Résumé
US comics have long thrived on collaborative production, yet the industry’s corporate machinery often erases the very voices that define its stories. Indeed, the industrial production of US comics, characterized by the “assembly line” model of editors, pencillers, inkers, and corporate executives, has long fragmented creative control, therefore, alienating authors from their own work. But what happens when creators fight back on and off the page against the structures that claim ownership of their imagination? This paper examines how Alan Moore’s disputes with DC Comics over Watchmen, alongside the metafictional strategies of postmodern titles such as Grant Morrison’s Animal Man and John Byrne’s She-Hulk, transform this authorial alienation into a narrative and thematic critique of the industry itself. Moore’s career stands as a manifesto against this creative dispossession. His disputes with DC Comics over the ownership of Watchmen and his public critiques of Hollywood adaptations of his work highlight the systemic alienation of creators in a corporate-dominated industry. His characters, from Doctor Manhattan’s estrangement from humanity to Rorschach’s uncompromising defiance, echo his own refusal to be absorbed by the corporate machine. Likewise, metafictional superheroes who shatter the fourth wall like in Animal Man and She-Hulk, rewrite their own narratives and confront their creators. In doing so, they become avatars of authorship and narrative resistance, laying bare the mechanics of an industry that commodifies both story and storyteller. This paper positions these works as intertwined acts of rebellion; Moore’s withdrawal from mainstream comics and his advocacy for creator-owned projects challenges us to rethink the dynamics of agency in a medium often caught between artistic integrity and industrial imperatives. His career thus becomes a lens through which we can examine the politics of authorship, the commodification of creativity, and the alienation that arises when creators are denied ownership of their stories. Similarly, the metafictional self-awareness of some of these postmodern comics challenges the industrial assumption that creativity is merely a raw material for profit. By making the machinery of production visible, these texts confront the corporate erasure of individual creativity and reclaim narrative agency. In doing so, authors invite readers to interrogate the power structures that shape the stories they encounter as well as the creative labor that produces them.