Superhero Blockbusters

Explores the huge commercial success of contemporary superhero blockbusters and develops a critical theory of digital-era popular seriality

An absolutely essential new study of the unprecedented impact the superhero genre has had on culture, ideology, and the entertainment industry. Brinker’s sharp, precise, and fiercely critical analysis combines a deep knowledge of the genre and its socio-cultural practices with an impressive theoretical framework.

Superhero Blockbusters is about more than superhero movies. It is a clear-eyed assessment of the ideological functions of popular seriality and the political economy of digital capitalism more generally. Steering a course between celebratory naiveté and excessive pessimism, Brinker shows that what’s at stake in these big-budget spectacles is nothing less than a model for the management of time and of life today.

Felix Brinker is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the English Department at Leibniz University Hannover