Broken Frontier

Superheroes and Mortality are the focus of the new comic book research study launching this week, entitled the Ever-Ending Battle project. Sponsored by A. David Lewis' Caption Box and already receiving support by organizations such as the International Comic Arts Association, the Broken Frontier news site, and Silent Devil Productions, Ever-Ending Battle plans to explore the "the curious and unique relationship between mortality and the superhero comic book genre," says its new website.

"No other storytelling genre besides Passion plays and, to a lesser degree, vampire tales deals with death and resurrection as such prominent narrative conventions," says Project Leader A. David Lewis, Editorial Board member for The International Journal of Comic Art and national lecturer on the comic book medium. As a comic book creator and fan himself, Lewis notes that "now is an incredibly fertile time to study these phenomena. Whereas this could just as easily have been done in 1992 with 'The Death of Superman' storyline or, say, 1986 with Crisis on Inifinite Earths and Dark Knight Returns, the current deluge of character deaths and returns really begs to be examined: Hawkeye, Colossus, Sue Dibney, Jack Drake, Asgard, Retro Girl, Magneto, Phoenix, Prowler -- all within the last year."

Sponsored by his Caption Box imprint, Ever-Ending Battle has already received  support from a number of industry organizations. Looking to employing a hybrid of literary criticism and thanatology -- the field of psychology dealing with a culture's perception and reaction to death and dying -- Ever-Ending Battle is continues to invite early aid in both collecting its data and making its scope known to outside parties. "With the cyclical nature of comics,” says Christian Beranek, Editor-In-Chief of Silent Devil Productions, “especially the death and rebirth of heroes, it is surprising that there is a large void in coverage of this theme. Ever-Ending Battle fills that void."

The initial Ever-Ending Battle website gives the following goals for the study as part of its opening Mission Statement:

In all, the goal is four-fold: 1) to discern whether any particular, qualitative conventions exist in superhero comic books' treatment of death that are unique to the genre; 2) to explore both how those conventions may have arisen and how they are perpetuated; 3) separately, to analyze how those conventions may continue to affect characterization and storytelling; and 4) to study what impact or influence these conventions have on their audience, and vice versa.

The Ever-Ending Battle website is now online and collecting both volunteer contact information and links to other websites of note for general use. Go to www.EverEndingBattle.com for subscribing to either its monthly e-mail digest or its live site feed.