Abstract
Fred Francis’s chapter examines the history of the Gothic animal in American superhero comics, using Frank Miller’s work on Batman as a case study. Miller’s Batman stories from the 1980s are studied in comparison with the first Batman stories of the 1940s, as well as Poe’s tales of Gothic animals from a century earlier. The analysis reveals connections between the appearance of Gothic animals in superhero comics and comics’ struggle for cultural legitimacy in America. In particular, Francis argues that when Batman comics focus on the bat-as-animal at the heart of the Batman story, this demonstrates the desire of comics creators to connect Batman to a Gothic literary tradition which can be represented by Gothic animals—ravens and bats in particular.
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Francis, F. (2020). ‘What Do I Use to Make Them Afraid?’: The Gothic Animal and the Problem of Legitimacy in American Superhero Comics. In: Heholt, R., Edmundson, M. (eds) Gothic Animals. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34540-2_6
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