Marco Arnaudo, The Myth of the Superhero, Trans. from Italian by Jamie Richards [Il fumetto supereroico: Mito, etica e strategie narrative, 2010], Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins U.P., 2013, 206p. [July7]
Better late than never! This book was published in English four years ago (and in Italian seven years ago), but apparently it fell through the cracks. It is difficult to explain why it received so little attention, with only one book review by Jason Archboldfrom Macquarie University according to my library research engine. Maybe it is because the back cover blurb does not seem to propose anything new:
“Through a series of close readings of DC and Marvel comics, Marco Arnaudo explores the influence of religion and myth on superhero stories as well as their relationship to the classical epic.”
Situating the superhero phenomenon within mythology and religion has been done in many articles, chapters or entire books (e.g. Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Knowles’ Our Gods Wear Spandex, Weinstein’s Up, Up, and Oy Vey!, all cited in his book).
However, I just read Arnaudo’s book and found it an excellent short (150 pages for the main text), dense, and clear synthesis with, actually, some original ideas.
Even before the new movie broke box office records and charmed the world this summer, Wonder Woman was an icon for feminism. She has a set of values in the film that closely approximates the best of theological thinking. That is, the movie hints at some concepts that have been core to the character from her creation—that love and diplomacy are better tools than war in solving the world’s problems and that women should have a role in leadership toward peace. Yes, the film has some well-executed fight scenes, but Diana—the Wonder Woman at the center—is determined to use her skills to defend and help. She refuses to vilify the soldiers and ordinary people participating in the violence of World War I; she remains convinced that human beings can be better than they are.
It’s complicated to use a fictional comic character as an icon for anything—peace, diplomacy, or feminism—because so many people are responsible for creating stories about the same character. Creators rarely agree on a single focus or value for characters in their charge. In this short presentation, which I did last year before the film came out, I wrestle with the way two very different origin stories for Wonder Woman create tensions around the character as an “ideal” woman. Thank you to Ryan Duncan and Cathie Kelsey at Iliff School of Theology for inviting me to share my passion for comics with the gathering for International Women’s Day last year. (I misspeak in the opening line of this video and say Women’s Day is a “year” rather than a day, but it’s just wishful thinking!)
I hope you enjoy learning about a little about the tangle of origin stories and my call to be wonders in the world. Despite the complexities, I’m happy that this character exists to give hope and inspiration to women. In moments when I feel powerless, it’s wonderful to have stories about a woman of such obvious power and love. I’m thrilled that this generation has the 2017 film to give them such a positive picture of the possibilities of this character.
Elizabeth Rae Coody, PhD directs the Writing Lab at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. Her own writing is often about the Bible and comics. As a trained biblical scholar whose PhD is in Religious and Theological Studies with a concentration in Biblical Interpretation, she values the contributions to biblical interpretation that popular culture can make. Her 2015 dissertation project was on the way comics can help interpreters imagine the scandal of Jesus’s death on the Cross that is often domesticated by modern Christian sensibilities. Her work continues and expands themes of how popular culture can give insight into the Bible and how knowledge of the Bible can return the favor.
Over at True Free Thinker, Ken Ammi digs deep into the 2007 text Our Gods Wear Spandex by Christopher Knowles. In addition to placing it in context to several other notable works of the time, Ammi supports Knowles’s contention of occult symbology embedded in the superhero genre, particularly that of pre-Christian paganism:
Although most of us don’t realize it, there’s simply nothing new about devotion to superheroes. Their powers, costumes, and sometimes even their names are plucked straight from the pre-Christian religions of antiquity. When you go back and look at these heroes in their original incarnations, you can’t help but be struck by how blatant their symbolism is and how strongly they reflect the belief systems of the pagan age…
Ammi goes into a example-by-example analysis of such heroes as Captain Marvel, Zatara and Zatanna, Doctor Fate, Superman, the Flash, the X-Men, and many more. His examination of Captain America in particular may take on new relevance during the controversial“Secret Empire”storylinecurrentlyunderway.
[With the apparent close of the IslamiCommentary site from the Duke University Islamic Studies Center (DISC), Sacred and Sequential is cataloging a number of their articles pertinent to comics and Islam for continued online access. The following, if altered at all, has been edited only minimally for clarity and/or ]
Kismet Seventy Years Later: Recognizing the First Genuine Muslim Superhero
by A. DAVID LEWIS for ISLAMiCommentary on MARCH 20, 2014:
Kismet may not be the first Muslim superhero, but he may be the first worthy of that title. Some buffoonish characters preceded him, and other orientalist caricatures appeared on earlier comics pages, but without either superpowers or other key elements of the genre. This month, on the seventieth anniversary of his first appearance, it’s a fitting time to reintroduce and recognize Kismet, “Man of Fate;” the first genuine Muslim superhero.
The superhero as a genre found its first real traction, famously, in the pages of Action Comics #1; the 1938 debut of Superman. Like Kismet, the character of Superman had his antecedents, prior masked men and super-powered protagonists either on comics pages, on radio, or in print pulp novels. But it wasn’t until Superman crystallized the conventions of a) being driven by a quest for justice and defense of the weak; b) demonstrating abilities beyond that of a normal person; and c) having a costume and secret identity; that the superhero genre became clearly recognized.
1944 — six years after Superman — wave upon wave of superhero characters, with varying success, had been pouring into audience’s hands.
Marco Arnaudo, The Myth of the Superhero, Trans. from Italian by Jamie Richards [Il fumetto supereroico: Mito, etica e strategie narrative, 2010], Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins U.P., 2013, 206p. [July7]
