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The Bible has inspired Western art and literature for centuries, so it is no surprise that Christian iconography, characters, and stories have also appeared in many comic books. Yet the sheer stylistic range of these comics is stunning. They include books from Christian publishers, as well as underground comix with religious themes and a vast array of DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse titles, from Hellboy to Preacher.     Christianity and Comics presents an 80-year history of the various ways that the comics industry has drawn from biblical source material. It explores how some publishers specifically targeted Christian audiences with titles like Catholic Comics, books featuring heroic versions of Oral Roberts and Billy Graham, and special religious-themed editions of Archie. But it also considers how popular mainstream comics like Daredevil, The Sandman, Ghost Rider, and Batman are infused with Christian themes and imagery.    Comics scholar Blair Davis pays special attention to how the medium's unique use of panels, word balloons, captions, and serialized storytelling have provided vehicles for telling familiar biblical tales in new ways. Spanning the Golden Age of comics to the present day, this book charts how comics have both reflected and influenced Americans' changing attitudes towards religion.

Well before Evel Knievel or Hollywood stuntmen, reality television or the X Games, North America had a long tradition of stunt performance, of men (and some women) who sought media attention and popular fame with public feats of daring. Many of these feats—jumping off bridges, climbing steeples and buildings, swimming incredible distances, or doing tricks with wild animals—had their basis in the manual trades or in older entertainments like the circus. In The Thrill Makers, Jacob Smith shows how turn-of-the-century bridge jumpers, human flies, lion tamers, and stunt pilots first drew crowds to their spectacular displays of death-defying action before becoming a crucial, yet often invisible, component of Hollywood film stardom. Smith explains how these working-class stunt performers helped shape definitions of American manhood, and pioneered a form of modern media celebrity that now occupies an increasingly prominent place in our contemporary popular culture.

Much of the literature on the free energy principle (FEP) has focused on how organisms maintain homeostasis amidst a constantly changing environment. A fundamental feature of the FEP is that biological entities are “hard-wired” towards self-preservation.However, contrary to this notion, there do exist organisms that appear to seek out rather than avoid conditions that pose an elevated risk of serious injury or death, thereby jeopardizing their physiological integrity. Borrowing a term used in 1990s popular culture to refer to stunt performers like Evel Knievel, these organisms that exhibit such behavioural characteristics can be referred to as daredevils.This paper presents the case of daredevils as a challenge to the FEP’s homeostasis- and optimization-based construal of biological systems. It also introduces three possible explanatory strategies by which the FEP can account for daredevils. The broader objective of the paper is to enhance the FEP’s ability to account for a diverse range of complex behaviour.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, writer-artist Frank Miller turnedDaredevilfrom a tepid-selling comic into an industry-wide success story, doubling its sales within three years. Lawyer by day and costumed vigilante by night, the character of Daredevil was the perfect vehicle for the explorations of heroic ideals and violence that would come to define Miller's work. Frank Miller's Daredevil and the Ends of Heroismis both a rigorous study of Miller's artistic influences and innovations and a reflection on how his visionary work onDaredevilimpacted generations of comics publishers, creators, and fans. Paul Young explores the accomplishments of Miller the writer, who fused hardboiled crime stories with superhero comics, while reimagining Kingpin (a classic Spider-Man nemesis), recuperating the half-baked villain Bullseye, and inventing a completely new kind ofDaredevilvillain in Elektra. Yet, he also offers a vivid appreciation of the indelible panels drawn by Miller the artist, taking a fresh look at his distinctive page layouts and lines. A childhood fan of Miller'sDaredevil, Young takes readers on a personal journey as he seeks to reconcile his love for the comic with his distaste for the fascistic overtones of Miller's controversial later work. What he finds will resonate not only with Daredevil fans, but with anyone who has contemplated what it means to be a hero in a heartless world. Other titles in the Comics Culture series includeTwelve-Cent Archie,Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics,1941-1948, andConsidering Watchmen: Poetics, Property, Politics.

Long before Batman, Flash Gordon, or the Lone Ranger were the stars of their own TV shows, they had dedicated audiences watching their adventures each week. The difference was that this action took place on the big screen, in short adventure serials whose exciting cliffhangers compelled the young audience to return to the theater every seven days.Matinee Melodramais the first book about the adventure serial as a distinct artform, one that uniquely encouraged audience participation and imaginative play. Media scholar Scott Higgins proposes that the serial's incoherent plotting and reliance on formula, far from being faults, should be understood as some of its most appealing attributes, helping to spawn an active fan culture. Further, he suggests these serials laid the groundwork not only for modern-day cinematic blockbusters likeStar WarsandRaiders of the Lost Ark, but also for all kinds of interactive media that combine spectacle, storytelling, and play.As it identifies key elements of the serial form-from stock characters to cliffhangers-Matinee Melodramadelves deeply into questions about the nature of suspense, the aesthetics of action, and the potentials of formulaic narrative. Yet it also provides readers with a loving look at everything fromZorro's Fighting LegiontoDaredevils of the Red Circle, conveying exactly why these films continue to thrill and enthrall their fans.

This segment is about daredevil stunt shows.

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This chapter focuses on more indirect adaptations that either disguise their debt to Greek tragedy and/or take greater liberties with their source texts to the point where the precise nature of this connection becomes highly unstable. To illustrate these debates from a classical perspective the author has chosen to focus on the transformations of the tragic heroine Electra in a series of case studies where the relationship between film and classical source text(s) is not straightforward. In mainstream cinema, the chapter examines the character of Elektra in Daredevil (2003) and Elektra (2004), self‐proclaimed adaptations, not of any Greek tragedy but of a series of graphic novels charting the life of Elektra Natchios, a Greek femme fatale and ninja assassin. It argues, however, that there is a tantalizing connection to the ancient Electra that should lead us to re‐examine the perception of what happens to classical stories and characters.