A Construção da figura do herói nos mangás e comics: uma análise comparativa entre samurais e super-heróis

Abstract

This study talks about the representation of the hero in Japanese comics, the manga, and North-American comics. This analysis intends to compare the samurai figure, focused on the titles Samurai X (Rurouni Kenshin) and Vagabond, and the superhero figure, through Superman and Batman. Therefore, two miniseries were chosen from each American character, published between the final part of 1980s and the 1990s, same period of time that the Japanese ones. The chosen titles illustrate key-questions to the understanding of the hero figure: its origins, death and confrontation with antagonists. Considering the vast material related to the American characters, created at the end of the 1930 decade, this research chose to deal with specific sagas instead of the whole work, which was only possible in the mangas. Therefore, this analysis will be based on comic books published from the late 1980s, thus preserving the parity in time between comics and mangá, whose chronology is much stricter. The segments of chosen were, from Superman, Man of Steel, of 1986, telling the origins of the character and The Death and Return of Superman , of 1992. From Batman will be analyzed Batman: Year One , of 1987, and Knightfall , of 1993.