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Afterword T o close this book, this afterword begins by recapitulating the empirical findings of this study, considering the chapters as pairs that together take up a particular facet of the nationalist superhero. Subsequently, two themes that cut across all the chapters are considered in some depth: hegemony and authorship. The Never-Ending Story Throughout this book, and in previous papers I have written, I have referred to the superheroes discussed in this book as “nationalist” rather than the slightly more popular descriptor of heroes like Captain America as “national” superheroes . The latter is, admittedly, a slightly less awkward construction. However, the awkwardness of its construction is one of the things I like about nationalist superheroes; it calls attention to the difference between something that is “national ” and something that is “nationalist.” If something is national, it is simply associated with a particular nation: in this vein we might consider beer as the national drink of Germany, and St. George as the national saint of England. Identifying a superhero as nationalist, however, implies a relationship in which the superhero actively cultivates a particular vision of the nation-state and its role in the world. Documenting how the nationalist superhero contributes to our popular discourses of nations, states, and international affairs has been the primary focus of this book. Four themes have been developed in some depth: body, story, space, and anomaly. The nationalist superhero’s body has emerged as a crucial contributor to discourses of the nation-state in a range of ways. The superhero’s body serves as a tangible sign of the unity of the nation, even as it simultaneously serves as a reminder of the state’s protection of that nation. This embodiment compresses the demographic diversity of the nation into a singularly gendered and raced body. Writers and artists generally attempt to moderate this representational violence through a range of narrative strategies, including the 182 Afterword incorporation of “ethnic” sidekicks and partners. However, if the superhero’s whiteness has been the object of well-meaning (if sometimes ham-handed) liberal reformism by writers and artists, the superhero’s masculinity has been less well interrogated. In fact, often the danger that the masculine superhero/ state repels is itself a descent into feminine softness, perhaps best witnessed in the Femizonia story line from Chapter 2, in which Superia dipped Captain America into a chemical bath that would turn him into a woman. Heading off such feminization is fundamental to a genre of storytelling in which the superheroic body is meant to act, to punish, and to be punished. Given the role of the superheroic body as an embodiment of the nation-state, this generic structure also has implications for the perception of the nation-state’s role in the world. Like the nationalist superhero, the nation-state is perceived as a “man of action,” with all that implies. The second theme taken up by this book is another parallel between the nationalist superhero and the nation: their existence as stories. Both the nation and its superhero can be understood as serial narratives that unfold over time, each with origins, cyclical patterns that maintain the status quo, and linear shifts that maintain the narratives’ relevance to current events. These narratives are policed by volunteer armies of fans, who invest heavily in the maintenance of continuity.1 A key part of maintaining these fans of the story is the ambiguity of the narratives themselves. A wide array of Americans, with differing political views, believe that Captain America speaks for them because they interpret the hero’s actions as conforming to their ideal of America.2 By providing an attractive pole for an increasingly fragmented political community, superheroes like Captain Britain and Captain Canuck interpellate readers as national subjects. This effect is hardly effortless, though, as change must be constantly effected without the appearance of abandoning the past. This phenomenon is perhaps most notable in the use of the Red Skull to give solidity to all that which is deemed un-American in a range of times: Nazism, communism, reckless individualism , racism, extremist corporate capitalism. By changing the meaning of Captain America’s nemesis, the creative staff effectively change the meaning of the hero as well, but without having to resort to a rejection of past iterations. Captain America provides a seemingly stable presence that pivots to combat the new aims of the Red Skull. The third theme developed here is that of space. While space is, of course, inherent to...

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