The Corpus and Sample

Inclusion and exclusion criteria for the generation of a study corpus are set out. One of these is the proviso that the corpus be taken from a specific period in time, and the process by which the time period of ‘The Marvel Age’ was chosen is detailed here. The corpus of 266 texts is then identified, using a mixture of online databases, internet searches and a close reading of texts. This is too large a dataset to analyse in full using the unified catalogue of transmedia character components, and so Stratified Random Sampling is employed to reduce the corpus down to a representative sample of 69 texts. A survey of fans and academics who were familiar with Doctor Doom is then conducted in order to generate as wide a selection of characteristics as possible as a starting point for data entry.