“I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, no! No. You… you… complete… me.” – The Joker (The Dark Knight, 2008)
Superheroes may be defined by their powers, their never-ending battles and their distinct identities, but they are measured against the threats and challenges presented by their foes… the supervillains. Be they megalomaniacal billionaires (Lex Luthor), universe-threatening Titans (Thanos, Galactus), mad clowns (The Joker), sentient AI (Brainiac) or gigantic monsters (Starro The Conquerer), they constantly test the superhero’s mettle via nefarious deeds and ceaseless schemes for world domination.
Indeed, flagship characters like Batman and Spider-Man are distinguished by the sheer breadth and iconicity of their “Rogue’s Gallery”. Essential to superhero narratives and discourse within the genre, supervillains have become increasingly nuanced characters, often providing a lens to deconstruct the superhero (does Batman inadvertently attract his flamboyant villains?) while in some cases, traversing from villainy to heroism (the MCU’s Loki).
Alongside this, the Modern Age of Comics, now in its fifth decade, has seen the superhero defined by a substantial increase in anti-heroic traits, sparked by The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen in the mid-1980’s. Today, anti-heroes are a prominent and highly popular part of superhero landscape via the likes of The Punisher, Harley Quinn, Deadpool, The Boys and Agatha Harkness, while on the big screen, the genre’s most prominent characters embrace anti-heroic traits as they become ever-more aligned with action hero tropes.
For its milestone 10th anniversary edition, The Superhero Project invites exploration and discussion of the challenges, opportunities, successes and failures of supervillains and anti-heroes throughout the entire range of topics covered by the superhero discourse across all media (comics, TV, Film, theme parks, video games…).
Indicative themes for exploration include:
Villains and Anti-heroes in comics
Villains and Anti-heroes in film, television and video games
Subversion, Parody and Pastiche through anti-heroes and villains
Gender and villains / anti-heroes
Origin Stories and / of villains and anti-heroes
Villains and anti-heroes as elements/functions in world building
Explorations of the relationship between superheroes and villains/anti-heroes
Explorations of relationships among villains/anti-heroes
Transmedial negotiations of villains and anti-heroes
Multiversal negotiations of villain and anti-hero characters
Costumes and Iconography of villains and anti-heroes
Identity construction of and though villains and anti-heroes
Depiction and Functionalisation of Villains and anti-heroes in Theme Parks
Villains and anti-hero cosplay
BONUS STRANDS! 2026 marks the fortieth anniversaries of WATCHMEN and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, both seminal texts which immediately prompted a sea change in the tone of superhero narratives and potently infused the genre with antiheroic traits which still dominate the genre to this day, across mediums. We welcome papers exploring the impact and legacy of these two vastly influential works.
WHAT TO SEND
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Tuesday 31 March, 2026 to the following email addresses: t.caeners@superheroproject.net and m.j.laird@superheroproject.net.
Emails should be entitled: SUPER X Abstract Submission.
All other Superhero Project enquires should be sent to t.caeners@superheroproject.net.
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both emails, abstracts should be in MS Word formats with the following information and in this order: a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in the programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
Accepted proposals will be notified by Monday 13th April 2026.
We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week, you should assume we did not receive your proposal. If this is the case, please do resent to both email addresses. If you have any questions, the team will be only too happy to assist.
Danny Graydon (Founder and President) d.graydon@superheroproject.net
Dr Torsten Caeners (Vice President) t.caeners@superheroproject.net
Mikayla J. Laird (Information Manager) m.j.laird@superheroproject.net
