Social Superheroes (2024)

Martin, J. (2024). Social superheroes: Interactions, judgments, and the superhero mission. In Jason D. DeHart (Ed.), Transmedia applications in literacy fields (pp. 65-102). IGI Global.

• Considers the implications of a constructivist approach to understanding superhero media for scholarly analyses concerning the relation between social interactions, judgments, and superhero missions.

• Particularly, special attention is given to comic, television, and film portrayals of T’Challa (Black Panther), Carl Lucas (Luke Cage), and the time-traveling X-Man Lucas Bishop.

• In keeping with previous analyses of these characters, I explore the potential of three features of social judgments for understanding superheroes along three social interactional dimensions.

“Constructivist analyses of Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Bishop help reveal some of the ways superheroes, despite their consistent motivations and frequent predictability (e.g., in terms of the motivations of many of their villains, use of violence, etc.), are both socially responsive to and adaptive within their differing social contexts. They are embedded in varied social interactions and relationships–an embeddedness that has implications for both pedagogy and scholarship.”