In the 21st century, superheroes have proliferated and multiplied across the multimedia landscape. While superhero stories and characters have been continuously tethered to the early years of their narrative development, and the comics context from which they originate, they have also consistently found renewed life in modern and contemporary re-imaginings and re-adaptations, regenerating through iterative retellings, reboots, and cultural readjustments (Grant and Henderson 2019). Indeed, in our contemporary era, superheroes have morphed into truly transmedia entities, switching registers between narrative formats and storytelling frameworks, across in-print and digital platforms (Gilmore and Storke 2014; Taylor 2014; Piatti-Farnell 2021; Sierra 2023). Remaining strong in the world of comics, superheroes are now a constant and recurrent presence in film, television, video games, and online media contexts. They have found fertile ground in the networked and transnational webs of fandom, especially through performative activities such as cosplay. They are central and lucrative presences in the industrial structures of toys and merchandise (Brassett and Reynolds 2021). Superheroes have even found transformed life as part of tourism contexts and trans-spatial narratives, as ‘superhero attractions’ at entertainment parks across the world have become increasingly more popular (McCartney and Cheong Su Man 2020; Baker 2022; Condis and Schwiezer 2024). Superheroes are no longer confined to one medium, or even just a few production giants, to ensure their cultural success. While the impact of multimedia production companies such as Marvel and DC remains unquestioned, superheroes have reached beyond the bounds of traditional narrative forms, and production demands across countries, testifying to their elasticity as popular icons. Here, their iconic status comes precisely from their ability to function as “reflections of their eras”, while also continuing to have an ongoing impact on the “cultures they inhabit” (Piatti-Farnell 2021, 3).
Taken as emblematic cultural representations, superhero narratives can function as symbolic spaces where the diversity of bodies and identities has consistently been foregrounded and positioned alongside socio-historical politics. While there are certain codified expectations and unmissable repetitions that accompany the superhero narrative mystique — including, among other things, highly recognisable costumes, a tragic backstory, over-the-top battles scenes, and the inevitable presence of dubiously motivated supervillains — the intermingling of divergence and conventionality has also been a characterising feature of storytelling in the superhero genre (Darowski 2014b; Smith 2016; Pagello 2017) . The narratives can be mainstream and countercultural; the settings can be relatable and otherworldly; the characters can be simultaneously heroic and deeply challenging of that very concept. In their multiple incarnations, superheroes can reflect all aspects of humanity: amplified and distilled, aspirational or repulsive. Indeed, superheroes can not only “make us consider who we aspire to be”, but can also easily “problematize” seemingly simple “distinctions” between good and evil, “forcing us to develop a more nuanced moral compass to deal with the complexity of life” (Duncan and Smith 2013, xiii).
Seen through evocative examples — such as the cross-media properties of The Umbrella Academy (2007), the convergence culture of Batman, the conglomerate hierarchies within Marvel Entertainment, the multiverse publications that enable spaces for an empathic Gwenpool, or a discussion of race with the Green Lanterns — superheroes continue to evolve through the conditions of their production and the cultural discourses that they engender. Superheroes appear across the spectrum of mainstream to indie publications, in both print and digital media formats. Cinematic Universes extend to SVOD platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, while marginalized comic book heroes are reinvented in IMAX spectacles. In their emerging and entangled forms, superheroes engage with changing viewing practices, which, in enabling a wider variety of stories to be told in a multitude of different ways, gives rise to a plurality of voices and perspectives, not just in and about America, but across multiple cultures and continents. Comics featuring the gay hero of Superman: Son of Kal-El (2021) share terrain with the Magical Girls of anime television shows such as Yuki Yuna is a Hero (2014). Japanese manga are indeed known to cross-culturally deconstructs the superhero genre, with examples such as My Hero Academia (2014 -) being particularly salient (Sigley 2022). Superheroes aptly encompass all these swirling points of signification within discursive fields surrounding their costumes, their enemies, their side-kicks, their own bodies, and across their individual and collective histories.
As superheroes have enduringly strengthened their cultural hold on our storytelling practices across media, scholarly attention focused on these iconic figures has also continued to grow. Scholarly explorations of superheroes have particularly proliferated in the past few decades, and the critical focus has been broad and wide-reaching. These have ranged in focus and breath, and have included: debates over definitions of what a superhero ‘is’ and what a superhero ‘does’ (Coogan 2006; Arnaudo 2013; Rosenberg and Coogan 2013); explorations of the representation and meanings of superhero bodies, including the impact of their iconic costumes (Brownie and Graydon 2015; Haslem, MacFarlane, and Richardson 2018; Wilson 2024); critical conversations focused on clarifying the iconic origins and conventional qualities of the ‘superhero genre’ (Ramgnoli and Pagnucci 2013; Duncan and Smith 2013; Gavaler 2015); discussions over narrative and characterisation that uncover the ability of superheroes to engage with discourses of gender, race, and ethnicity (Stevens 2015; Kent 2021; Gary and Kaklamanidou 2011; Darowski 2014a; Nairn 2021), as well as preoccupations connected to issues of morality, trauma, the environment, bio-ethics, science, justice, disability, trans/posthumanism and, overall, the very concept of what it means to be human (Nama 2011; Rosenberg 2013; Alaniz 2014; Moore 2017; Rayborn and Keyes 2018; Neimeyer 2020; Matthews 2021; Chatterji 2022; Piatti-Farnell 2024). In addition, scholarship focused on superheroes has also pointedly explored issues related to the superheroes’ ability to find constantly renewed and mutating life across platforms, placing an emphasis on adaptations, reboots, and re-imaginings in the transnational and transmedia landscape (Brown 2016; Darowski 2021; McEniry, Peaslee, and Weiner 2016). Within this, evaluations of what has become known as the ‘superhero multiverse’ have also gained prominence, and drawn attention to the interconnected nature of superhero media across time and space (Kukkonen 2010; Piatti-Farnell 2021; Leonard et al. 2023; Comerford 2024). Collectively, these growing and virtually uncountable instances from the scholarship show the influence that superheroes exert on our social, cultural, and political structures, uncovering the power of popular icons to speak to our identities in evolving media discourses.
In answer to the constantly changing portrayals of superheroes in our cultures, histories, and narratives….
The full 4,000 word version of this chapter is published The Routledge Companion to Superhero Studies, co-edited with Lorna Piatti-Farnell, published by Routledge, 2025.
Carl Wilson 