The Posthuman Body in Superhero Comics: Human, Superhuman, Transhuman, Post/Human (Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels)

This book examines the concepts of Post/Humanism and Transhumanism as depicted in superhero comics. Recent decades have seen mainstream audiences embrace the comic book Superhuman. Meanwhile there has been increasing concern surrounding human enhancement technologies, with the techno-scientific movement of Transhumanism arguing that it is time humans took active control of their evolution. Utilising Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of the rhizome as a non-hierarchical system of knowledge to conceptualize the superhero narrative in terms of its political, social and aesthetic relations to the history of human technological enhancement, this book draws upon a diverse range of texts to explore the way in which the posthuman has been represented in superhero comics, while simultaneously highlighting its shared historical development with Post/Humanist critical theory and the material techno-scientific practices of Transhumanism. Acknowledgements 6 Contents 7 Introduction: Human, Superhuman, Transhuman, Post/Human 9 What the Book Does Not Do 11 What This Book Does Do... 12 How the Book Is Structured 13 Notes 17 What Is Posthumanism? 19 Superhuman Bodies 21 Rhizomes and Discursive Plateaus 22 Transhuman Bodies 25 Transhuman Bodies and Their Discontents 27 Post/Human Bodies 29 The Cyborg Manifesto 33 From Cyborg to Post/Human 34 Posthuman Body as Assemblage 36 Notes 39 The Rhizome of Comic Book Culture 45 What Is a Comic Book Universe? 46 The Corporate Assemblage 50 Creator-Assemblages 54 Reader-Assemblages 56 Critical-Assemblages 59 Critical-Assemblages v Reader-Assemblages 65 Comics Studies as Rhizome 66 The Rhizome of the Posthuman Body 69 Notes 70 The Perfect Body 76 The Theory of Evolution, Modernity and Early Posthumanism 77 From Freak Shows to Pulp Fictions 80 The Antediluvian Age of Superhumanism 82 Fascism and the Posthuman Body 83 Golden Age Superheroes: The Perfect Body 85 Captain America: Perfect Body as Posthuman Assemblage 89 Superhuman as Fascist 92 Notes 94 The Cosmic Body 99 Understanding the Silver Age of Comics 100 Cosmic Body as Assemblage 101 Silver Age Creators and Creations 102 Superhero as Shaman; Creator as Magician 105 Post/Human Cosmic Bodies 106 Transhuman Cosmic Bodies 108 Human Potential Movement of Cosmic Transhumanism 110 The Cosmic Body and Social Policy 114 Notes 116 The Military-Industrial Body 121 Libertarian Transhumanism and Super-Soldiers 122 Corporatisation and Organisational Constraint in the Comic Book Industry 125 Regulating the Superhuman body 130 The Corporate Superhuman 132 Iron Man and the Problem of the Military-­Industrial Body 135 Notes 138 Animal Bodies and Artificial Bodies 142 Transhuman Social Movements 143 Modernity and the Posthuman Body 145 Artificial Bodies 145 Becoming-Human 148 Smooth Spaces and Striated Spaces 152 The Ethics of the Superhero Assemblage 155 Notes 158 Reading the Superhuman 160 Becoming the Perfect Body 161 The Superhuman as Fascist: A Brief Return 166 The British Invasion 167 Representing the Superhuman Body 171 Representations of the Transhuman Body 174 Notes 177 Readers on Transhumanism and Post/Humanism 179 The Humanism in Superhumanism 179 Boundary Dissolutions: Natural and Artificial 183 Emerging Technologies, Not Merging Technologies 185 Who Watches the Watchmen? 190 The Inevitability of a Posthuman Future 195 Minds and Bodies 197 Transhuman Minds and in Human Bodies 201 Boundary Dissolutions: Reality and Fiction 202 Conclusion 204 Notes 206 Towards a Theory of Reader-Text Assemblages 209 Reader-Text Assemblages 211 Reader-Text Assemblages and the Superhero Comic as “Body Genre” 212 Reading-Assemblages, Materiality and Social Networks 215 Corporeal and Incorporeal Transformations; Tattooing and Geek Identities 218 Notes 227 The Posthuman Body in Superhero Comics 230 Further Directions 234 Conclusion 239 Notes 240 Bibliography 241 Films 259 Index 260 Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction: Human, Superhuman, Transhuman, Post/Human....Pages 1-10 What Is Posthumanism?....Pages 11-36 The Rhizome of Comic Book Culture....Pages 37-67 The Perfect Body....Pages 69-91 The Cosmic Body....Pages 93-114 The Military-Industrial Body....Pages 115-135 Animal Bodies and Artificial Bodies....Pages 137-154 Reading the Superhuman....Pages 155-173 Readers on Transhumanism and Post/Humanism....Pages 175-204 Towards a Theory of Reader-Text Assemblages....Pages 205-225 The Posthuman Body in Superhero Comics....Pages 227-237 Back Matter....Pages 239-264