DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE DELLA MEDIAZIONE LINGUISTICA E DI STUDI INTERCULTURALI DOTTORATO IN STUDI LINGUISTICI, LETTERARI E INTERCULTURALI IN AMBITO EUROPEO ED EXTRA-EUROPEO XXIX CICLO “THE END WILL BE THE OVER-MAN”: UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA BETWEEN SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE AND GRAPHIC NOVEL L-LIN/10 Tesi di dottorato di DANIELE CROCI Tutor: Prof. NICOLETTA VALLORANI Coordinatore del Dottorato: Prof. GIULIANA ELENA GARZONE A.A. 2015/16 Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................................... v Introduction ............................................................................................................................... vi 1 Utopia, Superhumanity and Modernity in H.G. Wells’s Early Scientific Romances ....... 1 1.1 An Extraordinary Gentleman ........................................................................................ 1 1.2 From the Graphic Novel to the Scientific Romance ..................................................... 4 1.3 The Eutopian Superhuman ............................................................................................ 7 1.4 “The Coming Beast”: Evolution or Ethics in The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds ......................................................................................................................... 11 1.5 Evolution, Science and Society in The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Invisible Man ..................................................................................................................................... 24 1.6 “Mad distortions of humanity”: The Mechanism of Deanthropization in Wells’s Scientific Romances .................................................................................................... 36 1.7 Sociology, Utopia and Romance: When the Sleeper Wakes ....................................... 61 2 H.G. Wells in American Popular Culture: From Pulp Fiction to Superhero Comics ..... 82 2.1 Wells’s Amazing Stories ............................................................................................. 83 2.2 America, Utopianism and Superhumanity .................................................................. 87 2.3 From The Overman to “The Reign of the Super-Man” ............................................... 93 2.4 Comics, Modernism and Avant-Garde ..................................................................... 112 2.5 The Ambivalence of Modernity and Utopia in Superhero Comics: Superman and Batman ...................................................................................................................... 118 3 Graphic Novel, Superheroes and Utopia: The Case of Alan Moore ............................ 138 3.1 Graphic Novel and Revisionary Superhero Narrative. ............................................. 140 3.2 Postmodernism and (Anti-)Utopia: Miracleman ...................................................... 152 3.3 Critical Dystopia and Détournement: V for Vendetta ............................................... 165 3.4 Lies, Justice, and the American Way: Watchmen ..................................................... 175 Notes ...................................................................................................................................... 187 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 201 ii List of Abbreviations The following is a list of the abbreviations used in this work. AC Action Comics stories in Jerry Siegel, and Joe Shuster. 2016. The Golden Age Superman. Burbank, CA: DC Comics. DC Detective Comics stories in Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Whitney Ellsworth, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson, and George Roussos. 2016. The Golden Age Batman. Burbank, CA: DC Comics. DF The Original Writer, Garry Leach, and Alan Davis. 2014. Miracleman - Book One: A Dream of Flying. New York, NY: Marvel Comics. DKR Miller, Frank. (1986) 2002. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. New York: DC Comics. FA Wells, Herbert George. 1906. The Future in America. New York, NY; London: Harper & Brothers. FG Wells, Herbert George. (1904) 1906. The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth. London: Macmillan & Co. IDM Wells, Herbert George. (1896) 2005. The Island of Doctor Moreau. London: Penguin Books. IM Wells, Herbert George. (1897) 2012. The Invisible Man. London: Penguin. LEG Moore, Alan, and Kevin O’Neill. 2000. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 1. New York: DC Comics. LEGv2 Moore, Alan, and Kevin O’Neill. 2003. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics. MU Wells, Herbert George. (1905) 2005. A Modern Utopia. