e-space
Manchester Metropolitan University's Research Repository

    Touch Me/Don’t Touch Me: Representations of Female Archetypes in Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil

    Hagan, Robert J ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1184-229X (2019) Touch Me/Don’t Touch Me: Representations of Female Archetypes in Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil. The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 9 (1). pp. 9-33.

    [img]
    Preview
    Published Version
    Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

    Download (2MB) | Preview

    Abstract

    In the late 1980s, Ann Nocenti became the principle writer on the Marvel comic book, Daredevil, the second woman to be lead creator on the book and the first to write a significant run on an ongoing basis. Nocenti integrated themes relating to social justice, violence and the treatment of children into the narrative. She also shone the spotlight on the supporting female cast members in a way that was original and refreshing. In this article, Nocenti’s challenging of feminine archetypes, such as the housewife, the temptress and the Barbie Doll, reflects ideas of mutable identities, promoted by second-wave feminism. Examining her writing of Karen Page, Typhoid Mary, Brandy Ash and Number Nine, this article argues that, despite the comic centring around a male superhero and with a predominantly male readership, Nocenti succeeds in introducing a more nuanced picture of women and pre-empting some of the changes in the promotion of female characters now apparent in the industry.

    Impact and Reach

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    585Downloads
    6 month trend
    352Hits

    Additional statistics for this dataset are available via IRStats2.

    Altmetric

    Repository staff only

    Edit record Edit record