Description
King, Walta, et. al.’s limited series The Vision (2015-2016) is the story of an artificial “synthezoid” and his newly created family as they attempt to forestall the destruction of their perfect suburban life by pressures both within and without. A significant intertext for this series is Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, which is repeatedly quoted by the characters, contrasting the position of the Vision family to that of the character of Shylock.Using the lens of Shakespeare reception studies, this paper argues that the comic engages with the Shakespearean text at a more sophisticated level than first meets the eye. Despite being discriminated against, the Vision can never be wholly allegorised into being the Jewish Shylock or, indeed, into being a member of any of the other groups which he and his family are paralleled with. This disjunction is explored in the comic through the interaction of Shakespeare’s words with Walta’s images, as well as the motif of blood and the colour red. Shylock’s famous monologue defending his humanity asks the rhetorical question “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”. The Visions do not.
I ultimately posit that King, Walta, et al. present the Vision and his family as being irreconcilably posthuman bodies who problematise the classical humanism which undergirds the morality of Shakespeare’s play and the assumptions of the modern comic book reader.
| Period | 14 Nov 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Comics Forum 2024: Between Bodies: Embodiment and Comics |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Leeds, United KingdomShow on map |
Keywords
- Marvel Comics
- Humanism
- Allegory
- Shakespeare