Claremont Run (eBook)

Winner - 2024 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards in Best Academic/Scholarly Work, announced at San Diego Comic-Con International (2024)A data-driven deep dive into a legendary comics author s subversion of gender norms within the bestselling comic of its time.By the time Chris Claremont s run as author of Uncanny X-Men ended in 1991, he had changed comic books forever. During his sixteen years writing the series, Claremont revitalized a franchise on the verge of collapse, shaping the X-Men who appear in today s Hollywood blockbusters. But, more than that, he told a new kind of story, using his growing platform to articulate transgressive ideas about gender nonconformity, toxic masculinity, and female empowerment.J. Andrew Deman s investigation pairs close reading and quantitative analysis to examine gender representation, content, characters, and story structure. The Claremont Run compares several hundred issues of Uncanny X-Men with a thousand other Marvel comics to provide a comprehensive account of Claremont s sophisticated and progressive gender politics. Claremont s X-Men upended gender norms: where female characters historically served as mere eye candy, Claremont s had leading roles and complex, evolving personalities. Perhaps more surprisingly, his male superheroes defied and complicated standards of masculinity. Groundbreaking in their time, Claremont s comics challenged readers to see the real world differently and transformed pop culture in the process.