The team behind The Superhero Project X, an academic conference with the theme Supervillains and Anti-Heroes, taking place in September 2026, has issued a Call for Presentations.
Established in 2015 by freelance journalist, author and academic Danny Graydon, in collaboration with Inter-Disciplinary.Net, The Superhero Project was the first academic conference solely dedicated to the superhero genre, initially run at Mansfield College in Oxford. Following the demise of I-D.net, The Superhero Project became a collaboration between Graydon – an academic with University of Hertfordshire, UK – and Dr Torsten Caeners of University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, who was a delegate at the first edition of the conference. The Superhero Project was revived in late 2019 with its third edition in Mulheim an Der Ruhr in Germany, where it continues to run.
The Superhero Project has quickly distinguished itself as an invigoratingly diverse showcase of critical coverage of the superhero genre, amply demonstrating the scope of potential thereby illuminating what is a truly vibrant area of pop culture scholarship.
Here’s the full Call for Presentations…
“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-1980s. 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 31st March, 2026 to the following email addresses ( replace AT with @): t.caenersATsuperheroproject.net and m.j.lairdATsuperheroproject.net
Emails should be entitled: SUPER X Abstract Submission.
All other Superhero Project enquires should be sent to t.caenersATsuperheroproject.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.
The team acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from them in a week, you should assume they 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.graydonATsuperheroproject.net
• Dr Torsten Caeners (Vice President) t.caenersATsuperheroproject.net
• Mikayla J. Laird (Information Manager and Organiser) m.j.lairdATsuperheroproject.net
• The Superhero Project X: 10th Global Meeting – Supervillains & Anti-Heroes, Friday 4th to Sunday 6th September 2026, The View Hotel, Eastbourne, East Sussex | Web: superheroproject.net
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Comics, Comics Education News, Comics Studies, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Film, Other Worlds, Television
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