- Comic characters with shapeshifting abilities often depicted as villains who also suffer from poor mental health.
- Depictions can reinforce harmful homophobic and transphobic stereotypes.
- The purpose of this proposed study is to analyze the portrayal of mental health and mental illness among characters who can shapeshift compared to characters who cannot.
- Each character is to be coded according to basic demographics (gender), mental health status, and varying levels of social inclusion.
- Character identities coded according to having the ability to shapeshift across genders or not.
- Analysis of over 600 characters ranging from various universes within the comic arts would allow for a wide sample size.
- Analysis of variance would be used as the primary method for testing hypotheses.
- Study implications could suggest that negative stereotypes associated with varying gender identities and sexualities continue to be perpetrated across the comics arts.
- Multiple bills that would severely impact transgender and gender non-conforming populations in the U.S. have been passed in 2025.
- Idaho H0041 prohibits the display of flags representing political viewpoints, such as sexual orientation and gender, at public elementary and secondary schools.
- These bills vilify individuals who do not fall within traditional gender binaries.
- LGBTQ+ individuals already experience disproportionate levels of mental illness as a result of discrimination (Su et al., 2016).
- Individuals facing discrimination with a stronger sense of identity centrality, not affirmed by others, may suffer more mental health issues (Macaulay et al., 2024).
- An existing database of comic book characters containing is to be analyzed to survey the portrayal of comic arts characters with varying gender identities.
- Characters will be examined across variables including mental health status, morality, social inclusion, and other basic demographics.
- Shapeshifters known for their villainous tendencies and unstable mental health could be due to variation in identity.
Shifting Between Good, Evil, and the Gender Binary: An Analysis of Comic Shapeshifters
Gail Baltazar and Christopher R. Warren | Department of Psychology | California State University, Long Beach
| Presence of shapeshifting ability will relate to low levels of mental health. |
| Presence of shapeshifting ability will relate to an evil morality. |
| Presence of shapeshifting ability will relate to an Antagonist or Antihero role |
| Presence of shapeshifting ability will relate to high social inclusion |
| Presence of shapeshifting ability will relate to a malevolent moral alignment |
- Mental Health: 1
- Moral Alignment: 3
- Social Inclusion: 1
- Mental Health: 1
- Moral Alignment: 3
- Social Inclusion: 1
- Depictions of characters within the comic arts can serve as media representations of a certain groups or populations
- Popular comics, such as the X-Men, have long been metaphors for marginalized groups (LGBTQ+ community and certain races) but the impacts of their storylines are largely unknown.
- Portrayal of characters with varying gender identities can be reflective of social attitudes towards individuals with gender non-conforming characteristics.
- Transgender individuals or those who do not fall within the gender binary are consistently exploited or villainized in media representations.
- The findings of this study could imply the effects varying gender identities are depicted to have on factors such as mental health and social inclusion within comic media.
- Mental Health: 3
- Moral Alignment: 1
- Social Inclusion: 3
- Mental Health: 3
- Moral Alignment: 1
- Social Inclusion: 3
- Comic character demographics are to be collected through online databases and then coded through an Excel sheet
- Each character is coded across shape shifting ability, mental health status, morality, and other demographics (gender, sexual orientation).
- Analyses of variance will test each hypothesis
- Mental health status coding will range from low/constant, mid/situational, and high/rarely-never.