University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1-1-2016 Representation of the American South in Marvel Comics, 1963-2016 Katherine Gill University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Gill, Katherine, "Representation of the American South in Marvel Comics, 1963-2016" (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1224. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1224 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. REPRESENTATION OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH IN MARVEL COMICS, 1963-2016 By Katherine Gill Master of Fine Arts Department of Southern Studies May 2016 Copyright Katherine Gill 2016. I claim copyright to the text featured throughout this thesis. I do not lay copyright claim to any image featured throughout the document. Images used are copyright Marvel Comics. ABSTRACT My work tracks the role of the American South and Southern characters in Marvel Comics, from 1963 to 2016. This thesis spring from a simple question: how stereotypical does this Northern industry portray the American South? To achieve this goal, I read plenty of comics, applying literary theory (such as Patricia Yeager and Tara McPherson) as well as American cultural studies (1980s televangelism and the history of human trafficking in America) to my findings. After reading multiple comic books from multiple sources, I settled on four different texts, each with a unique approach to portraying the South: the portrayal of the Southern environment in Amazing Spider-Man and Adventure into Fear, the use of metaphorical Southerners in God Loves, Man Kills, the changing depiction of Marvel's premier Southern character Rogue in two limited series she stars in, and the portrayal of a modern, urban, South in the series Scarlet Spider.