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Chambliss, Julian, William Svitasky, and Thomas Donaldson, eds. Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men: Superheroes and the American Experience. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. 262 pp. Hardcover. ISBN 978-1-4438-4803-9. $75.99.
This edited compilation of essays on superhero comics is as ambitious as it is problematic. The editors state that their goal is "to offer a single volume that will group scholarly examination of comic book superheroes from historical, sociological, and cultural perspective [sic] into one volume" (2). As a whole, the chapters converge on the concept of rereading superhero comics within the framework of broader American culture; otherwise, they are a disparate grouping of essays that approach such topics as masculinity, race, gender, and politics such that they often overlap and seem homogenous rather than cohesive. The majority of the comics surveyed are the classics of DC and Marvel, including Superman and Batman on the one hand and Captain America and Spider-man on the other. It is perhaps unnecessary to have a book-length examination of how superhero comics reaffirm the mainstream status quo even as they occasionally subvert it, and yet having committed to this cause, there is all too little to show for it.
Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men is divided into three main parts, each of which comprises five chapters. Section one is entitled "Defending the American Way: The Golden Age of Comics, American Identity, and the Search for Order" and roughly encompasses the years 1938-1960. Chambliss and Svitasky open the book with an essay on "The Origin of the Superhero: Culture, Race, and Identity in US Popular Culture, 1890-1940." This piece does a good job setting the stage for the essays that follow, but an editorial weakness that appears in other parts of the book is the constant and consistent reintroduction of characters; for instance, we are reminded multiple times...