Chinese Snake Woman Resurfaces in Comics: Considering the Case Study of Calabash Brothers

This chapter provides a study of a transgressive female figure from Chinese legend who may enjoy lasting popularity, but who also has a dubious moral standing when one examines her relationship to the eponymous young brothers. Snake Woman’s monstrous qualities are revived alongside the magical brothers as the proper counterpart to their superhuman feats in a Shanghai Animation Studio revival from 1986. This chapter shows this to be part of a history that reveals what Chinese culture holds to be both repugnant and appealing about a woman embedded in a children’s narrative.

The (Un)Remarkable Fatness of Valiant’s Faith

This chapter examines the potential, as well as the limits, of making the superhero Faith Herbert/Zephyr fat. Typically framed as monstrous in western superhero comics, Faith’s fatness is treated textually and visually as if it is not in any way aberrant. The author of this chapter questions whether this representation marks a positive shift in western popular culture in relation to fatness, or whether, in this case, Faith as a monstrous woman has been “defanged” and denied the potential to be subversive of marginalizing norms.

Exploring the Monstrous Feminist Frame: Marvel’s She-Hulk as Male-Centric Postfeminist Discourse

This chapter shows in the various portrayals of She-Hulk the paradoxes of female agency in a hyper-masculine sphere. She-Hulk is nearly always a giant green woman, but her monstrosity varies depending on the space she occupies. Despite consistently having superhuman powers and a law degree, the varied portrayals of the transformed, incredibly strong She-Hulk and her alter-ego Jen Walters reveal the tenuous agency of a woman in hyper-masculine public spaces, both in the text and in culture more broadly.