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin Books. RKS The Original Writer, Chuck Austen, John Ridgeway, Alan Davis, and Rick Veitch. 2014. Miracleman - Book Two: The Red King Syndrome. New York, NY: Marvel Comics. RS Siegel, Jerry, and Joe Shuster. (1933) 1983. ‘The Reign of the Superman’. Nemo 2. iii SDC Wells, Herbert George. (1899) 1900. A Story of the Days to Come. In Tales of Space and Time. London, New York: Harper & Brothers. SM Superman stories in Jerry Siegel, and Joe Shuster. 2016. The Golden Age Superman. Burbank, CA: DC Comics. sWWs Wells, Herbert George. (1897) 1978. The War of the Worlds. In The Collector’s Book of Science Fiction by H.G. Wells with the Original Illustrations, 3–103. Secaucus, N.J: Castle Books. TM Wells, Herbert George. (1895) 2005. The Time Machine. Penguin Classics. London, England ; New York, N.Y: Penguin Books. VfV Moore, Alan, and David Lloyd. (1990) 2005. V for Vendetta. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics. WSW Wells, Herbert George. (1899) 1978. When the Sleeper Wakes. In The Collector’s Book of Science Fiction by H.G. Wells with the Original Illustrations, 361–477. Secaucus, N.J: Castle Books. WWs Wells, Herbert George. (1898) 2005. The War of the Worlds. Penguin Classics. London, England ; New York, N.Y: Penguin Books. iv Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank my tutor, Professor Nicoletta Vallorani. Not only has her work been a source of inspiration and a major influence on my own, but her valuable help and continuous support have also guided me through my studies and my doctorate. She is the one who taught me that graphic novels could – and should – be the subject of academic inquiry. I also want to thank Professor Paolo Caponi, with whom I share an interest in classic superhero comics, and all the friends and colleagues at the Department of Language Mediation and Intercultural Communication, for their useful hints during the research and writing process: Cinzia Scarpino, Emanuele Monegato, Anna Pasolini, and Elena Ogliari. I am grateful for the feedback received by Dr. Joan Ormrod, Dr. David Huxley, and especially Dr. Nicoletta Di Ciolla during my stay at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am also indebted to Professor Emeritus Thomas Byers for his suggestions during the later stages of my work. Special thanks go to my parents, who have given me the chance to pursue my studies, and have always encouraged me. Finally, thanks to Grazia, whose care, blind love, and intellectually stimulating companionship have made all this possible. Questa tesi è dedicate a voi. v Introduction This thesis aims at analysing the influence of Herbert George Wells’s (1866-1946) scientific romances on the birth and development of Anglo-American superhero comics. It considers the way in which certain ideas and motifs developed by the British writer – most notably superhumanity, utopianism, and modernity – were explored in 1930s American comic books, only to be subsequently appropriated and deconstructed in Alan Moore’s (1953-) 1980s graphic novels. One of the most celebrated British graphic novelists of all time, Moore approached the superhero as an archetypal myth of American culture, reframing it within a subversive tradition of imaginative fiction. My point here is that Wells’s direct and indirect influence on early American superhero comics contributed to produce a twofold ambivalence about modernity and utopianism. Due to narrative and political reasons, these contradictory configurations remained latent throughout most of the twentieth century, as comics were being discursively produced as juvenile and potentially harmful entertainment. Superheroes’ structural ambiguities resurfaced in the early 1980s, when literary sophistication, deconstructionism, and the graphic novel’s self- containedness provided the basis for a radical reconceptualization of the archetype. Moore’s revisionary comics employ the superhero to negotiate the antinomies of utopianism and anti- utopianism, exploring in an innovative manner the conflict of utopia and dystopia. At the same time, these postmodern texts become a site of cultural hybridization, which challenges the “Great Divide” between high art and popular culture (see Huyssen 1986). Through an intertextual decategorization of literature, art, and comics, the graphic novel opens to new, experimental possibilities. The triangle of Wells’s scientific romances, 1930s superhero comics, and 1980s graphic novels suggests significant modalities in which cultural and historical discontinuities are represented in popular culture. Wells wrote his speculative fiction between the decline of the Victorian era and the rise of urban, cultural and aesthetic modernism on both sides