Our Gods Wear Spandex (17 page)

Some historians note that the long-awaited Jewish Messiah was an Earthly king—very much a man of the world and not necessarily of the spirit. The term itself, which means simply “anointed,” was bestowed on a number of other characters in the Old Testament. Jews believed that the Messiah would be a descendant of King David who would lead them out of captivity and restore Jewish rule in Palestine. By that description, the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, is as much a Messiah as anyone. Yet, say the word “Messiah” and the first thing that pops into most people's minds is “Jesus Christ.”

The Messiah of the funny pages is a noble, self-sacrificing hero who acts to save others out of a sense of altruism. Superman, of course, is the first and foremost of this type; Spider-Man is another. The Messiah superhero became so wildly popular because he addressed deep-seated anxieties in American life. Fascism,
corporate corruption, and organized crime had grown to such a degree by the late 1930s that they seemed both overwhelming and intractable. Superman rose from the ranks of the common man to counter these threats. Of course, DC editors quickly blanderized him and inspired thousands of impotent saviors that diluted the force of the archetype.

The archetype remains a popular figure, nonetheless. Though contemporary writers have worked hard to make Superman and other messianic characters interesting and relevant, it's often difficult for readers to relate to a character who uses his powers for purely altruisistc purposes, not for personal gain. Indeed, salvation through Christ's sacrifice on the cross makes sense only to those completely committed to the Christian faith. For many, it's hard not to see these characters as fundamentally deluded, or at least severely misguided. In the mythic realm of comic books, however, the laws of human nature are often suspended, and Messiahs can arise who need not be anointed by God to save his people or humanity in general.

Superman, who made his debut in
Action Comics
#1 in 1938, is one of the world's most popular and enduring Messiah characters. Created by two young cartoonists from Cleveland named Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster, Superman has been the subject of countless thousands of comic books and comics strips, a movie serial, a popular radio show, several TV cartoons and live action series, toys, games, and enough memorabilia to stretch from Earth to the Moon.

Superman was not an overnight success, however. Siegel had created him several years before his comic debut, but had no luck promoting him to the newspaper syndicates or the fledgling comic-book publishers, who rejected the character as too fanciful. Finally, DC publisher Harry Donenfeld bought the character outright for $200 and Superman became an immediate hit, inspiring thousands of imitators. In many ways, it can be said that all subsequent comic-book superheroes are, in fact, variations on Superman.

Superman is Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, sent into space as an infant by his scientist father when his home planet explodes. His space-capsule lands in the Midwestern town of Smallville, where it is found by an elderly couple named
Kent who name the baby Clark and raise him as their own. Clark, who from the start displayed amazing strength, leaves Smallville for Metropolis and goes to work as a reporter for
The Daily Planet
. In times of crisis, he dons his blue-and-red costume and uses his powers—flight, superstrength, and x-ray vision—to fight for truth and justice.

At his core, Superman is a Messiah in the Biblical tradition, who can also be seen as a metaphor for American Jewish assimilation. The destruction of Krypton is an apt metaphor for the Diaspora, as well as for the assault on European Jewish communities that prompted their mass emigration to North America in the late 19th century. In Michael Chabon's novel about the comics industry,
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
, a Jewish character comments on Clark Kent's secret identity: “Superman, you don't think he's Jewish? Coming over from the old country, changing his name like that. Clark Kent, only a Jew would pick a name like that.”
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Superman's identity as one of the People of the Book is cemented when he takes a job as a reporter and pledges himself to fight the good fight.

Jerry Siegel had a more esoteric vision of his Superman than merely a new King David, however. Les Daniels notes that Siegel “must also have been aware of the analogies with Jesus,” pointing out that Superman was “a man sent from the heavens by his father to use his special powers for the good of humanity.”
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Other writers also noted these Christlike characteristics and played on them as they developed similar characters. Writer Kurt Busiek called his version of Superman “the Samaritan” in his series,
Astro City. National Lampoon
ran a strip called
Son O' God
that parodied Jesus as a Superman-like hero complete with red cape and art by DC Comics star Neal Adams.

In the early issues of
Action Comics
, however, Superman is not the smiling, idealized Apollo he later becomes. He's a pissed-off crusader who fights for the common man against the corruption of the power elite. Many of his early adventures touch on occult and mythological themes. He meets Cleopatra (
Action
#14), fights to protect the Great Pyramids (
Action
# 56), stands alongside Atlas and Hercules (
Superman
#28), and encounters an extra-dimensional imp with magical powers called Mr.
Mxyztplk (
Superman
#30). The source of his power is the Sun, which ties him to solar gods like Horus and Mithras, as well as Biblical characters like Samson and Elijah. These divine aspects of Superman's character only increased over the years. Historian Bradford Wright notes that “Superman's comic books developed into a fantastic mythos that owed less and less to any standard of reality. Superman's powers, daunting enough to begin with, grew to staggering, godlike dimensions.”
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These “godlike” powers became a major news story in 1992 with the cynical “Death of Superman” publicity stunt. In this storyline, Superman is killed by an alien called Doomsday and spends several issues in a kind of limbo while a bunch of tedious substitutes try to fill his shoes. Reinforcing his Biblical dimension, Superman dies and rises again, complete with a Christlike mane that most traditionalists hated. Driving home the parallel, the cover of the graphic novel
Death of Superman
(1993) features a garish and tasteless tribute to Michelangelo's
Pietà
, with Lois Lane cast in the role of the Virgin Mary.

