Abstract

Cities are the products of collective human actions that combine physical structures and sociabilities. The comic genre of superhero destines a major role for the cities. They become more than mere environments or backgrounds for the development of narratives. The metropolis and its problems require the need for the existence of superheroes. The intent of this study is to examine the image of the cities of Metropolis and Gotham in its context of creation, the respective cities of Superman and Batman, both born in the late 1930s. We understand by the term “city image” as the social representations that incorporate not only visual images, but the symbolic and cultural dimensions of the urban imagery. The image of a city embraces its physical structure as well as its aesthetic and cultural dimension. The two cities studied here represent urban antagonistic conceptions since Metropolis is a modern city focused on progress, while Gotham has a chaotic and nocturnal atmosphere. These conceptions are found in distinct urban discussions that permeated the urban theories of the 1930s. This paper combines perspectives in the field of anthropology of the image, urban planners and urban sociology as a way of basing the analysis of images and representations production of these respective cities in comic books.