ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that the fantasy worlds of superheroes may hold the developmental keys for the next frontier of artificial-intelligence-based storytelling systems. The thesis in a nutshell is a) that technologists involved with story generators can learn from superhero story construction; and b) that superhero bibles together with the rule sets from certain superhero games can serve as “best case” experimental fodder for these emerging technologies. Using examples drawn from the Batman and Spider-Man franchises, the chapter explores competing strategies for character/world definition and coherence in comic books (bibles) and games (rules), as a way of getting to larger questions regarding the operations of narrative in fixed and authored texts (comic books) and dynamic and experientially generated texts (games). The challenges posed by the latter, including collaborative authorship with the user, are in the process of taking a new turn with algorithmically produced stories, offering a speculative twist on existing definitional strategies. The chapter argues that, as these new technologies and capacities develop, the most relevant domain for continued experimentation will be the superhero genre, bound as it is by rules and enabled as it is by self-generating narrative logics.