COLLECTIVELY EDITED BY GRADUATE STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN AT MADISON AND THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN The Velvet Light Trap! "##$%&! '%()('*+! $&&*,&! "-! &(.-(/'*-)! (&&0$&! (-! /+1! &)02($& 34(+$!$56*-2(-.!()&!'"11()1$-)!)"!)$+$7(&("-!*&!3$++!*&!/+1!%$&$*%'48!9*'4!(&&0$!6%"- 7":$&!2$;*)$!*;"0)!'%()('*+<!)4$"%$)('*+<!*-2!4(&)"%('*+!)"6('&!%$+*)(-.!)"!*!6*%)('0+*%!)4$1$8 Number 69, Spring 2012 Recontextualizing Animtation, CGI, and Visual Effects Number 70, Fall 2012 The Materiality of Media Number 71, Spring 2013 The Archive Number 72, Fall 2013 Useful Media: Industrial, Educational, Institutional p: f: utpress.utexas.edu CINEPHILE !e University of British Table of Contents Columbia’s Film Journal Vol. 9 No. 2 Fall 2013 Editors’ Note 2 “!e Superhero Film” Contributors 3 ISSN: 1712-9265 Articles Copyright and Publisher !e University of British “My Suits... !ey’re a Part of Me”: Considering Disability in Columbia Film Program the Iron Man Trilogy 4 Editors-in-Chief —Travis Wagner Kevin Hatch & Kelly St-Laurent Design Marvel vs DC: Mergers, Acquisitions and Corporate Re- Kevin Hatch, Kelly St-Laurent, branding in the New Millennium 12 Kristy Dindorf Haryanto —Caitlin Foster Artwork A Superman for Our Times: How Man of Steel Makes Su- Bret Taylor perman Relevant Again 20 Back Cover —Barna William Donovan Robert Del Tredici From the Top of the Cowl to the Tip of the Cape: !e Cin- Faculty Advisor ematic Superhero Costume as Impossible Garment 30 Lisa Coulthard —Dru H. Jeffries Program Administrator Gerald Vanderwoude Saying No to Masculinity: !e Villain in the Superhero Film —Lee Easton 38 Editorial Board Adam Bagatavicius, Chelsea Birks, Andrea Brooks, Oliver Kroener, Molly Lewis, Paula Schneider Public Relations Paula Schneider Web Editors Kevin Hatch & Kelly St-Laurent Printing East Van Graphics Cinephile would like to thank the following offices and departments at the University of British Columbia for their generous support: CINEPHILE is published by the Graduate Program in Film Studies at the Depart- Critical Studies in Sexuality ment of !eatre and Film, University of Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice British Columbia, with the support of the !e Department of Art History, Visual Arts, and !eory Centre for Cinema Studies !e Department of Asian Studies centreforcinemastudies.com !e Department of English !e Department of French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies UBC Film Program !e Department of Linguistics Department of !eatre and Film !e Department of Political Science 6354 Crescent Road Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 Editors’ Note !is issue would not have happened ten years ago. undercuts such potential. Following this, Caitlin Foster Prior to the year 2000, comic book superhero films examines economic, marketing, and branding strategies were largely dismissed as infantile, B-movie pulp. However, employed by the two main entertainment companies dom- in the past decade the filmic superhero has increasingly inating the superhero genre, Marvel and DC, arguing that grown in presence, to the point of becoming synonymous Marvel Studios’ more uniform brand identity has translated with the Hollywood summer blockbuster. Initial releases into greater financial and critical success. Barna William such as Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000) and Sam Raimi’s Donovan then investigates the evolution of Superman in Spider-Man (2002) demonstrated the genre’s potential for film, with an emphasis on the character’s latest incarnation nuanced and complex resonance amidst populist entertain- in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. Donovan explores the film’s ment, drawing upon both comic book backhistories and subtextual interplay with religion and the contemporary socio-political subtext alike. Since then, the genre has ex- United States military, thereby analyzing how Man of Steel ploded in mass popularity. Noteworthy examples such as addresses trends in audience cynicism by reinventing Su- Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012) and perman for a contemporary climate. Next, Dru H. Jeffries Marvel Studios’ intertextual approach to adapting their interrogates the impossibility of fidelity in adapting the su- own comic book properties (beginning with Iron Man and perhero costume from comic book origins to live action, building into the much anticipated !e Avengers, with a emphasizing the potential for audience disconnect between steadily growing number of new releases) have unearthed the superhero in and out of costume, and how techniques unprecedented critical and commercial success. Contem- of editing and technological shifts foster suture in this tran- porary superhero films have redefined audience expecta- sition. Finally, drawing upon queer theories of resistance, tions and industry practices alike, reinforcing the genre as Lee Easton re-reads filmic supervillains as disrupting or re- a salient site for both socio-cultural capital and industry in- jecting the ideological project of ‘productive’ heteronorma- novation. tive