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Populär Culture Review
The main premise of the work is to present the idea that superhero stories have
more in common with ancient orality than with modern ideas of literacy. He suggests that
secondary orality, or new traditionality, reawakens “traditional culture in a form
experienced more fully in America and the postindustrial world than it has been in
centuries” (27). Rather than seek to defend superheroes by pointing out their literary
merits, as many have tried before with varying degrees of success, Wandtke argues that
superheroes serve a different sort of function, tied resolutely to the way we should be
looking at epics like Beowulf and Homer’s works. As he develops his ideas, he cycles
again and again back to the first superhero, Superman, and his various incamations
throughout the development of the superhero. He draws heavily on the writings of Walter
J. Ong and others who study preliterate cultures and the way they experience stories
through oral presentation.
Through theory dense passages, Wandtke posits a sort of new traditionalism
that favors communal and outward tuming development of stories and variform story
experience rather than the more introspective and linear methods of typical literature. In
part because he is developing some new theoretical ground, these passages require care in
Order to parse out their meaning. Wandtke admits that there is more to be done with his
theory and I expect that as the theory is developed, it will become more articulable.
Unfortunately, this difficulty is exacerbated by not inffequent errors in copyediting. The
most egregious is in a footnote from the first chapter in which Wandtke articulates how
he defines the superhero. The footnote is obviously and unsatisfyingly incomplete.
The basic premise is that superhero comics have become the source of the best
example of intentional orality, or new traditionalism, in our culture. From corporate
ownership of the characters, to the influence of letters to the editor, to the fatuous
testimony of Fredric Wertham and the comic code, Wandtke argues that superhero
comics are to American culture what storytelling was to pre-literate cultures. He also
goes to great lengths to posit that there is no real privileging of terms between pre
literate, or traditional, cultures and literate cultures. In fact, he goes to some length to
argue that we should see them as different ways of reading and move away from the
idealization our culture has manifest in literary structure. This is a move drawn from
other theorists he cites that opens up new ways of looking at the way our society interacts
with texts, more especially electronic texts and new forms of media. There is an
interactivity inherent in reading texts in a new traditional way that Wandtke argues
becomes more prevalent in new media.
Wandtke’s close reading of superhero comics and film is at times brilliant and
insightful. The writing seems to be at its best when he applies his theory to the texts
themselves. Especially fascinating is the way he credits different creators and writers
with accessing the theory he presents as an organic part of the making of superhero
stories. This is in contrast to the passages of straight theory which, as previously
mentioned, are dense and sometimes unclear in their intent. When the two types of
writing are juxtaposed, as happens in later chapters, it can be a bit jarring.
Ultimately, the book Stands as a work with a great amount of potential to
change the way we talk about superheroes as well as modern methods of interacting with
story and text.
Andrew Bahlmann, University of Nevada Las Vegas