How long have comics and religion been matched together? Well, in the case of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, at least the 1930s, according to Yesterday’s Papers. Cartoonist, illustrator, storyteller John Adock posted his appreciation back in September for Danish American illustrator Dan Smith and his “muscular and romantic retelling of Old Testament stories” in 1933.
Additional samples of Smith’s work as well as his biography can be found at Adock’s site Yesterday’s Papers.
The mainstream media (i.e. news sources outside the comics journalism sites) has taken a sharp interest in the naming of a new Green Lantern for DC Comics, the Arab-American Muslim car thief Simon Baz, granted a cosmic GL ring in Green Lantern #0. Some media sources missed the point of Baz being another member of the Green Lantern Corps rather than the sole Green Lantern, similar to the error made a few months ago when Alan Scott, who is gay, was anointed as a Green Lantern as well.
More tellingly, several media channels reported Baz as the first Muslim superhero; Baz is the first Muslim Green Lantern, but not the first Muslim superhero nor the first Arab-American superhero. An extensive (though by no means exhaustive) list of Muslim superheroes can be found at Adherents.com. This group of protagonists has also been the subject of talks held by comics scholar A. David Lewis, as found at the Harvard University Center for Middle East Studies’ Outreach Center website.
In fact, Baz has lead to peculiar discussions and inquiries being made all across the political spectrum. As an example of the two poles, Jihad Watch‘s Robert Spencer claims that he was misquoted and misapplied when Washington Post writer Omar Sacribey attributed Spencer as having said that DC Comics was playing the “victimhood game” in making young Baz the target of islamophobia. Separately, in odd support of DC Comics’s efforts, The Pasedena Sun asked a panel of clergy and experts, “Can a Muslim Be a Superhero?” to which many of the respondants replied in the affirmative. Levent Arkbarut of the Islamic Congregation of La Cañada Flintridge offered what might be the most insightful response: “The fact that we are asking this question means some fringe elements in our society have still not accepted the average American citizen of the Islamic faith.”
Limited discussion has taken place thus far on the frequent mentions of writer Geoff Johns’s Lebanese background and how/why/if that should play a part in a character’s authenticity. Can a Arab-American superhero only be properly portrayed by an Arab American? Moreover, should one only write of characters in his/her own demographic, faith, or sexual orientation?
Over the summer, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises combined for over $1 billion domestically, which led Heeb Magazine‘s Arye Dworken to yearn for a “Jewish Superhero Blockbuster.” Overlooking the Jewish roots of Batman, Spider-Man, Thor, and Iron Man et al’s creators, Dworken nominates several second-tier superheroes for big-time cinema status, including Kitty Pryde (last seen played by Inception actress Ellen Page) and Batwoman (voiced at one point by The Closer‘s Kyra Sedgwick). While some on Dworken’s list have been on animated superhero shows for television, their religion was never a central (nor even noted) aspect of the characters.
RightWingWatch.org reported that, in the wake of DC Comics revising one of its Green Lantern characters as a gay man, Mission America’s Linda Harvey spoke out on her radio show against “the gay agenda” in comics. Christians, she says, should speak out against comics as “one more area of depravity” in popular culture.
Among her other warnings, Harvey spoke out in 2011 against Christians taking their children to gay doctors because Christians’ “values should be respected.”
Over in the Comic Book Resources discussion forums, the poster dubbed “USERNAME TAKEN” questioned religious representation in superhero comics — “If comics are to truly represent an increasingly diverse society, why aren’t there more religious heroes in comics.” The prompt has triggered nearly 100 responses in just over one week, including those from both sides of the divide, whether there is or there is not adequate religious representation in superhero comics.
Are, as poster Kieran_Frost says, comics readers “much more accepting of race, gender and sexuality [and likely…] more accepting of religion in characters, at-least more tolerant than many are assuming?”
