I was aware of this book when it came out, but as a niche publication in hardcover it was pricey. I’ve been watching used prices for about a year and finally decided now was the time to pick up a copy while they were still sold in good shape.<\/p>\n
This is a very detailed history of the forerunners to the comics superheroes. The first Seven of Nine chapters break out various eras before the publication of Superman in Action Comics #1, 1938.\u00a0 Discussed briefly are a wide range of heroic characters from Gilgamesh to Robin Hood to Long Meg, Spring-Heeled Jack to John Carter, the Scarlet Pimpernel to the Domino Lady.\u00a0 I had never heard of many (most) of them and quite frankly glossed over much of the descriptions as much as I read some with interest.\u00a0 However, I think the value of having one place that discusses all of these hero\/adventure characters in one place is interesting.<\/p>\n
What Nevins does is react to these characters against a “formula” of his own devising.\u00a0 By his reasoning you don’t need all of these to be a ‘superhero’; the two main types he establishes as “Costumed Avenger” (without powers) and “Ubermensch” (with powers).\u00a0 Since it’s not an all-or-nothing checklist, it’s hard for anyone else to disprove his reasoning, either.<\/p>\n
His list of criteria:<\/p>\n
Once you get to the last two chapters, the discussion of ‘evolution’ is largely put aside and the book becomes a fairly standard recitation of comic book history and publishing, delving into movies and TV as well.<\/p>\n
The last part of the book that I will highlight is that that Nevins breaks the comics eras down in 15-year cycles:<\/p>\n
As I was reading the book I was put off by the notion of an Atomic Age sandwiched in between Golden and Silver Ages, but with a little investigation I found this is something that is readily discussed if not universally accepted in comics fandom and scholarship.\u00a0 I don’t really like the distinction but it does fit well.<\/p>\n
Since the book was published in 2017 Nevins noted that a new Age had started but didn’t attempt to name it. I will cheekily suggest that this is the IP Age (2016-2031) given the shift to digital publication where it’s now possible to completely read comics without owning them permanently.<\/p>\n
I think if you are a serious fan of comics scholarship that this is a useful book to have on your shelf. Time will tell if, or how often, I pick it up again for reference.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was aware of this book when it came out, but as a niche publication in hardcover it was pricey. I’ve been watching used prices for about a year and finally decided now was the time to pick up a copy while they were still sold in good shape. This is a very detailed history … Continue reading “The Evolution of the Costumed Avenger<\/i> by Jess Nevins (2017)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30,36],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-take","tag-book","tag-comics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=556"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":563,"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions\/563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johntilden.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}