The superhero comes in many varieties but can be loosely defined as a type of fictional character gifted with extraordinary powers and dedicated to a program of justice that often (but not always) takes the form of vigilantism. As such, the superhero constitutes one of the most successful popular fantasy figures of the past one hundred years. Cultural commentators of all stripes—psychologists, sociologists, literary critics, scholars of religion, creative writers, and journalists—have offered different theories to explain this phenomenal popularity. Some liken costumed crime fighters to the gods and heroes of pagan myth (Arnaudo 2013; Reynolds 1992). Others tap into a residual river of Judeo-Christian religiosity flowing beneath the putatively secular surface of the superhero genre; superheroes, they say, slake an abiding thirst for the divine that persists in the face of modern skepticism (Oropeza 2008; Stevenson 2020). Then there are those who see the superhero as a nineteenth-century folk hero reimagined for a postindustrial, technologized, urban-capitalist environment: the gunslinging cowboy who rides a horse that never needs feeding transmuted into a gadget-wielding millionaire who drives a car that never gets stuck in traffic (Wright 2001). Still others put superheroes on the psychologist’s couch and interrogate them as emblematic representatives...