Dystopian Narrative in Gundala’s Multiverse: Transmedia Studies

The depiction of the dystopian world in a literary work within the superhero’s genre has been widely used by famous literary works worldwide. Dystopia describes a catastrophic picture of life; this is inversely to the world of utopia which describes an ideal world. In 2019, superhero Gundala was recreated to its new adaptation story. In this case, Gundala was published in the online comic Gundala: The Son of Lightning and the printed comic Gundala: Takdir which also a complementary work from the movie Gundala: Negeri ini Butuh Patriot. These three media are integrated as a work of transmedia, but they have a different universe (multiverse). Even though they have different universes, there is one similarity between them which is the developing of dytopian narration. It could be seen from the government and authority’s control, social crisis, poverty and pessimism which also affect the building of characters, namely Sancaka (the superhero) and Pengkor (the villain). Using Henry Jenkins’ transmedia storytelling theory and Keith Booker’s dystopian theory, this paper will expose the Gundala’s transmedia which using the dystopian narrative as a background to create the needs of superheroes.