Tag Archives: christianity

cultural, online

Is the Pope Catholic? Better Yet, Is the Hulk?

The Hulk's Catholic ceremony
The Incredible Hulk #319 where the Hulk’s alter ego Bruce Banner marries in a Catholic wedding ceremony. (Image provided by Robot 6.)

In July, Matt Staggs of Random House’s genre site Suvudu conducted a brief examination of comics’ relationship with religion, prompted by a report by the British Telegraph that the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano “devoted a full page looking at the Catholic identity of popular comic book superheroes while questioning the religious affiliation of some of the most popular like Superman and Batman.”

Senior journalist Gaetano Vallini writes,

Bruce Banner, the incredible green man [the Hulk], in fact married his beloved Betty Ross in a church and a Catholic priest presided at the ceremony. […] There are other indications dispersed among the hundreds of comic strips dedicated to him that are said to unequivocally reveal his faith.

Kevin Melrose, covering the story for CBR‘s Robot 6 column, notes that Adherents.com‘s listing of superhero religious affiliations has the Hulk as “a lapsed Catholic.” The greater question here might be whether the religion of one’s alter ego or monstrous other self carries over across manifestations; if Dr. Jekyll was a Christian, does that also make Mr. Hyde one?

Oddly enough (or tellingly), the full-page examination of superheroes is neither available at nor catalogued by L’Osservatore Romano‘s website — at least, not yet. All the site offers when searched for “Superman” or “comics” is a 2011 excerpt in praise of Tin Tin in advance of Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson motion-capture movie The Adventures of Tin Tin based on the comics of Herge. Josephine McKenna of The Telegraph notes that the 2013 Vatican piece was published in the wake of Man of Steel‘s impressive global box office draw.

online

Maronite Monk Writes “The Truth It Out There” Graphic Novel

The Catholic News Agency reports that a monk of the Eastern Catholic Church, a part of the Maronite Church in Lebanon, has produced his own graphic novel to teach and explain his faith. Published in May 2013 by publisher Catholic Answers, The Truth Is Out There is penned by the Maronite monk Amadeus but is told through the experience of two interplanetary mailmen Brendan and Eric and, according to Catholic Answer’s site, “readers don’t have to be Catholic—or possess any kind of faith—to appreciate the thoughtful ideas and arguments they’ll encounter.”

The Truth Is Out There cover

The Catholic News Agency reached Bishop Gregory J. Mansour, of the Maronite Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn, for comment:

[S]omehow the words ‘comic book’ and ‘intellectually challenging’ don’t usually go together, but they do in ‘The Truth is Out There’ by Amadeus…Thank you, Amadeus, for presenting the journey from the prison walls of our mind to the exhilarating freedom of the truth in such an exciting way.

(They don’t, Bishop?)

controversy, cultural

Sermon Stumping for Man of Steel

Recently, the Sequart Comics Research Organization offered an editorial by library historian Stuart Warren on the inherent Christ-ness of Superman, no doubt times to coincide with the release of the new Warner Brothers big screen depiction of the Last Son of Krypton Man of Steel. It’s well-trodden ground, Supes as Jesus (and news outlets like FOX News and WND seemed to pick up on this popular observation, too, this cinematic go-around — AmericaBlog was among those who did not appreciate the repeated comparison)

But certainly Sequart didn’t give Warren the sum that Warner Brothers paid theologian Craig Detwiler of Pepperdine University for his notes on Superman as fodder for Christian sermons.
20130626-104412.jpg
Detwiler claims that his material, entitled, “Jesus: The Original Superhero,” gives “churches a chance to engage with pop culture instead of just condemning it,” according to io9 and CNN. Of course, none of the reports suggest free tickets are included with Detwiler’s sermon notes, so whatever inspiration or identification these congregations find through Zack Snyder’s Superman will also prove lucrative to Warner Brothers at the box office and in merchandising.

academic, articles and essays, levity

Comics Remain Important — and Varied!

Over the course of the past year, various pieces — pertinent both to comics in terms of  religion specifically or simply the serious consideration of comics — have come to light that either fell through the cracks at the time or deserve some wider coverage. They include:

  • Back in mid-2006, Today.com reporter M. Alex Johnson took a look, albeit a superficial one, at the religiosity of Spider-Man, The Thing, X-Men villain Rev. Stryker, the Atheist and others with “At the Comics Shop, Religion Goes Graphic.” 
  • Graphic Medicine, founded by Ian Williams in 2007, was relaunched with MK Czerwiec in 2012, and they caught the “Graphic Fiction” panel (moderated by Shelly Wall) at the Toronto Comics & Medicine conference that year. Presenters included Steven Bergson with “From Ivanhoe to Rex Mundi: Jews and Medicine in Comic Books, Comic Strips, and Graphic Novels,” Jeffrey Monk with “A Ghost of an Idea: A Reflection on My Comic Adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carole’ for the Medical Humanities,” and Lorenzo Servitje with “Empathy in the gutter: Participatory delusion in graphic adaptation of Shutter Island.” 
  • Read the Spirit, an “online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity” as well as an extension of Dr. Wayne Baker’s Our Values program, answered the question to “Why Comics and Comic Books Are Important Today!” — and the solution seems to be “independent comics artist and author” Kurt Kolka.
  • Most recently, Gene Yang of Comics in Education provided a valuable, digest-sized overview of  the “History of Comics in Education,” spanning from 1933 to the turn of the 21st century — an adjacent topic to Religion & Comics but relevant and useful for a sense as to how serious academic discussion has arisen not only in but also for the classroom.

And then there’s just this odd/funny/insulting/compelling comic from Kevin Moore’s In Contempt comics from back in 2008. No better place to put it than here:

“Gods Damn America” by Kevin Moore
controversy, cultural, raowantstoknow

Batman for only Judeo-Christians, implies politician

Rep. Louie Gohmert

In July of 2012, the Huffington Post reported that Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) responded to the Aurora movie theater shootings by stating that “the shootings […] were a result of ‘ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.'” These comments from The Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” radio show have some ugly implications to them: not only do Batman movies attract primarily Judeo-Christian audiences (hmm, ok…) but that the victims of the shooting were paying the price for attacks on specifically this theology. Link this to the relatively Orientalist nature of the first and third films’ villains (i.e. Ra’s al Ghul), and there’s a growing strain (see previous “By Rao!” posts) of either Islamophobic or non-ecumenical taint artificially attaching itself to Batman’s mythos.

Rao wants to know: Is Batman becoming associated with a particular faith?