Our Gods Wear Spandex (4 page)

Moreover, the accessibility of direct-market distribution makes competition among comic creators fierce. This has resulted in a constant evolution of the
medium, particularly when it comes to the way stories are told. Today's comic-book artists are not cartoonists; they are illustrators, and most are expected to adhere to the highest standards of draftsmanship. Rob Liefeld's own work, and work of its caliber, is rarely seen on the stands today. He and others like him are seen as infidels in the new Church of the Superhero.

It may be that the general level of anxiety invoked by 9/11 and the Iraq War has encouraged the amped-up level of devotion among fans. In the recent past, superhero parodies were particularly popular, as were self-mocking, comedic takes on favorite characters. For instance, the 80s incarnation of
The Justice League
was a wildly popular superhero comedy title. When the writers and artists of that book were recently reunited for a mini-series entitled
Formerly Known as the Justice League
, they dealt only with the peripheral, D-list characters from the series, as if third-rate characters like Blue Beetle and Booster Gold were fair pickings for parody, but stars like Superman and Batman must be treated with the utmost solemnity.

It is exactly this level of seriousness that has fueled movie adaptations of comic books and is probably most responsible for their incredible success. Tim Burton's Batman was an eccentric, but essentially faithful, rendering of the character. The film reinvigorated Batman and kicked off the era of the modern superhero film. In contrast, Joel Schumacher's Batman was a campy self-parody that nearly destroyed the franchise and the genre of superhero films with it. Christopher Nolan's
Batman Begins
(2005) drew heavily on the tone and context of contemporary comics and restored the character to his former glory.

It is precisely the reverential treatment of these characters—the essentially
religious
portrayal of them—that resonates with the mass audience today. We have, in fact, witnessed the emergence of a strange kind of religion here. Indeed, superheroes now play for us the role once played by the gods in ancient societies. Fans today don't pray to Superman or Batman—or at least most won't admit to doing so. But when you see fans dressed as their favorite heroes at comic conventions, you are seeing the same type of worship that once played out in the ancient pagan world, where celebrants dressed up as the objects of their worship and enacted their dramas in festivals and ceremonies.

In a few short years, comic conventions have stopped being sad, dingy assemblies of marginalized wallflowers and have become mass celebrations of the
new gods and popular culture in general. “Cosplay,” or costumed play, has become a major draw at conventions, as men, women, boys, and girls have found a safe space to live out their fantasies dressed as their favorite superheroes or fictional characters. Shows like Dragon
^*
Con in Atlanta have become notorious for the throngs of beautiful young women who swarm there to show off their painstakingly constructed costumes, as well as their Pilates-sculpted figures. An ancient Egyptian or Roman might not recognize the characters, but they surely would understand the basic impulse behind it all. And though some costumes may be taken from other media, it all basically emanates from roots deep in comic-book culture.

This culture is far more influential (and insidious) than most realize. Most contemporary action movies take their visual language from comic books. The rhythm of constant hyper-violence of today's action movies comes straight from Jack Kirby. Likewise, rock ‘n’ roll has always fed off of comic-book imagery. Many of rock's most influential figures have been strongly influenced by comics. Elvis Presley idolized Captain Marvel Jr., to the point of adopting his hairstyle. Donovan giddily boasted that “Superman and Green Lantern” had nothing on him. Black Sabbath crooned odes to Iron Man and Mister Miracle. Pink Floyd name-checked Doctor Strange, and the Kinks sang about Captain America. Shock-rockers David Bowie, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, and Glen Danzig are all serious comic-book fans, and nicked many of their visual ideas straight from the pages of Marvel Comics. Marvel even returned the favor and published comics featuring Cooper and Kiss in the 1970s. It's no accident that most of these artists are well known either for their religious devotion or for their interest in mysticism and the occult.

Although most of us don't realize it, there's simply nothing new about devotion to superheroes. Their powers, their 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. What even fewer people realize is that this didn't occur by chance, but came directly out of the spiritual and mystical secret societies and cults of the late 19th century—groups like the Theosophists, the Rosicrucians, and the Golden Dawn. These groups turned their backs on the state cult of Christianity and reached back in time to the elemental deities of the ancient traditions. Inspired by the same cultural and spiritual ferment that
afflicts us in our post-9/11 world, artists and architects of this Neoclassical movement portrayed the gods and beliefs of the ancient world in works that survive today in the major cities of the West.

