Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Volume 2

A new volume of essays exploring the on-screen politics and real-world implications of the Marvel Cinematic Universes expansion into the multiverse.As the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) moved on from the Thanos storyline, it became more political than everboth on screen and off.Following up on their first volume about the politics of the MCU, editors Nicholas Carnes and Lilly J. Goren are back with a new volume of essays exploring the political worlds within and outside of the MCU, authored by leading experts on politics, philosophy, and popular culture. This second volume tackles the sprawling narratives in the MCUs Phase 4, the movies, TV shows, and related content released in 2021 and 2022. During Phase 4, Marvel Studios released films at an unprecedented pace: seven in just two years, including titles like Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Phase 4 also marked the start of the MCUs move into streaming television, with shows like WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Hawkeye, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight. With a fifty-hour combined runtime, Phase 4 included more new MCU content than Phases 1 through 3 (2008 through 2020) combined.The chapters in this volume are organized in three parts that each explore a different aspect of the politics of Phase 4. In Part One, the authors examine on-screen politics, looking at the political messages (some subtle, some more explicit) in stories about Thor, the Eternals, She-Hulk, Spider-Man, Loki, and Captain America. Part Two explores the off-screen politics of the MCUs fans, examining topics like political participation, partisanship, and whether MCU fans are more cynical about real-world politics. In Part Three, we face the perennial issues around representationespecially gender, race, and sexualitythat have long dominated popular and academic commentary on superhero fiction.Like The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Volume 1: The Infinity Saga, this is another indispensable guide to understanding how the MCUa fundamental aspect of American pop culturehas a profound and complex relationship with American political life.