Science Goes Pop: Superhero Art Edition

Kel Ronning and Kikifoxbones in conversation with Ben Nickl and Anna-Sophie Jürgens, introduced by Crystal Leigh-Clitheroe | Section: Visual Science Storytelling, Sequential Art & Illustrated Science Communication

Abstract: In this article, visual artists Kel Ronning and Kikifoxbones reflect on the aesthetic strategies used to communicate science through the visual language of superhero comics – from the glitchy remix aesthetics of Miles Morales (Spider-Man) to the intentionally exaggerated and visually implausible ‘scientific’ moments often found in DC Comics. By foregrounding the artistic process alongside academic rationale, the articles  invites readers to discover how visual art can subvert conventional science tropes and translate scholarly content into compelling, culturally embedded forms. More than just illustration, their work fosters art-driven dialogue about what science means to different people, encouraging connection, critique and cultural storytelling. It invites the audience into a conversation where science is not just explained, but reimagined and made accessible through shared visual vocabularies and creative collaboration.

Preface by the Series Editors

w/k’s series on “Visual Science Storytelling, Sequential Art & Illustrated Science Communication” explores the power of visual art in making complex scientific concepts more engaging and accessible to diverse audiences, as well as how popular visual art forms – such as comics – are vehicles and results of science-art collaborations. The series places particular emphasis on artistic concepts and provides insights into how different styles of visual art and creative expression excite our imagination about science. In 2025, the series inspired the “Science Goes Pop” project, which brought together six Canberra-based artists and six comics scholars to investigate science through comics and illustrations. This article is one of three exploring the art and insights that emerged from this collaboration, where artwork was inspired by science-focused academic discussions and shared reflections.

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How do two visual artists – Kel Ronning and Kikifoxbones – interpret cultural perspectives on science in comics through visual narratives? “Science Goes Pop” explored this question by blending artistic expression and scientific inquiry. Through collaboration between science-in-culture researchers and visual artists, this initiative aimed to awaken curiosity about how we perceive science culturally and spark new ways of imagining scientific ideas. In particular, the aim was to create and reflect on new artworks that invite critical thinking, research-driven dialogue and a fresh take on the role of science in society. 

Images of Science 

In her presentation for “Science Goes Pop”, Science Communication and pop-culture scholar Anna-Sophie Jürgens – whose research gleefully turns the lab coat inside out – delved into how science is imagined, dramatised and playfully re-engineered through comics. With an interest in visual spectacle and humour, Jürgens illuminated the curious chemistry between science and performance. She invited us to see scientific thinking not just as a method but also as a cultural act brimming with theatrical potential – and half-naked scientists. In the Batman comics universe, for example, visual allure is prioritised over scientific plausibility and credibility. We are thus well accustomed to seeing Bruce Wayne perform virological experiments in his underwear and Poison Ivy work in a negligee in her lab. Their lab spaces evoke science associated with gleaming glassware and multicoloured, shimmering liquids, helping to put on a convincing performance of ‘science’. As David Kirby explains in Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists, and Cinema (2011), the depiction of mysteriously steaming and bubbling liquids in gothic laboratories cluttered with beakers, flasks and towering distillation apparatuses boiling on stoves, has a long tradition that goes back to early films. In pop culture media, including comics, this tradition became a visually effective way of presenting science. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle where subsequent representations cater to the expectation that labs and scientists look this way, thereby perpetuating and legitimising the visual trope. And all of this raises many questions…

