Meditating on Golems and Superheroes

I got to see Ironman 3 last night and given Tony Stark’s use of all the various versions of the Ironman suits with a kind of remote control as well as the trailer for the new Superman movie (which preceded this latest Ironman movie) got me thinking about golems.

Anyone who has played D&D is familiar with the concept of the golem — a figure made out of various materials and brought to life as an automaton. One of the original source materials for the concept is Jewish in origin. There are a variety of stories that involve man trying to duplicate God’s creation of humanity. An anthropomorphic earthen vessel is created and given life; however, the end-result is always imperfect and often dangerous. Thus, the core of the legend is a cautionary tale about hubris.

The most famous golem-tale is that of the Golem of Prague. The 16th century rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel is supposed to have built a golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava river in order to protect the Jews of the Prague ghetto from the pogroms of Rudolf II. In the classic tale, the golem was eventually destroyed by the rabbi when he forgot to let it rest on the Sabbath; however, there are versions where it becomes a monster that goes on a murderous rampage.

In this sense, Superman can be seen as a type of golem — at least as a concept in the context of his creation. The father of Jerry Siegel, one of the creators of Superman, died during a robbery attempt of his Cleveland, OH clothing store in 1932. In addition, the creative irony of the use of Nietzsche’s Übermensch by the Nazi party when compared to Superman, who was portrayed by the Jewish Siegel and Schuster as an alien defender of the downtrodden, poor and defenseless, cannot be ignored (image from here):

However, something interesting happened with the golem Superman — despite his superior abilities and alien physiology and origin, he deeply identified with humanity. His upbringing as Clark Kent formed the foundation upon which he became a hero rather than a monster.

Indeed, I have often argued that the superhero of the Superman stories isn’t the Superman persona, but, rather, Clark Kent — precisely because he strives so hard to be a human being. I also believe that it is one of the keys to his long-term success as a literary character and one of the reasons that, despite my preference for normal human comic book characters like Batman and Green Arrow, Superman is one of my favorite superheroes. I can’t help but respect him, not because he is so irritatingly powerful, but because he tries so hard to be human despite all that power.

In a way, all superheroes are golems and the best ones are those who struggle with their own humanity (or, as Superman, to be human). One of the reasons that I collected DC rather than Marvel at the height of the popularity of the X-Men and Wolverine during the 1980s & 90s was due to the glorified golem qualities of Marvel’s Mutant Universe.

As is often acknowledged, the mutant story lines serve as a commentary on whatever shade of bigotry one wants to explore; however, other than the Us vs. Them bigotry, the concept of Homo sapiens superior is rarely, if ever, compared to what it means to be human. As a result, the debate is often stuck at: Should we make war against humanity or Should we be magnanimous and protect humanity? It always bothered me that both cases infer the inherent inferiority of humanity. The question of what it meant to be human never became a foundational principle like it did for the Superman character.

Therefore, all of Marvel’s mutants all end up being merely golems.

As with the original stories about golems, the concept is most powerful when it is an expression of hubris and its destructive consequences. Ironically, there are a plethora of monsters in D&D that are better at being golems than golems on this score. My two favorites are orcs (especially if understood in Tolkienesque terms as the result of twisted experiments on elves) and owlbears (which are described as the result of a twisted experiment by a magic-user).

Speaking of Archers...

I have been ill this week, therefore I have done a lot more TV watching than I normally do. Fortunately, in these days of streaming video, it means I can be a lot more selective about what I watch. One of the more surprising discoveries I have made this week is CW’s Arrow.

Back when I did read comic books on a regular basis, Green Arrow was one of my all-time favorite heroes and definitely my favorite second-tier hero (I even liked Green Arrow II, Conner Hawke). The image that cements Green Arrow in my mind as one of the coolest ever, though, is this:

The sheer tenacity of the aged, one-armed Oliver Queen taking on Superman (and winning) in Frank Miller’s Dark Knight warms my heart. One of the reasons I tend to be a DC guy is that they play with the archetypal struggle of humanity vs. the superhuman. This is exemplified not only by the image above, but by the fact that Batman has a piece of green kryptonite in the Bat Cave just in case.

It is fine when the god-like superheroes of the DC universe serve humanity, but the moment they turn on humanity (either out of selfishness or allegiance to a different cause), guys like Batman and Green Arrow are ready and willing to take them on in defense of us regular joes. I love that.

From my own Christian POV, Batman and Green Arrow are akin to prophets — they are ever-vigilant against idol-worship (which is what superheroes would be doing if they stopped serving humanity — they'd worship themselves and their power rather than the God who created them) and they remind us of the fallenness of the world in which we live.

This all brings me back to CW’s Arrow, which is a TV adaptation of DCs Green Arrow, and it is a surprisingly good one. Not having paid much attention to comics in well over a decade, I don’t know how well the series meshes with current canon, but I really don’t much care. It is a refreshing re-telling of the Green Arrow story that gives enough nods to the mythos that I am very much satisfied with the effort thus far.

One of things that I am finding very intriguing is the honesty with which it deals with the consequences of being a vigilante. Unlike the classic Batman, this version of Oliver Queen has no qualms about killing people. Although he has done the calculations and figured that it is worth the price, there is definitely a toll that is being paid for all this darkness. While I completely understand why he has made the choices he has, I don’t agree with his choices. And yet, I care enough about him that I continue to watch.

