Superheroes of the Round Table: Comics Connections to Medieval and Renaissance Literature by Jason Tondro (review)

Jason Tondro’s Superheroes of the Round Table challenges readers to make unorthodox connections as it brings together into one study the materials from two disparate, rarely joined spheres: medieval and Renaissance literature and today’s superhero comic book. Tondro posits that many similarities exist between older canonical texts and several contemporary comics that he maintains represent a modern incarnation of the romance form. While no one can dispute the claim that the better we understand the literary sources that may have inspired writers and artists of comic books, the better we will understand those comics, Tondro intrigues us with a paradoxical parallel claim: ‘Knowledge of the superhero romance also has something to teach critics of the traditional literary canon’ (2).

A thumbnail introduction and five chapters serve to test the author’s dual theses as he moves freely between old and new. In chapter one, Arthegall from Spenser’s Faerie Queene is set next to Tony Stark from the Iron Man comics in a comparative discussion of allegory, doubled characters, and educational agenda. Chapter two continues to explore these themes as Tondro adds collaboration, royal and corporate patronage, and market economics to the mix in a comparison of the masques written by Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones and the ‘Fourth World’ saga created by Jack Kirby and others at DC Comics. Part of chapter two and all of chapter three range widely over Shakespeare’s works and comic book adaptations inspired by the life of the Bard and his plays. The Tempest and Will Eisner’s famed ‘Hamlet on a Rooftop’ receive the fullest attention. Chapter four provides a concentrated treatment of Arthurian comic books and Tondro’s useful five-part taxonomy for understanding the many ways that writers and artists have brought the world of Camelot to the comics. The limited survey includes extended critical analyses of popular titles such as Camelot 3000 and Mage. Chapter five continues the Arthurian emphasis with close readings of Grail-themed tales written by Grant Morrison for Justice League of America, The Invisibles, and Seven Soldiers of Victory—an investigation that draws on Chrétien, Wolfram, and Malory to help us better understand Morrison and, conversely, the medieval texts themselves. Portions of Superheroes have been published in earlier versions elsewhere: chapter one in the International Journal of Comic Art (spring 2009) and chapter four in Sklar and Hoffman’s King Arthur in Popular Culture collection (2002).

Superheroes is exploratory, provocative, and eclectic in the juxtapositions that Tondro marshals to reveal threads of continuity between yesterday’s and today’s forms of artistic production. One might ask for more: the inclusion of more and/or different comics; a deeper consideration of the ways that superhero comics participate in a broader conversation with heroic literature beyond the Middle Ages and Renaissance; and, for the readers of Arthuriana, a comprehensive study focused solely on Arthurian themes in comic books and graphic novels. But these items are already surely on the author’s to-do list for projects to come.

Tondro is to be praised for his thoughtful and sensitive attention to the synergistic narrative flow between text and image in comics—a crucial facet of reading the comics that literary critics often acknowledge even as they largely ignore the pictures on the page. Tondro’s critical examinations of the medieval and Renaissance texts in his study likewise merit commendation. The discussions are insightful, sometimes surprising, and—when combined with the comics chosen for comparison—often shed new light on familiar works from the canon. Although the prose of Superheroes tips occasionally toward the colloquial, the style is brisk and effective. The book’s sixty-eight black-and-white illustrations are abundant, large, crisp, and apt. Typos are few. A bibliography and spartan yet adequate notes and index complete the book. Tondro’s Superheroes of the Round Table is recommended for advanced undergraduates and above...