Imagining science, identity and the future through the art of comics 

Comparative Literature and Translations Studies scholar Ben Nickl’s work for “Science Goes Pop” poses a question about how we make the rigid more bendy, more stretchy – more animatedly ‘plasmatic’, to use a phrase popularised by Russian filmmaker and animation theorist Sergei Eisenstein (On Disney, 2017): in Western pop culture – often filtered through the lens of a White-coded fandom – do diverse characters need to be framed as glitches in the system to be seen as legitimate heroes? Must the so-called outliers, non-standard or accidental inclusions earn their place through exceptionally irregular backstories, rather than being recognised as intentional, central figures in their own right? This speaks to a larger issue that Ben Nickl’s drawn to, which is how global media franchises negotiate and mediate inclusion both narratively and aesthetically. The idea – and here we can follow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander futurist visions like those portrayed in the Cleverman graphic novels (published by Gestalt Comics) – is that local, culturally-grounded practices can arise outside dominant systems as forms of creativity, adaptability and innovation. They can not only coexist with mass entertainment but also expand its narrative scope. These practices introduce new ways of imagining science, identity and the future itself – and that’s what can pull hyper-diverse audiences into the Spider-Verse. Its world isn’t just a futuristic techscape – it’s alive, layered with memory, improvisation and individual style. It reminds us of Henri Bergson’s idea of the “mechanically encrusted upon the living” (Bergson 1928, 60), where we impose rigid, artificial structures onto what is organic, malleable and evolving about human life. Bergson saw this as risible – a kind of cosmic joke we play on ourselves. In the Spider-Verse, the joke is reversed, told backwards to audiences to move them forward: the fixed bends to the new, to change and possibility. The narrative stretches to accommodate new rhythms, new textures and new heroes. And that’s where truly radical storytelling – also about science – begins.

When comics-based science appears on screen, it’s often dressed in clinical whites, wrapped in formulas or tucked inside blinking gadgets. But the Spider-Verse films, Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse, turn that image on its head. Here, science doesn’t sit in the background. It is dramatic, forces its own colourfulness as an aesthetic spectacle of possibility into the foreground as a main character. For the eye, it explodes across the screen in colour, chaos and movement. For the ear, there are crackles, glitches and pulses. And at the centre of this electrified cinematic canvas is Miles Morales, a hero forged not just by scientific chance but by its visual drama itself. From that moment on, science in the Spider-Verse becomes a visual language, a force that shapes the world cinematically. The Quantum Collider – a machine used by the central villain character of Kingpin to breach alternate realities – is less a piece of technology and more a monstrous, swirling opera of particles, colours and collapsing geometry. When it roars to life, it feels like watching a black hole with an art director. It’s not just physics: it’s fear, distortion and possibility rendered as visual drama.

The sequence at Alchemax Labs – the central node of the Spider-Verse’s canonical science and the white, clinical lab coat discourses around it – is pure cinematic tension. When Miles tries to infiltrate this canon-building structure filled with top-end industry machinery and formal academic degrees, it turns into a heist wrapped in a science-fiction shell: sterile hallways contrast with wild bursts of on-the-run invention, a visual cue to the chaos lurking beneath an order that White Western visuals of science have come up with. Miles and Peter B. Parker, on their mission to de-glitch the cracked quantum universe, aren’t just stealing data. They’re dancing with danger in and around that science, ducking through a maze of scientific overreach and moral ambiguity. Miles doesn’t just learn about science – he becomes the embodiment of its alternatives. His powers – bioelectric venom blasts, camouflage, multiversal glitching – aren’t just superpowers. They’re disruptions. His body becomes a kind of scientific canvas: twitching, flickering, evolving. Each new ability, like being able to turn invisible to the clinical gaze of lab techs and both his enemies and supposed allies, is revealed through a moment of dramatic tension, painted within frames of sound and kaleidoscopic style. 

This dramatised mutation of the Spider-Man franchise and its Spider-Science parallels something deeper. Miles isn’t a lab experiment or a random glitch that needs correcting. He’s a narrative remix: Afro-Latino, bilingual, culturally layered. His very presence is a defiance of narrative ‘norms’, just as his powers defy the laws of his universe. Science here isn’t a clean cause-and-effect equation. It’s messy, emotional, a cinematic exploration of science as drama and drama as science, full of identity and uncertainty regarding the outcome of said experiment. And that complexity is cinematically encoded into every frame. Where Spider-Verse thus truly changes the game is in how it visualises science fiction. Each alternative universe isn’t just a place – it’s a style, a texture, a tempo. This suggests that science could also contain an infinite number of multitudes, each equally valid and dramatically exciting, if these were only given the chance to articulate themselves on their own terms. What drama! What science! 

In what ways did the Canberra visual artists Kel Ronning and Kikifoxbones draw inspiration from these academic discussions on the visual power of science in comics contexts – ‘comics science’ – and how did they influence the development of their artwork?

