Purpose
– This two-part study aims to expose the challenges and establish the necessity of preserving digital content, with a focus on console video games.
Design/methodology/approach
– Through a method of establishing the history of video game consoles, identifying the challenges presented by the format and addressing the current preservation efforts, this article serves as a brief retrospective of the issues and a guide to extending the conversation.
Findings
– Representing a unique format, heavily reliant on advances in technological and industrial standards, console video games have experienced a demonstrated lack of preservation.
Originality/value
– With special attention to the non-gamer, this is an introduction to the conversation and an invitation to lend expertise to not only an often overlooked area of popular culture, which is facing (and in some cases, has experienced) irretrievable loss of information, but also to other formats facing adjustment to the digital, always-online environment.
In Superman: Red Son (2003), Mark Millar reimagines America’s fictional “Man of Steel” as the surrogate son and ideological heir of Joseph Stalin, Soviet Russia’s historical “man of steel.” In doing so, Millar and his collaborators reimagine the power dynamics of the Cold War and grapple with questions of villainy and heroism in such a redefined political landscape. This essay considers how, in separating Superman’s idealized morality from his ideological association with America, Red Son challenges the reader’s conceptions of “good” and “evil” and raises questions about leadership, hero worship, terrorism, and the influence of political ideologies on our ideas of ends versus means. This was particularly poignant in the three-issue series’ consideration of national security and mass surveillance, a theme that continues to be relevant even as it was especially effectual for the post-9/11 moment in which the series was released.
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