reasons.  The two they granted explicitly mentioned the Jewish judge Samson and were the two that had Superman in costume, so I would speculate that they were approved for some combination of those reasons, but who knows?

Superman: Champion of the Oppressed

By on April 26th, 2017 in Academics, comics

I have uploaded some images that may interest those who have read my article, “Champion of the Oppressed: Redescribing the Jewishness of Superman as Populist Authenticity Politics,” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 29 (2017): forthcoming.   The first four Figures are discussed in the article itself.  I have included some other images and interesting links below them.

Who is Superman in his earliest stories? He’s referred to as the following: Champion of the Oppressed (AC #1), Dedicated to Assisting the Helpless and Oppressed (AC #6), Friend of the Helpless and Oppressed (AC #7), A One-Man Battle Against the Forces of Evil and Oppression (AC #8, 12), Savior of the Helpless and Oppressed (AC #9, 10), Champion of the Helpless and Oppressed (AC #11).  Siegel and Shuster seem to be preoccupied with this phrasing, which I have tried to elucidate in my article.

I would strongly encourage anyone interested in these matters to visit your local comic book shop and pick up a collected version of these Superman stories, which are immensely entertaining.  Four collections are available at a range of prices:

Siegel, Jerry and Joe Shuster. [1938-1940] 1997. Superman: The Action Comics Archives, vol. 1. New York: DC Comics. [Hardcover]

———. [1938-1939] 2006. The Superman Chronicles, vol. 1. New York: DC Comics. [Paperback]

———. [1938-1940] 2013. Superman: The Golden Age Omnibus, vol. 1. New York: DC Comics. [Hardcover]

———. [1938-1940] 2016. Superman: The Golden Age, vol. 1. New York: DC Comics. [Paperback]

 

Continue reading “Superman: Champion of the Oppressed”

Military Industrial Complex in the Golden Age

By on April 22nd, 2015 in comics

Last night I started reading The Complete Stardust the Super Wizard, which collects the stories about a Golden Age superhero created by Fletcher Hanks.  If I remember correctly, Stardust comics were produced around 1940 or so.

 

One story that surprised me was one wherein Stardust fought war profiteers – or at least a group that intended to profit, but were thwarted by him.  This reminded me of a similar story in a Superman story from around the same time, which follows the same basic blot.  The politics of the very early Superman comics were considerably different from those of Stardust – the first two or so years of Superman comics seem to depict him as a populist anarchist that goes around punching those who abuse their power (combating, e.g., spousal abuse, the prison industrial complex, union-busters), whereas Stardust is more interested in foiling the plans of those with ambitions to flat-0ut destroy the planet Earth (a sort of benevolent space deity).  Even so, the overlap suggests some kind of hesitancy toward producers of equipment for warfare, a concern no doubt related to the looming threat of U.S. involvement in WWII.

 

Contrast this with recent cinematic depictions of Batman and Superman, both of whom are billionaires whose fortunes are sustained by the production of military equipment.  I haven’t read many comics from the period shortly before or during US involvement in WWII, but I suspect that there was a significant change in attitudes around that time.  Captain America #1 famously depicted the title hero socking Hitler, even before the U.S. declared war – one assumes that anything that might be seen as opposed to the war would at some point be seen as near-treasonous.  The political ideology of Iron Man and Batman movies, of course, attend to a wildly different context: Batman regularly situates its hero in discourses about police militarization and Iron Man directly evokes the War on Terror.

 

Even as there are comic heroes in recent years who fall more toward the Stardust-Superman end of the anti-warfare spectrum, it seems Marvel’s and DC’s most valued properties do not launch extended criticisms of the military-industrial complex in the same way as in the Golden Age.  They tend to be supporting characters (e.g., early Anarky) or open to revision in short order (e.g., the first two or three issues of New 52 Superman).