Haunted Knights in Spandex: Self and Othering in the Superhero Mythos

Year 2011, Volume: 1 Issue: 2, 171 - 183, 30.12.2011

Pramod K. Nayar

Abstract

This essay looks at the dynamics of self and the Other in superhero comics. The self-other dynamic in superhero mythos is an instance of the uncanny, which includes themes of doubling, ghostliness and a haunting that is the tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar, or the unfamiliar that partakes of the familiar. Superheroes are instances where the uncanny asserts itself between the self-other dichotomy. Second, I suggest, filiation (to do with the family and therefore the “home”) folds into affiliation, where affiliations build on, substitute for and supplant the familial. Third, the self of the superhero lies not in a sense of the self but in selflessness. I argue that it is the altruistic self that separates the superhero from the Other, the passive, spectator human. Fourth, I propose that superheroes present a certain utopian promise. I align the superhero with the posthuman (the technologically advanced humans of cybercultures), as signifying human perfectibility.

Keywords

Superheroes, comics, uncanny, transhumanism

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