A study of the post 9/11 superhero

During my dissertation lecture on Friday, I had a bit of a brainstorming session with my collection of ideas. Part of the lecture was to come up with different dissertation topics/questions that would be suitable and narrow enough to study for a final dissertation. I have decided that superheroes are the main area that I am going to focus on for my overall dissertation. While I could primarily focus on the comic book or film adaptation, I believe that superheroes are often seen as a more populist subject, one which is often shunned aside for more 'serious' or 'indie' subject matter. Although, there is enough critical work on superheroes for me to develop my own ideas and reinforce them.

Klock, G. (2002). How to Read Superhero Comics and why. [Book]New York, London: Continuum Inc.- This book that I have been reading recently has been particularly interesting as it goes into the basics of the superhero while also addressing aspects of the modern superhero.

'See, in the world of comics, if you don't do superheroes, you're alternative.' - Brian Michael Bendis [Fortune and Glory] (Klock, 2002)

In this blog post so far I've briefly talked about the superhero as a general topic. Although a good starting point, a more concise and defined approach needs to be found for my dissertation. After much thought and a sudden brainwave, I have defined two possible questions/topics for my concrete dissertation topic.

'A study of the post 9/11 superhero in specific reference to the Marvel corporation.'
'How did the portrayal of superheroes after 9/11 reflect the political, social and cultural events of the time?'

A study into superheroes both in comic books and on film after this event (time frame) would be thoroughly interesting to me and would  provide many avenues of research to follow.