Abstrakt
The unparalleled fruitfulness of the 1980s with regard to comics saw not only the rise of a new wave of British authors within established American publishing houses, but also the introduction of postmodernist themes and devices to the superhero genre. At the helm of this transformation were two authors in particular - Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.
Their seminal works, Watchmen and Animal Man respectively, represented both a reaction to and revitalization of the superhero myth. Both are to some extent concerned with the deconstruction of perceived foundations within the genre and its implicit binary oppositions.
Morrison's Animal Man is also a prime example of how metafiction can be specifically tailored to the medium of comics. This article is mainly concerned with the specific iterations and singularities of postmodernist expression in comics.