Terrence Wandtke, Introduction: Once Upon a Time Once Again

Wandtke's book is one of the few which deals directly with my topic, so I'll be reading pretty extensively from it in the coming week or two. Which isn't to say I agree with his stuff completely, but it's very useful.

His notion of a public which is willing to see superheroes constantly change with the times is an example of the reception aspect of franchises - franchises as a reading strategy which allows for and even expects change, in other words.

Wandtke uses revision, I use reintroduction. Revision (like evolution) is too limited and linear a term for my purposes: reintroduction comprises revision and reiteration.

Wandtke notes that the newest version of a superhero is always privileged. I wouldn't say privileged, but it is always presented as a legitimate instance of the hero... whether or not it is recieved as such is another matter entirely. Additionally, privileged implies that there cannot be multiple legitimate versions co-existing simultaneously, which is certainly not true in comics (although it often is the case in film franchises).

The notion that past versions of superheroes (and thus all past franchise texts) are never completely lost and continue to inform current versions is a good one, and is pretty fundamental to my thesis. Omnia mutantur, nihil interit, Neil Gaiman's Dream might say; everything changes, but nothing is ever truly lost. Franchises are in many ways precisely the sum of their parts, a big, interconnected network of different (and same) meanings.


Luckily, superheros are vastly more complicated to discuss than action heroes.