Beyond Comic Books

That comics characters, and superheroes in particular, transcend comic books is nothing new or novel. Nowhere is this rapacious tendency seen more than with the medium’s most culturally synonymous content—the superhero. That said, the history and character of the strategies that attend this development remain somewhat understudied. As such, this introduction establishes how the section to come traces some of the ways that superheroes have come to exist beyond the page with some close examination of the way characters move from page to screen, the function of intellectual property (IP) rights in broadening the range and type of ways that superheroes are marketed to audiences, and the ways that audiences respond.