Rusty Hatchell

Rusty Hatchell is a doctoral candidate in media studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his M.A. in media studies from the University of Texas at Austin and his B.A. in English from Georgia Gwinnett College. His current research focuses on contemporary superhero television universes, particularly on the efforts to cultivate narrative continuity as well as the industrial production logics that help shape superhero television into its own distinct genre. His scholarly work has appeared in Middle West Review, the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, Flow: A Critical Forum on Media and Culture, In Media Res, and the edited collection After Midnight: Watchmen after Watchmen. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation, “Mapping the Multiverse: Narrative Continuity and Industrial Logics in the Shared Television Universes of DC’s Superheroes, 1992-2022,” which uses a longitudinal study of DC Comics’ expansion into television from 1992 to 2022 to examine how shared universes are emerging as a guiding principle of the media industries, influencing television production and distribution strategies.