Strange Grew Up With Me: Sentimentality and masculinity in readers of superhero comics

Abstract

Summary: This study concerns the consumption of superhero comics in the USA and in France. Drawing on a series of interviews and letters published in magazines over the past three decades, the article shows that, for a considerable part of its readership, this medium represents more than the transmission of a traditional masculinity; it is a means of learning a new and complex identity. The author concludes that the learning of gender identities cannot be seen as a univocal process of inculcation of predetermined roles.