masculinity. As Hollywood’s output of superhero films remains !is latest issue of Cinephile would not be possible ever expansive (it is telling that three of the features in this without the tireless help of many people. We extend our issue pertain largely to films released this year), superhero foremost gratitude to our authors for their insights and scholarship is, by necessity, particularly vibrant. While con- dedication to such topical scholarship, and to our editorial siderable critical attention has been devoted to the genre team: Adam Bagatavicius, Chelsea Birks, Andrea Brooks, of late, such discourse remains active and evolving, with Oliver Kroener, Molly Lewis, and Paula Schneider. !eir several pertinent venues remaining for further scholarly in- patience, persistence, and keen eyes have been invalu- vestigation: representations and ideologies of gender within able. We would also like to acknowledge the Department superhero texts, the seemingly fundamental role of Ameri- of !eatre and Film Studies and our faculty advisor Lisa can iconicity, identity, and industry in the superhero narra- Coulthard, as well as Deb Pickman, Kelsey Blair and Joc- tive, and the integral role of cutting edge cinematic technol- elyn Pitsch. !is issue would not have made it to publica- ogy in infusing comic book subject matter with cinematic tion without the help of Kristy Dindorf Haryanto and her life. !is issue of Cinephile strives to expand the burgeoning design and layout skills. Finally, we would like to thank our scholarly discourse in regards to the superhero film, con- featured artist, Bret Taylor, for his passion, hard work and tributing to and extrapolating from such engaged discus- talent. You are all superheroes to us. sions. To begin, Travis Wagner theorizes allegories of disabil- –Kevin Hatch & Kelly St-Laurent ity in the Iron Man trilogy. Wagner explores how protago- nist Tony Stark could have served as a proactive represen- tation of a disabled body, and how the trilogy ultimately 2 CINEPHILE / Vol. 9, No. 2 / Fall 2013 Contributors Barna William Donovan is a professor of communication Bret Taylor was raised on a steady diet of superheroes. He and media studies at Saint Peter’s University in New Jer- had a Batman costume all through his childhood, and a sey. He is a graduate of the film school of the University new secret identity almost every day. He used to dream of Miami and he earned his PhD from Rutgers University. of someday drawing for Marvel or DC. !ese days he’s a His books on film and fandom include !e Asian Influence painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. You can see more on Hollywood Action Films (2008), Blood, Guns, and Tes- of his work at howyadoingraphics.com tosterone: Action Films, Audiences, and a !irst for Violence (2010), and Conspiracy Films: A Tour of Dark Places in the Travis Wagner is a Master’s Candidate in Library and In- American Conscious (2011). His commentaries on popular formation Sciences and Women and Gender Studies at !e culture and film have been quoted in media like the BBC, University of South Carolina. His research interests and !e Buddy Cianci Show, MSNBC, CBS news, LiveScience, presentations include issues of intersectionality in genre MSN News and in various publications from Europe to film, as well as transgressive body politics in South Korean Latin America. He has discussed superheroes and Ameri- Cinema. He is also an intern at USC’s Moving Images Re- can culture on TV programs like Science and U and Fresh search Collection where he does research and cataloguing Outlook. with various orphan works and non-commercial film ma- terials. Lee Easton is the co-author, with Richard Harrison, of Se- cret Identity Reader: Essays on Sex, Death and !e Superhero. He and Harrison have co-taught courses related to comics and graphic novels at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. In addition to his work on comics and superheroes, Easton has also published in the area of Science Fiction with a co-edited volume entitled !e Power of Imagination: Science Fiction and Social Change. Easton is currently an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. Caitlin Foster received her MA in Film Studies from the University of Western Ontario in 2013. !is article further explores concepts developed from her MA thesis “Clash of the Industry Titans: Marvel, DC and the Battle for Market Dominance” (2013). Dru H. Jeffries is a PhD candidate at Concordia Univer- sity in Film and Moving Image Studies, whose dissertation interrogates the remediation of comic books in contempor- ary cinema. He has previously published in Cineaction and Quarterly Review of Film and Video (forthcoming). On the side, he is the co-host of 24 Panels Per Second, a podcast about comic book movies, which can be found on iTunes or 24panelspersecond.com. !e Superhero Film 3 “My Suits...They’re Part Of Me” Considering Disability in the Iron Man Trilogy Travis Wagner 4 CINEPHILE / Vol. 9, No. 1 / Spring 2013 !e disabled body has a storied his- of his own injury at the end of Iron Man 3 (Shane Black, tory in cinema, which stretches back to 2013).