The 100 Greatest Superhero Films and TV Shows


Book Description

A fascinating exploration of the most significant superhero films and television shows in history, from the classic serial Adventures of Captain Marvel to the Disney+ hit show WandaVision. In The 100 Greatest Superhero Films and TV Shows, Zachary Ingle and David M. Sutera celebrate over eighty years of superhero cinema and television. Featuring blockbusters such as Black Panther and The Dark Knight, Ingle and Sutera also include lesser-known yet critically acclaimed shows like The Boys, cult films such as The Toxic Avenger, and foreign series like Astro Boy to provide a well-rounded perspective of the genre. All one hundred selections are evaluated based on qualities such as plot and character development, adherence to the original source materials, technological innovations, and social impact. The entries cover both live-action and animated films and TV series, and almost a third of the entries are not associated with Marvel or DC—a testament to the genre’s variety in its eighty-year history. The 100 Greatest Superhero Films and TV Shows includes an analysis of the superhero’s evolution and its relevance to the feminist movement, auteur theory, convergence culture, critical race theory, and more. Featuring more than 80 photographs alongside the authors’ selections, the diverse entries are sure to inspire debate and entertain all fans of superhero movies and television shows.




The 100 Best Superhero Movies


Book Description

Suffering from superhero fatigue? Superhero films are ten a penny these days and often disappoint with their cardboard characters and tiresome CGI destruction. Though this genre is increasingly the object of snooty disdain from film industry royalty there have been many great superhero films which are simply great films period - irrespective of genre. This book will hopefully remind you that not all superhero films are the same. Let's attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff and count down the 100 best superhero movies of all time.




Comic Book Movies


Book Description

Comic Book Movies explores how this genre serves as a source for modern-day myths, sometimes even incorporating ancient mythic figures like Thor and Wonder Woman’s Amazons, while engaging with the questions that haunt a post-9/11 world: How do we define heroism and morality today? How far are we willing to go when fighting terror? How can we resist a dystopian state? Film scholar Blair Davis also considers how the genre’s visual style is equally important as its weighty themes, and he details how advances in digital effects have allowed filmmakers to incorporate elements of comic book art in innovative ways. As he reveals, comic book movies have inspired just as many innovations to Hollywood’s business model, with film franchises and transmedia storytelling helping to ensure that the genre will continue its reign over popular culture for years to come.




The Ultimate Superhero Movie Guide


Book Description

The Ultimate Superhero Movie Guide is a thrilling journey through the history of the world's favourite movie genre.




The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television, 2d ed.


Book Description

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a complete guide to over 50 years of superheroes on screen! This expanded and updated edition of the 2004 award-winning encyclopedia covers important developments in the popular genre; adds new shows such as Heroes and Zoom; includes the latest films featuring icons like Superman, Spiderman and Batman; and covers even more types of superheroes. Each entry includes a detailed history, cast and credits, episode and film descriptions, critical commentaries, and data on arch-villains, gadgets, comic-book origins and super powers, while placing each production into its historical context. Appendices list common superhero conventions and cliches; incarnations; memorable ad lines; and the best, worst, and most influential productions from 1951 to 2008.




The A to Z of Superhero Movies


Book Description

1000 movies. 100 years. 50 countries. 19 Samuel L. Jacksons. Featuring accessible capsule reviews of every significant superhero movie ever made (and most of the insignificant ones), The A to Z of superhero movies represents the deepest dive ever taken into this ubiquitous, crownd-pleasing genre.




The Amazing Transforming Superhero!


Book Description

This collection of essays analyzes the many ways in which comic book and film superheroes have been revised or rewritten in response to changes in real-world politics, social mores, and popular culture. Among many topics covered are the jingoistic origin of Captain America in the wake of the McCarthy hearings, the post-World War II fantasy-feminist role of Wonder Woman, and the Nietzschean influences on the "sidekick revolt" in the 2004 film The Incredibles.




Superman (1986-) #90


Book Description

The Battle for Metropolis! Part 3 of 4. "Battleground Metropolis!" Guest-starring The Guardian. The Guardian has fallen victim to the clone disease, but does his body hold the key to the cure? Plus, a villain dies in this issue and the war heats up even more.




Diana: Princess of the Amazons


Book Description

Eleven-year-old Diana leads an idyllic life on the island of Themyscira. Cut off from the rest of the world, she's beginning to feel a little alone. Though she has a loving mother and many "aunties," she is an only child. In fact, she's the only child on the entire island! After an escapade goes wrong, Diana gets in trouble for not living up to the Amazonian standard. She just can't seem to measure up no matter what she does. Every other person on the island is an adult proficient in their trade and mighty in body, while she is gangly, sometimes clumsy, and not particularly good at anything. She's not Wonder Woman...yet, anyway. What Diana needs is a friend; someone her own age whom she can talk to. But when she decides to take matters into her own hands, she encounters the unexpected!




Comic Book Film Style


Book Description

Superhero films and comic book adaptations dominate contemporary Hollywood filmmaking, and it is not just the storylines of these blockbuster spectacles that have been influenced by comics. The comic book medium itself has profoundly influenced how movies look and sound today, as well as how viewers approach them as texts. Comic Book Film Style explores how the unique conventions and formal structure of comic books have had a profound impact on film aesthetics, so that the different representational abilities of comics and film are put on simultaneous display in a cinematic work. With close readings of films including Batman: The Movie, American Splendor, Superman, Hulk, Spider-Man 2, V for Vendetta, 300, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Watchmen, The Losers, and Creepshow, Dru Jeffries offers a new and more cogent definition of the comic book film as a stylistic approach rather than a genre, repositioning the study of comic book films from adaptation and genre studies to formal/stylistic analysis. He discusses how comic book films appropriate comics' drawn imagery, vandalize the fourth wall with the use of graphic text, dissect the film frame into discrete panels, and treat time as a flexible construct rather than a fixed flow, among other things. This cinematic remediation of comic books' formal structure and unique visual conventions, Jeffries asserts, fundamentally challenges the classical continuity paradigm and its contemporary variants, placing the comic book film at the forefront of stylistic experimentation in post-classical Hollywood.