About Benjamin Saunders
Dr. Benjamin Saunders is Professor of English at the University of Oregon, where he founded the undergraduate minor in comics studies. He is the author of Desiring Donne: Poetry, Sexuality, Interpretation, short-listed by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title of the Year, and Do the Gods Wear Capes? Spirituality, Fantasy, and Superheroes, which has been described by novelist and comic book writer Greg Rucka as “the best critical work on the meaning and impact of superheroes that has ever been written.” Saunders is a co-editor (with Charles Hatfield) of Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby.
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.