Despondent superheroes and cosmic horror: Posthumanism and antihumanism in Jack Kirby's cosmic mythos

Abstract

AbstractThe breakdown of cultural categories in the 1960s was perceived as liberating, but by the 1970s Americans increasingly felt uneasy and directionless. The liminality of social categories was evident in popular culture, such as superhero comics. Examining how Jack Kirby melded superhero and cosmic horror tropes in the Fantastic Four, Fourth World, and Eternals series reveals how Kirby's work initially celebrated human significance but increasingly decentered humans from his narratives. The challenge to cultural and genre boundaries that seemed liberating in the 1960s, left people anomic and directionless by the mid‐1970s, replacing posthumanist optimism with anti‐humanist pessimism.