Admittedly I was never much of a comic book kid. I was much more interested in playing outdoors and collecting sports trading cards. Whatever reading I did was from a traditional book as opposed to comics. However, there has been a huge resurgence in the interest of comic book heroes. Look at all the movies that have been made recently: a new Batman series, two Spiderman series, the Hulk, Thor, the Avengers, Ironman, X-Men, Superman, and I am sure there are others I am forgetting. It seems as though that as the baby boomer generation has aged, Hollywood is playing back to the nostalgic past for many of the men by bringing their childhood heroes to the silver screen. Not to mention they are simultaneously introducing these heroes to a new generation of fans.
But let's go back to the actual comics of the 1960s. DC comics had been producing comics with heroes that were stoic and not easily related to. And so Stan Lee and Marvel comics arrived on the scene wanting to change that. Lee focused on creating characters that fans could empathize with and know their experiences. This included taking on the difficult hot topics of his time such as war, racism, and sexism. The end result was an ethic of a superhero, fighting evil wherever it rears its ugly head. Anthony R. Mills writes, "Lee's ethics, moreover, are anything but passive. He is a firm believer that all of us have a duty to fight evil and injustice wherever we find it, and to whatever extent we are able" (Don't Stop Believin', 49).
So how in the world does this relate to faith? First I would like to note that Lee's humanistic approach can aid us in our views on the person of Jesus Christ. So often we think of Jesus as the risen Lord and untouchable. But what about when Jesus is so angry that he flips over tables in the temple? What about when he sweats blood in the garden? And what about his lament from the cross, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" Indeed these few instances show us that Jesus was most certainly human and not just a holographic image of the divine on earth. As Christians we confess in the paradox that Jesus was both fully God and fully human. By focusing too much on the holy, we relegate the human side of Jesus to the profane at the expense of ourselves. Much like Lee's attempts to create heroes that readers can relate to, the gospels show us a savior who experiences things just like us! The divine coming to live as one of us is a bold move by God indeed. But it was a move that showed the radical extremes to which God goes to know creation and to save creation from the powers of sin.
Another way in which Lee's ethic of the superhero helps us in our faith today is to model a way of life. Lee shows us that these heroes are flawed and go through the same struggle we do, so why can't we be superheroes too? To review the above quote from Mills, we have the duty to fight evil wherever it arises. We are charged by God with the gift of an ability to act in the face of such troubling issues. We need to live into that vocation and be the superheros we were made to be! Can you imagine what a world would look like if we donated some money or food to food shelves or if we ate only what our bodies needed? I am guessing hunger would no longer be an issue. Can you imagine if we stood up against environmental violence? I assume that global warming would begin to web away. No matter where you find yourself, try and be a superhero today. You just might change and save the world!
That's all for now. Next post will be on the 1970s...any requests?
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