All New, All Different? A History of Race and the American Superhero by Allan W. Austin and Patrick L. Hamilton (review)

Abstract

363 Thing’s rebirth, Ahmed fails to address that Moore’s design creates a (Maltese) cross over Swamp Thing’s face. Coupled with a plotline that takes Swamp Thing to hell and back, the image is clearly an allusion to the mythos of Christ, where “death and rebirth strengthen” a protagonist, rather than kill him (73). This diminution of formal aspects is most egregious in Ahmed’s chapter on Hellboy. Despite being a key expressive element in Mignola’s work, color is only mentioned twice, and then merely as a descriptor. Despite this shortcoming, Monstrous Imaginaries is otherwise rigorous. Overall, it is an invaluable text for scholars working in contemporary comics and/or the field of Romanticism. In a neatly meta turn, Ahmed explains in her introduction that one of the etymological roots of “monster” is “monstrare,” which means “to demonstrate” or “to teach.” By her conclusion, Ahmed has more than demonstrated how the Romantic movement’s ideals converge in the ambiguously human, rebellious yet lovable, hybrid beings of contemporary comics, themselves “little monsters,” as Bukatman says, that teach us about ourselves (169).