ABSTRACT
The "Li'l Leaguers" story features a team-up adventure between the conventional Superman and Batman and their cute counterparts from a parallel dimension. Despite the contemporary Batman's dominant characterization as "grim and gritty," his likeness is everywhere as a friendly image for youngsters. With big eyes and an impish smile, Batman and so many other heroes exist as cuddly plush dolls, friendly Lago characters, silly cartoons, and baby clothes. The cute superhero aesthetic leverages the familiar attributes of recognizable superheroes but repositions them as signifiers of innocence and helplessness. In an effort to appeal to children, superheroes have embraced the aesthetic of cuteness. The current ubiquity of cute superhero aesthetics across a range of media forms facilitates an effective response of endearment and protectionism in readers and consumers. In effect the emergence of cute superhero aesthetics in comic books, merchandising, and animated film invokes a "return of the repressed."
