Theologizing Superheroes (or, Revealing my Inner Geek)
Last night I satisfied for a brief moment my inner comic book fanboy and watched Superman: Doomsday, the cartoon adaptation of The Death and Return of Superman series. [Some of you may be saying, “Superman died?!” Others will be rolling your eyes that I even need to explain that, and there will undoubtedly be a few who don’t really care.] I’ve always loved superheroes. Maybe I’m mindlessly buying into what Robert Jewett in Mission and Menace calls “the American monomyth paradigm” (236-238); maybe I’m just indulging in childish flights of fancy. Regardless, since I was a kid, I’ve loved Batman’s fun gadgets, Wolverine’s ridiculously cool adamantium claws, and Spider-Man’s webbing (and humor). But Superman has always been my favorite superhero.
Every hero has angst. It’s part of the comic book code: everyone struggles with something, whether it’s Spider-Man trying to figure out how to balance school and girls and fighting crime, or Wolverine wrestling with his shadowy past and trying to control his feral nature. Superman’s angst is his otherness, his difference, his rootlessness; his struggle is to find his place in a world that is simultaneously his home and yet not.
Here then is the first parallel, one of the reasons I like Superman: because I identify with him. Both for myself as a Third Culture Kid, and for myself as a Christian, whose citizenship is not in this world but in heaven (Phil. 3:20), this search and longing for home—to find people who really understand me and welcome me for who I am—is one of the struggles I face. Where do I fit in this world?
But the second parallel is what struck me (again, but with more clarity) last night, when I watched Superman: Doomsday. What makes Superman who he is? It isn’t just his super-strength, or his laser sight, or his super-speed, or his ability to fly, or his invincibility. It’s his values. It’s the fact that, even though he’s got the capacity to have the world fall at his feet, even though he’s got the power to subjugate all people and do whatever he wants, he chooses to be a servant, even to the point of laying down his life to defeat evil. Uh … obvious analogy, anyone?
Of course, the Superman mythology can be interpreted another way, as feeding into some of the American myths that Richard T. Hughes looks at in Myths America Lives By: of invulnerability, of always trying to do good, of American innocence. But I think even this way of understanding the Superman/Christ/America association belies the way that we as Americans (and we as Christians) can sometimes tend to (consciously or unconsciously) claim for ourselves a messianic mantle. (New discussion … go!)
Anyway … just wanted to bare my comic book-loving soul for y’all.
[Disclaimer: The movie isn’t all that amazing; but it is 75 minutes of fun.]
Tags: batman, doomsday, geek, Mission and Menace, myths, myths america lives by, richard t. hughes, Robert Jewett, spider-man, Superheroes, superman, wolverine
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December 5, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I love the post and I am also a big fan of superheroes. Superman was also one of my favorites, especially as a kid, but over the years his story has bothered me. Superman has too much: to many powers, to much strength, and only a couple of weaknesses. I resonate with your thought of him always feeling torn by being Earth’s hero but not a human. However, I feel that his story feeds the American myth to the brink. A man that has too much and has to choose how to use that power. You did a good job of noticing that he chooses to be a servant instead of ruler and I feel that in a way America has taken that same stance. We are trying to be portrayed as servants to the rest of the world; yet there are times when I feel we look more like bullies or even rulers to the world. This idea definitely feeds the idea of American innocence, especially when we try to hide behind the big “S” on our chest.
December 8, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Thanks, Aaron. I think any narrative can be taken to support our own narrative. So Superman can be both an analogy for Christ’s humility and servanthood, and a metaphor for America’s ‘innocent’ use of its power. Israel’s chosenness can be an inspiration both for the church’s continuing mission to be a light to the nations and for America’s chosenness as a Christian nation. Even the sacrifice of Christ can be taken and applied to the church and to the American nation, with positive and negative overtones. So … I suppose it all comes down to how you interpret it.
December 10, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Justin, this explains so much. I always knew you reminded me of someone…
December 16, 2008 at 6:26 am
Thank you for this wonderful page, I’ve really enjoyed the topic. I’m like you a lover of the superheroes and often I fatigue myself on talking at their favour while everybody sees them as a stupid fable for children. Your thoughts help me to find a new way to explain to the shallow people that what literaturedoes with its characters is just creating symbols we have to link to our everyday’s life. My favourite superhero was He-Man when I was a baby which isn’t so different from Superman (and actually they met each other once on a comic book). Anyway what you say about Christ is pretty effective, Christ had to sshow superpowers to be taken seriously and when he refused to use them against the weak humans who were killing him (because they didn’t know what they were doing) he accepetd his death. So the comparison is significant I agree…
December 30, 2008 at 10:31 am
Thanks for your response, Amos. Glad it resonated with you!