Indeed, for my buck, this is one of the best TV adaptations of any comic book superhero I have ever seen. So, if you haven’t already, check it out.

Geeking Out on Avengers

As someone who grew up reading and collecting comic books, I ask that you indulge me for a moment while a geek out a bit over the Avengers movie. Remarkably, I actually found the time and the motivation to plan to see a movie in the movie theater for the first time in years this weekend. I must say, I was really impressed and (save for the extra dough forked over to see it 3D, which rather than further immerse me into the movie always managed to take me out of the movie, calling attention to the special 3D effect rather than the story), I was entirely satisfied with the time and money I spent.

Indeed, an argument can be made that Avengers is the best superhero movie ever made. Certainly, it is the best ensemble superhero movie by several orders of magnitude. As Kurt Loder accurately observes, the real hero in all of this is Joss Whedon whose masterful skill at ensemble story telling is on full display.

By the way, my favorite one-liner in the movie is from Cap, who responds to being told that Loki and Thor are basically gods with, “There’s only one God, ma’am, and He doesn’t dress like that.”

Personally, though, Avengers is not my favorite of all time. In the end, I have always been more of a DC kinda guy and Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman takes the cake for me. Ironically, the reason for this comes down to a superhero I want to despise, but can never bring myself to actually spurn — Superman.

If I were to boil down the difference between Marvel and DC into one statement, it would be this:

Marvel superheroes are all about the struggle to protect humanity, DC superheroes are all about the struggle of becoming human.

It is not that Marvel is bad — see my comments about Avengers above — it is that I find the archetypal struggle found in DC to be more compelling.

Superman is one of the most powerful superheroes in all of the comic book world. He is an alien from another planet. He ought to be a character we cannot really relate to and the stories one can tell about him should be tiny in number. Yet, he is one of the most beloved and longstanding superheroes of all time. The reason being that the real hero isn’t the guy who wears the ’S’ on his chest — the real hero is Clark Kent.

Superman is as endearing as he is because he struggles to be human. This struggle permeates the DC universe. Even Batman — who has no superpowers — struggles with his own humanity because he is so broken. These stories really speak to me as a Christian because this struggle — to become human — is at the core of my faith. Humanity is born broken. Ours is a struggle to repair that damage by following in the footsteps of Christ and uniting ourselves to Him.

Don’t get me wrong, Marvel does deal with very real issues that affect us as human beings — the mutants being an analog for racism being a big one; however, even at their best (and the Avengers movie is one of the best things Marvel has ever produced), they don’t reach to the depth of the DC universe, especially when DC is done right.

Cults of Averoigne Part 3

The last group of cultists that will populate my version of Averoigne are not inspired by history, but rather by sci-fi and fantasy. Though this cult will be far less prevalent than the other two, it may very well be the most dangerous, because they see themselves as the servants of the Old Ones (do you think I wouldn’t figure out a way in which to pay homage to CAS and HPL?)

Before I go any further, though, I do need to explain a bit about my comic book reading habits (trust me, it will make sense in the end). I am neither a huge comic book fan nor much of a collector; however, there were a couple of periods in my life when I did actively buy and read comic books. I tend to be more of a DC kinda guy than a Marvel guy. This largely has to do with the fact that during those times I was buying and reading, DC was putting out a superior product. I came to this conclusion despite the fact that all of my comic book reading friends insisted that Marvel was better.

This anti-Marvel prejudice was solidified when the comic book giant came out with a bunch of new titles. A few of them really inspired my friends, so I selectively gave a few a try. I had to admit, some of the ideas behind the books were indeed rather awesome. Then original writers and artists were dumped from the book to go on to more important titles and these various cool ideas were systemically destroyed by incompetence, indifference and an emphasis on stories that required the purchase of several books I had zero desire to ever read, let alone pay for.

This was many years ago and my copies are long gone as are my memories of the titles, characters, artists, writers etc. A cursory Google search turned up nothing but the inherent prejudice of the internet for the current, new and now. All that remains is the cool idea that inspired my favorite of these comics.

The book centered on a group of mercenaries that travelled through dimensions/time/space in order to procure technologies that could then be reverse engineered and developed for the company that sent the mercs out on their various missions. The potential for this beautiful nugget is endless — especially for serialized storytelling like comic books.

This nugget of an idea forms the basic premise of the cult of the Old Ones. A couple of weeks ago, I posited an idea about how arcane magic slowly rips apart space and time. These holes can become large enough to let in things from different eras both past and present.

The cult of the Old Ones actively tries to create and find these holes. Cultists come in two different flavors (or some combination thereof):

• Those that seek to find power and riches by raiding different time periods of their magic and technology.
• Those that seek to find that point in time either in the distant past or the distant future where the Old Ones are awake and active so that they can come through the hole in space and time to wreck havoc on Averoigne and the world.

Thus, these cultists are, in essence, twisted versions of the average D&D adventuring party. Rather than raiding dungeons, they raid time itself. This, then, has the potential of setting up an adventure or series of adventures where a group of players are hired by the cult to do their dirty work — go retrieve this device that lies just beyond that gate over there. If they do, then the fun begins as they must deal with the consequences of their actions...