Superheroes captivate our cultural imagination. From reading comic books in our childhood bedrooms to watching the latest blockbuster on the silver screen, we long to see the champion defeat the villain and ultimately rescue the world from certain destruction. Though the stories may be fantastical, our desires are not. Our hearts are drawn to superheroes because we want someone to triumph over evil and save the world. This issue of An Unexpected Journal proposes that just maybe our desires have already been fulfilled. 

Contributors

Jesse W. Baker: "The Power of Weakness" on Questions of Violence

Donald W Catchings, Jr.: "He Will Rise" on Nolan's Salvific Themes

Annie Crawford: "Super-Women and the Price of Power" on Gendered Superheroes

Joseph Holmes: "Superheroes and Worship" on the Attraction of Superhero Movies

Christy Luis: "Ex-Cult Member Saved by Grace" on the Dangers Of False Heroes

Jason Monroe: "Answering Joker’s Dark-Knight-Defying Anarchy"

on Competing Worldviews

Seth Myers: "Global Superheroes from the Disneyverse and Studio Ghibli" on Heroism Manifested around the World; "Once a Prince or Princess: MacDonald’s Moral Superheroines and Heroes in the Princess Tales" on Ordinary Heroic Actions; and "Planets, Poetry, and the Power of Myth in Halo and Destiny" on the Apologetic Power of Video Games

Annie Nardone: "Just a Sidekick?" on the Importance of Support

Cherish Nelson: "Person or Persona: What's Inside the Spider-Verse?" on Plantinga's Conception of the Multiverse

Megan Joy Rials: "Diana Prince, Apologist? Salvation and the Great Commission in Wonder Woman" on an Unlikely Apologist

Jason M. Smith: "Worth Reading" on Some Good Starting Points

James M. Swayze: "Superheroes, Saviors, and C.S. Lewis" on Epic, Myth, and Human Longings

John P. Tuttle: "Humility Contra Pride as Represented in Thor (2011)" on the Superiority of Virtue

Clark Weidner: "Faith on Trial in Frank Miller’s Daredevil Comics" on Questions of the Greater Good

About the Cover

We are all looking for a hero, someone to battle monsters that threaten. A hero can battle the monsters without, but only the Superhero can conquer the monster within. 

An Unexpected Journal

Summer 2021

Volume 4, Issue 2

300 pages