One curious footnote to the Superman saga has played out outside the comic pages. A series of tragic events—the mysterious death of TV Superman George Reeves in 1959, the horrible accident that left Superman Christopher Reeve a quadriplegic, the subsequent death of his wife from cancer, and the serious illnesses of
Superman III
stars Margot Kidder and Richard Pryor inspired talk of a “Curse of Superman.”
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Despite the purported curse, however, Superman is still a popular character and continues to earn millions for his owners. Chaos magician Grant Morrison hit the top of the charts with his 2005
All-Star Superman
series. 2006's
Superman Returns
, while not quite the earth-shaker Warner Bros. hoped for, earned a whopping $390 million worldwide, the Caped Crusader is the star of the successful
Justice League
cartoon series, and Superboy is the star of the 2006 CW network series
Legion of Super Heroes
. Superman even bridged the gender gap with two hit TV series that captured a female audience—L
ois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
and
Smallville
. These shows proved that, if handled correctly, the new gods can appeal to a wider
audience as “the ultimate expression of human aspirations to power and pure freedom.”
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Fawcett Publishing's Captain Marvel, who debuted in
Whiz Comics
#1 in 1940, played the role of pagan Sun god to Superman's more traditional Davidic Messiah. Created by writer Bill Parker (who studied classical literature in college) and artist C. C. Beck (the son of a Lutheran pastor), Captain Marvel was Superman's most serious competition in the marketplace. In fact,
Captain Marvel Adventures
far outsold
Superman
in the hero's heyday, and Captain Marvel was the first superhero to be adapted to film in 1941 (
The Adventures of Captain Marvel)
. DC Comics rightly saw Captain Marvel as a serious market threat.

In many ways, Captain Marvel is a more fascinating character than Superman. He is not an actual individual, but a magical entity into which young Billy Batson transubstantiates when he utters the occult incantation, “Shazam!”—the name of the wizard who granted Batson his powers, and an acronym for the ancient deities who lend the Captain their powers.
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Batson's transfiguration strongly resembles a Masonic, or secret-society, initiation. In the first Captain Marvel story, Billy, a homeless orphan, is led by a mysterious stranger into an abandoned subway tunnel, recalling initiations performed in ancient times. Out of nowhere, a driverless subway car decorated with arcane symbols appears and Billy and the stranger climb aboard. They then enter an ancient hallway lined with statues depicting the seven deadly enemies of man: pride, envy, greed, hatred, selfishness, laziness, and injustice. Billy enters a throne room and his mysterious companion vanishes.

Billy then encounters an ancient wizard, Shazam, who conjures an inscription on the wall behind him out of the names of six deities. Billy speaks this magic word, is struck by a bolt of lighting, and magically transfigures into Captain Marvel,
resplendent in red, white, and yellow cape and costume—solar colors all. The wizard is then crushed by a slab of stone and his Kenobi-like wraith immediately emerges and lights an eternal flame in a ceremonial urn, symbolizing the death and transformation of Osiris and the birth of Horus, the new Sun King. Shazam instructs Captain Marvel to go out and fight against evil and injustice. One of Marvel's nemeses is Black Adam, whose name is an approximate cipher for “Egyptian Man.”
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By the 1940s, Captain Marvel soon found himself surrounded by his own pantheon, including Captain Marvel Jr. (
Whiz Comics
#25),
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Mary Marvel (
Captain Marvel Adventures
#18), several Lieutenant Marvels, an Uncle Marvel, and even a Marvel Bunny. The Captain, Captain Jr., and Mary often appeared together in adventures, mirroring the Egyptian holy family of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. The fact that Mary Marvel is Billy Batson's lost twin sister helps cement the Osiris-Isis connection.

In 1953, after thirteen lucrative years, Fawcett finally canceled the Captain Marvel series, prompted by decreasing sales and a series of infringement lawsuits by DC Comics. But the story doesn't end there. Fawcett let the trademark on Captain Marvel lapse and Marvel Comics snapped it up in 1968, only to fumble the ball. Their sci-fi oriented Captain Marvel went through a series of incarnations, resulting in mostly forgettable adventures. The strip enjoyed its greatest success under artist/writer Jim Starlin, a lapsed Catholic obsessed with mysticism, magic, and death. Starlin pitted Marvel against Thanos, an alien tyrant who worships death as his lover. Death later came for Starlin's hero in a 1981 graphic novel entitled
The Death of Captain Marvel
, whose cover also featured a parody of the
Pietà
, with the Captain as Christ and Death as the Virgin.

DC acquired the Captain Marvel character from Fawcett and resumed his title (named
Shazam
, for legal reasons) in the 1970s. C. C. Beck was hired to do the art but soon left in protest over the juvenile scripts he was given to illustrate. After a strong start, the title floundered. In 1974,
Shazam
premiered as a live-action program
on CBS to a new generation of Marvel fans, but the Captain was presented as a typically bland 70s TV hero. This Captain Marvel didn't fight reincarnated Egyptian deities or Nazi robots. He simply showed up when things got too tense with some tedious band of small town toughs. Yet somehow the show lasted for three seasons. As if to signal viewers as to Marvel's true occult nature, a ritual drama of Isis was programmed directly after the show in 1975.
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