| Working from Claude Levi-Strauss's structuralist methodology and Richard Slotkin's definition of myth, this dissertation traces the origin and evolution of the superhero genre and its central figure, the superhero. The first part, chapters two through six, examines the heroic polarity---clusters of oppositional characteristics embodied in pairs of heroes linked by an authorial chain of influence that have mediated tensions within American culture. The heroes in these pairs are Daniel Boone as presented in John Filson's Boone narrative in The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke...To which is added an Appendix, Containing the Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon and John Trumbull's edited version of that narrative; Natty Bumppo by James Fenimore Cooper, and Nick of the Woods by Robert Montgomery Bird; John Carter and Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs; Doc Savage by Lester Dent, and The Shadow by Walter Gibson; and Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and Batman by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. The second part examines the superhero genre itself. In chapter seven, I trace the roots of the superhero genre in myth, legend, and epic, and then follow the three streams of nineteenth and early twentieth century literature that merge into the superhero: the science-fiction superman (Frankenstein's creature to Doc Savage), the dual-identity avenger-vigilante (Nick of the Woods to The Shadow), and the pulp ubermensch (Tarzan to Doc Savage and The Shadow). Chapter eight presents a definition of the superhero genre and uses that definition to posit Superman as the initiating figure of the superhero genre. In chapter nine, I use Thomas Schatz's concept of an evolutionary cycle of genre progression to look at the "ages" of superhero comics---Golden, Silver, Bronze, Iron, and Renaissance. Chapter ten concludes both parts by tracing the continuation of the heroic polarity, by examining the cultural meaning of the superhero as the acme of the traditional WASP hero, and by constructing the core superhero "brand" of power and justice around which meanings of the figure are built. |
