Terence McSweeney is senior lecturer in Media Arts and Technology at Southampton Solent University. He is the author of The War on Terror and American Film: 9/11 Frames per Second' (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), Beyond the Frame: The Films and Film Theory of Andrei Tarkovsky (Aporetic Press, 2015) and the co-editor of Millennial Cinema: Memory in Global Film (Wallflower, 2012).

The book engages with superhero films on a very deep level, making it not only informative but an extremely pleasurable read as well.

• AcknowledgementsPrologue: The Heroes We Need Right Now?: Explaining ‘The Age of the Superhero’Introduction: Superheroes in the New Millennium and ‘The Example of America’PHASE ONE1. ‘That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it … and it’s worked out pretty well so far’: The Stark Doctrine in Iron Man and Iron Man 22. Allegorical Narratives of Gods and Monsters: Thor and The Incredible Hulk3. State Fantasy and the Superhero: (Mis)Remembering World War II in Captain America: The First Avenger4. ‘Seeing … still working on believing!’: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Destruction in The AvengersPHASE TWO5. ‘Nothing’s been the same since New York’: Ideological Continuity and Change in Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World6. ‘The world has changed and none of us can go back’: The Illusory Moral Ambiguities of the Post-9/11 Superhero in Captain America: The Winter Soldier7. Blurring the Boundaries of Genre and Gender in Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man8. ‘Isn’t that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?’: The Enduring American Monomyth in Avengers: Age of UltronTHE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE ON TELEVISION9. ‘What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for?’: The MCU on the Small Screen in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Agent Carter10. The Necessary Vigilantism of the Defenders: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron FistConclusion: ‘Whose side are you on?’: Superheroes Through the Prism of the ‘War on Terror’ in Captain America: Civil WarEpilogue: The Superhero as Transnational IconFilmographyBibliographyIndex

Terence McSweeney is senior lecturer in Media Arts and Technology at Southampton Solent University. He is the author of The War on Terror and American Film: 9/11 Frames per Second' (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), Beyond the Frame: The Films and Film Theory of Andrei Tarkovsky (Aporetic Press, 2015) and the co-editor of Millennial Cinema: Memory in Global Film (Wallflower, 2012).

The book engages with superhero films on a very deep level, making it not only informative but an extremely pleasurable read as well.

• AcknowledgementsPrologue: The Heroes We Need Right Now?: Explaining ‘The Age of the Superhero’Introduction: Superheroes in the New Millennium and ‘The Example of America’PHASE ONE1. ‘That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it … and it’s worked out pretty well so far’: The Stark Doctrine in Iron Man and Iron Man 22. Allegorical Narratives of Gods and Monsters: Thor and The Incredible Hulk3. State Fantasy and the Superhero: (Mis)Remembering World War II in Captain America: The First Avenger4. ‘Seeing … still working on believing!’: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Destruction in The AvengersPHASE TWO5. ‘Nothing’s been the same since New York’: Ideological Continuity and Change in Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World6. ‘The world has changed and none of us can go back’: The Illusory Moral Ambiguities of the Post-9/11 Superhero in Captain America: The Winter Soldier7. Blurring the Boundaries of Genre and Gender in Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man8. ‘Isn’t that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?’: The Enduring American Monomyth in Avengers: Age of UltronTHE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE ON TELEVISION9. ‘What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for?’: The MCU on the Small Screen in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Agent Carter10. The Necessary Vigilantism of the Defenders: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron FistConclusion: ‘Whose side are you on?’: Superheroes Through the Prism of the ‘War on Terror’ in Captain America: Civil WarEpilogue: The Superhero as Transnational IconFilmographyBibliographyIndex

Terence McSweeney is senior lecturer in Media Arts and Technology at Southampton Solent University. He is the author of The War on Terror and American Film: 9/11 Frames per Second' (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), Beyond the Frame: The Films and Film Theory of Andrei Tarkovsky (Aporetic Press, 2015) and the co-editor of Millennial Cinema: Memory in Global Film (Wallflower, 2012).

The book engages with superhero films on a very deep level, making it not only informative but an extremely pleasurable read as well.

• AcknowledgementsPrologue: The Heroes We Need Right Now?: Explaining ‘The Age of the Superhero’Introduction: Superheroes in the New Millennium and ‘The Example of America’PHASE ONE1. ‘That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it … and it’s worked out pretty well so far’: The Stark Doctrine in Iron Man and Iron Man 22. Allegorical Narratives of Gods and Monsters: Thor and The Incredible Hulk3. State Fantasy and the Superhero: (Mis)Remembering World War II in Captain America: The First Avenger4. ‘Seeing … still working on believing!’: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Destruction in The AvengersPHASE TWO5. ‘Nothing’s been the same since New York’: Ideological Continuity and Change in Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World6. ‘The world has changed and none of us can go back’: The Illusory Moral Ambiguities of the Post-9/11 Superhero in Captain America: The Winter Soldier7. Blurring the Boundaries of Genre and Gender in Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man8. ‘Isn’t that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?’: The Enduring American Monomyth in Avengers: Age of UltronTHE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE ON TELEVISION9. ‘What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for?’: The MCU on the Small Screen in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Agent Carter10. The Necessary Vigilantism of the Defenders: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron FistConclusion: ‘Whose side are you on?’: Superheroes Through the Prism of the ‘War on Terror’ in Captain America: Civil WarEpilogue: The Superhero as Transnational IconFilmographyBibliographyIndex