ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that a cross-dresser into the animated superhero-verse provides the potential for both escape and significant rupture to normative gender roles within the suburban patriarchal nuclear family model and those constructed by the Marvel/DC-dominated superhero-verse. The rupture to normative gender models and the patriarchal nuclear family posed by Guy and Maz’s performances are curtailed through the sitcom’s “simple and reassuring problem/solution formula”. The sanctity with which SheZow holds the patriarchal nuclear family is reflected in the concerted efforts that Guy, Kelly, Maz, and Sheila make to hide Guy’s secret identity from his parents, as the lyrics of the theme song suggest. SheZow’s superhero domain is the space of child’s play regulated by Kelly, the big sister, and Sheila, the idealised mother-supercomputer. Superheroes, childhood imaginary, and gender performativity are thereby inextricably linked from the moment Guy puts on the ring.