Where comic book science meets artistic imagination

Kel Ronning – Shapes of identity

Kel Ronning on Not an Anomaly

I wanted to explore the idea of what makes Miles unique, both in his public identity and as a Spider-Man. Additionally, I aimed to depict the crossover between these identities and how Miles’ individuality defines his version of Spider-Man whilst still fitting the Spider-Man role.

I utilised a collection of different techniques for each element of the overall piece, including hand drawn components, graffiti techniques, collage and digital editing. This choice was guided by two factors. Firstly, I wanted to employ the tools that Miles uses within the fictional world, to better display his character. Secondly, I wanted to convey a sense of busyness, a crowded and varied landscape, reflective of Miles’ world, the Spider-Verse and its depiction of science as a whole. Each element of the piece was produced with its own meaning in mind. The glitching city is intended as a direct depiction of unease and uncertainty. This reflects Miles’ journey, both as an individual and as a part of an ever-growing and ever-changing world. The signature tag shows both self-expression of the individual and implies a public image due to social perception of street art mediums. The series of jump frames acts as a callback to his stuttering frame rate seen throughout the film. This characteristic was one of the most direct depictions of his difference from other Spider-men, showing him as an anomaly within the space. By depicting these frames in motion between the statements of ‘what’s my story’ and ‘not an anomaly’, directly into his name tag, the intention is to show the journey Miles faces in finding how he fits within the Spider-verse.

Reflection by Ben Nickl on Not an Anomaly

To say that I love Kel Ronning’s rendition would be an understatement. Not an Anomaly masterfully encapsulates the core themes of my work concerning the Spider-Verse and the intricate negotiation of inclusion within global media franchises. The Not An Anomaly text directly confronts the central issue that so many countries across the world confront today: who gets to define whatever is ‘normal,’ and on what literal grounds? Placing Miles upside-down, having him hang from the sky of his own universe before a cityscape that he’s glitching out of, mirrors the uniquely reversed perspective all Spider-characters would have vis-a-vis the ‘normal’ viewpoint of human beings: an a priori positioning based on the laws of our embodied beings – or, that is, whatever we think of as such laws, e.g., that of gravity pulling us ‘down.’ I also think Kel articulated Miles’s actual superpower here: reflection. He thinks, unmasked, about HIS story, not the alleged canon lore of Spider-Man. His “Hello Miles” name tag further solidifies the graffiti art style that, again, quite literally, TAGS the existing, standardised and industrial name tag format and resurfaces it with a haptic gesture that rewrites, overlays and reinscribes the mechanical fixity with an elegantly fluid script.

The red silhouettes that show an animation sequence of Spider-Man figures in action, entangled in webs, represent the legacy and dominant aesthetic systems from which Miles emerges: the iconic Spider-Man visuals of the 1967 TV series opener.

Kel has us look at an unfinished storyboard element that shows we’re all momentary collages of selves entangled in wider webs of the world around us. These figures are present but not overshadowing, subtly illustrating how we can think of ourselves as local moments while coexisting with mass entertainment in global storylines. The detailed black-and-white cityscape grounds the image in a recognisable urban environment, reflecting the Spider-Verse’s world as alive, layered with memory, improvisation and individual style. The entire aesthetic – a collage-like composition with cut-out elements, drips of red and mixed illustration styles – feels inherently “un-rigid” to me. Kel’s image presents a dynamic comic quality to me, a visual “bendiness” that mirrors the idea that Miles is not an exception, but an embodiment of how diverse narratives can enrich global media. Miles, the much-needed glitch in the system, is making his choice to be his own kind of Spider-Man. This, perhaps, renders him truly representative of hyper-diverse audiences.

