Marvel's Squadron Supreme

This book closely reads Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme for its complex, contradictory, yet ultimately productive engagement with the social dreaming of utopianism. Specifically, Squadron Supreme provides critical traction for readers to engage with the social dreaming of utopianism by asking how it depicts the pursuit of a radically alternative society, at what cost, and whether that cost is worth paying. These questions fuel the utopia problematic, which, in turn, points to the productive tension in Squadron Supreme. By extension, Squadron Supreme's commitment to the utopia problematic also provides opportunities to think through utopia and the state of exception, labor in the condition of epivitality, the tension with ends justifying the means, and the persistent resilience of an anti-utopianism that increasingly defines the United States' contemporary socio-political landscape. While this book focuses on the social dreaming of utopianism as the core thread uniting the chapters of Mark Gruenwald’s groundbreaking series, it also provides access points to several theoretical and critical topics to further unpack the series.

Graham J. Murphy is Professor with the School of English and Liberal Studies (Faculty of Arts) at Seneca Polytechnic, Canada. He is author of William Gibson's Neuromancer: A Critical Companion (2024); co-author of Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion (2006); and co-editor of Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture (2022), The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture (2020), Cyberpunk and Visual Culture (2018), and Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives (2010).