ABSTRACT
Fantasy, in its establishment of competing worlds, its immersion into child’s play and nonsense, its journeys into strange and extraordinary landscapes, its utopian and dystopian visions and its erotic day-dreams requires an active engagement of its readers, viewers and audiences, leading to a re-examination of the unthinking ‘givens’ of reality. As well as engaging with the unseen, however, fantasy has a key role to play in embracing those whom society itself might consider unwelcome. One of the aims of Fantasy is to demonstrate that the seemingly ‘timeless’ appeal of fantasy is actually rooted in a long history from classical antiquity to the present day and that it transcends value judgments about high and low culture by educating as it entertains. Conversely, comic books play a similarly important role in offering up newer renditions of archetypal moral heroes in Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Captain America.