In Manhattan alone, we find Mercury, messenger of the gods, at Grand Central Station. We see Isis, Queen of Heaven and Star of the Sea, at the Statue of Liberty
¹
and a whole host of images and symbols of ancient gods at Rockefeller Center. The young artists who created the great superheroes grew up immersed in this atmosphere. All over the finest neighborhoods in Manhattan, you find gods lurking everywhere—in lobbies, over doorways, in elevators, and on rooftops. These young artists—city kids, really—looted the treasures of the ancient world from art schools and museums to create our new gods.

Comics superstar Frank Miller noted that those kids learned their lessons well, pointing out that in the early comics, “the superhero was an unusual often
mystical
element that focused and defined real-world situations and issues in a way that was clearer and more direct than a simple recitation of the facts could.”
²

In the ancient world, culture was inseparable from religion. So it is perhaps fitting that gods like Mercury, Hercules, and Horus found themselves plucked out of the pages of history and put to work on the pages of comic books. These gods shook off the dust of centuries and have emerged when and where they were most needed—at the forefront of our popular culture at a time of personal alienation, economic uncertainty, and endless war.

Every culture has had its superheroes. In early times, when strength and courage meant the difference between life and death, the strongest and bravest were held in the highest esteem. It's only natural, therefore, that they would encourage the telling of stories to extoll their prowess and record their exploits. The most exciting and creative of these stories were passed down from generation to generation, and carried to other cultures through migration. With each retelling, these stories became more fantastical. From these original tales of superheroes came the first stories of the gods.

One of the earliest texts known tells the story of the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh. Other Sumerian texts and tablets detail the exploits of a pantheon of suspiciously
human-acting gods. These myths are told in such detail that some observers, like linguist Zechariah Sitchin, claim they are not myths at all, but garbled accounts of a race of extraterrestrials that colonized the Earth and created humanity as its slave race.
³
Whatever the case, it's certain that these stories of gods and heroes traveled with Sumerian goods and technologies (like writing) to other parts of the ancient world. Ancient Egypt was one of Sumer's foremost trading partners, exchanging not only goods and services, but also ideas and culture.

Ancient Egypt was a society almost as saturated in media as our own. Thanks in part to the dry climate and the ever-shifting desert sands, an astonishing number of artifacts have survived from the glory days of that great empire, including statues, reliefs, papyri, figurines, amulets, totems, and jewelry. All of these cultural artifacts were inseparable from their religious context. In many ways, the heiroglyphs and picture-stories of the ancient Egyptians can be seen as a precursor to modern comic strips.

The Egyptians worshiped a vast array of colorful and exotic gods, whom they called the
Netjer
. Their gods controlled all aspects of creation and existence, leading some to believe that the word “nature” is a Latin adaptation of
netjer
. Since their exoteric religion focused primarily on the “next world”—that is, death, judgment, and the afterlife—the Egyptians raised the god Osiris, lord of the underworld, above all others. Osiris sat in judgment of the dead and determined whether they went to paradise, or whether their souls were destroyed. Later, Osiris was overshadowed by his sister and wife, Isis, a goddess who served many functions and over time absorbed those of earlier goddesses.

Isis was the mother of Horus, the hawk-headed god of kings. Horus was the god of the Sun, of the sky, and of the horizons (“Horus-zones”). Some scholars believe that the very word “hero” derives from his Egyptian name,
Heru
(Horus is the Greek rendering of the name).
⁴
Horus was also the star of one of the first great action-adventure dramas,
The Contendings of Horus and Set
. In these dramas, Horus and his evil uncle, Set (who was responsible for sending Osiris to the after-world), contend for the throne of Egypt in a series of battles that would do any comic-book writer proud. The two gods shape-shift; they race boats of stone; they maim each other; their body parts become lotus flowers. In the end, Horus wins
the throne and Set is granted dominion over the western desert. Thus in life, every king of Egypt is an incarnation of Horus and, in death, becomes the new Osiris.