Kikifoxbones – Visual drama

The presentation on “Images of Science” by Anna-Sophie Jürgens highlighted ways that science can be represented visually in pop culture to create a cultural narrative. The work that goes on inside a lab can be exciting, rebellious, groundbreaking, dangerous – but to the average person without lab experience, it may seem like nothing more than paperwork and dry calculations. Comics show that even when depictions of science are inaccurate to real life, they can translate those core feelings and excitement into something cinematic and appealing at first glance. My works focus on that subject of re-imagining something theoretical as something visually dramatic and exciting, inspired mostly by a page from Batman depicting Poison Ivy in the middle of a scientific breakthrough while wearing a skimpy nightgown. My first piece is of Ivy in the art nouveau style, referencing a lab safety information poster. She wears goggles and a PPE apron, but in no way adheres to workplace safety codes. The allure of a pinup has been used historically to convey a message using pleasing visuals to grab the viewer’s attention – the art nouveau style was often used to sell wine and food; here it’s used to sell the idea of proper lab safety. My second piece shows Bruce Wayne. I draw inspiration from the style of J.C. Leyendecker, an illustrator from the early twentieth century known for his beautifully illustrated magazine ads. Bruce is reading through a thesis for his gadgets and bemoaning the fact that in real life, science and engineering have formalities and rules to follow, unlike in his comic where he can simply do as he pleases. Through this concept of using aesthetically pleasing, attention-grabbing visuals, I aim to spark interest in science in others who may not otherwise have given the subject a second glance.

Reflection by Anna-Sophie Jürgens on Ivy & Bruce

Kikifoxbones’s Ivy & Bruce (2025) transforms some rather mundane routine processes of science – lab safety protocols and refining an academic manuscript – into two visually striking narratives that aim to spark curiosity and evoke emotional responses. Through the playful clash of pinup glamour and lab safety gear, the artist creates a deliberate mismatch between seductive aesthetics and scientific formality. Is this a humorous yet pointed critique of how science is often sanitised or rendered inaccessible in public perception? What emerges is not simplification, but animation. The work recharges science with cultural energy, making it feel cinematic, rebellious and alive. This approach clearly evokes curiosity and laughter through its aesthetic choices, inviting us to see science not merely as a body of knowledge but as a living narrative – a story we tell us about ourselves. In this sense, science is revealed as a visual language, rich with the same fantasies, values and tensions that run through other cultural spheres (or myths?). In Kikifoxbones’s artwork, one might even ask whether science is being mythologised – not merely as a rational pursuit, but as spectacle: something heroic, dramatic, even provocative. By drawing on pinup tropes and stylised masculine barechested imagery, the artwork also (un)subtly calls out the gendered patterns in how we culturally visualise scientists. Could these choices reflect the enduring stereotypes that continue to shape how we collectively imagine who participates in science?

Cinematic and dramatic – Visual art and the meanings of science

By blending aesthetics with knowledge, visual artists can not only convey meanings of science, but also shape cultural dialogues about discovery, curiosity and interpretation – and shape the aesthetics of science communication. In the visual artworks created by Kel Ronning and Kikifoxbones, the cultural meanings of science become experiential, inviting audiences to engage not only through cognition but also through emotion, irony and aesthetic contemplation. Their strategic use of comics-style multimodality – the integration of imagery, visual design, character stylisation and references to popular culture – Ivy & Bruce and Not An Anomaly construct richly-layered visual narratives. In these science-themed artworks, humour, visual metaphor and satire function as central rhetorical devices, deepening the interpretive complexity and emotional resonance of the visual storytelling. By juxtaposing scientific ideals with real-world constraints – such as laboratory safety regulations or academic formalities – these artists highlight the human dimensions of scientific practice. In doing so, they create visual narratives that are relatable and engaging, especially for audiences who may feel excluded from conventional science narratives. Appropriating iconic pin-up imagery recontextualised within laboratory scenes can function both as satire and as a sneaky critique of gendered tropes and stereotypes, thereby sparking reflection on who science is for and who gets to be seen as a scientist. In this way, their art does not merely communicate science – it reimagines it, offering fresh entry points into discourse, delight and critical reflection.

References

“Science Goes Pop: Science, Comics and Illustrated Science Communication”, a Popsicule project of the Australian National University (2025). 

 Henri Bergson (1928). Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Macmillan.

Eisenstein, Sergei (2017). Sergei Eisenstein on Disney (Vol. 3). Seagull Books.

 “Science Goes Pop” was supported by Inspiring Australia ACT and the ACT Government. The organisers would like to thank their sponsors and collaborators.

How to cite this article

Kel Ronning, Kikifoxbones, Ben Nickl, Anna-Sophie Jürgens and Crystal Leigh-Clitheroe (2025): Science Goes Pop: Superhero Art Edition. w/k–Between Science & Art Journal. https://doi.org/10.55597/e10328