Titans: How Superheroes Can Help Us Make Sense of a Polarized World

by Armond Boudreaux, Corey Latta

Overview

These days it seems like heroes fight each other more often than they fight villains. The hero-vs-hero trope so common in comic books and in superhero movies these days can provide us with a means of thinking about the deeply polarized state of modern politics and public opinion about civic life, morality, and even God. There is a real divide in our public life that nobody seems to be able to cross. It's easy to complain that people should be more willing to meet each other half-way, that politicians should be more willing to compromise in order to get things done, but there are plenty of important issues on which compromise really isn't possible. We see this problem dramatized in comics like Marvel's Civil War and Avengers vs X-Men; in DC's Kingdom Come and The Dark Knight Returns; and in film media like Daredevil, Batman v Superman, and Captain America: Civil War. The consequences of the conflicts that arise in these stories can serve as warnings about our current political environment. They're safe places in which we can see the logic of our political dysfunction carried to frightening (but perhaps inevitable?) conclusions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781532604010
Publisher:	Cascade Books
Publication date:	07/14/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	162
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Armond Boudreaux is an Assistant Professor of English at East Georgia State College in Statesboro, GA. He is the author of That He May Raise and Animus: Little Gods. You can read more of his writing on superheroes and politics at https://aclashofheroes.wordpress.com and www.armondboudreaux.com.

 

Corey Latta is a writer, teacher, and public speaker. He is the author of Functioning Fantasies, Election and Unity in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, When the Eternal Can Be Met, and C. S. Lewis and the Art of Writing.

Armond Boudreaux is an Assistant Professor of English at East Georgia State College in Statesboro, GA. He is the author of That He May Raise and Animus: Little Gods. You can read more of his writing on superheroes and politics at https://aclashofheroes.wordpress.com and www.armondboudreaux.com.

 

Corey Latta is a writer, teacher, and public speaker. He is the author of Functioning Fantasies, Election and Unity in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, When the Eternal Can Be Met, and C. S. Lewis and the Art of Writing.

Corey Latta is a writer, teacher, and public speaker. He writes on C. S. Lewis, the imagination, apologetics, and literary theology. He is the author of C. S. Lewis and the Art of Writing, When the Eternal Can Be Met, Functioning Fantasies, and Election and Unity in Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Corey, his wife Jennifer, and their two sets of twins (Justice and London along with Gus and Emma Jane) currently live in Memphis, TN.


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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction, Part 1: Superheroes as Myth Armond Boudreaux xi

Introduction, Part 2: Sometimes Superheroes Best Say What Needs to be Said Corey Latta xxiii

Part I Heroes on the Page Armond Boudreaux

1 Two Americas: The Fight for Captain America 3

2 DC's Kingdom Come: Superheroes as Despots 20

3 Marvel's Civil War: Tocqueville, Burke, and Civic Virtue 35

4 Civil War II: Freedom and the Surveillance State 49

5 The Dark Knight Returns: Why No Single Principle Is Sufficient 63

6 Avengers vs X-Men: Bigotry and the Problem of Power 76

Part II Heroes on the Screen Corey Latta

7 Daredevil: The Prodigal Son, Retold 101

8 Batman v Superman: Mythology, Theodicy, and the Dawn of Justice 114

Afterword: Where Do We Go from Here? Armond Boudreaux 125

Bibliography 133