This is actually the tail end, no pun intended, of my previous two parts on Christopher Knowles’ book Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes. I previously considered Comic Book Authors And Artists and Superheroes’ Roots (find my series here).
The following consists of a few odds and ends I noticed within the book.
TRANSHUMANISM
[The] return of the old gods collided head-on with huge leaps forward in science and technology. At the same time, genetics prompted scientists to ponder the possibility of improving the race through genetic manipulation…
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s The X-Men, “introduced Professor Charles Xavier, headmaster of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, who shelters and trains the emerging race homo superior, commonly called Mutants”…
Then again, almost all superheroes have some aspect of Transhumanism: they transcend humanity by being alien or part alien, by being mutants, by having superpowers, by being cyborgs, etc.
MK-ULTRA This is not from the book but my reflections therefrom.
Superheroes alter egos may be tantamount to the CIA, et al.’s MK-Ultra and/or Monarch mind control programming a person to have split / dissociated personalities which are “programmed to kill” as some terms it.
Most superheroes are perfect examples of this as they live a “normal” life of going to a regular job, socializing with friends, spending time with family, etc. and suddenly transform into their super-persona which goes off to fight crime, etc. and then switch back to their normal-persona.
Note that superheroes are always the “good guys” even though they often do exactly that which the “bad guys” are doing but they are labeled “good guys” only because they win.
COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY This actually denotes a tendency of Knowles’ to generalize a bit too much and thus tie things together with a very lose bow. For instance, he writes, “Many” unnamed, uncited and unquoted “theologians have pointed out the essentially solar nature of heroes like Elijah and Samson, both of whom are thought to derive from stories of Hercules. Like Hercules, Samson (whose name means “Of the Sun”) was betrayed by a woman” yet, literature is saturated with men being betrayed by women. He follows with “Hercules created the two pillars named for him…Samson destroyed the Temple of Dagon by knocking down two pillars” and then there was the whole Twin Towers thing, so. Also, “Like Hercules, Elijah wore animal skins” as did very many people back in the day—and the modern day until PETA began splashing red pain on people wearing fur coats.
Lastly, “Hercules was often identified with the Sun, and Elijah ascended to heaven in a flaming chariot identical to that of Helios, god of the Sun” well, I am unsure how flaming horses and a chariot are said to be solar and also identical (how so?) to that of Helios.
S&M & HOMOSEXUALITY
“The Amazon comes to us from Greek mythology” Wonder Woman stories, “are absolutely drenched in transgressive sexuality…[her] favorite exclamation is “Suffering Sappho,” a reference to the poet laureate of Lesbos…Bondage and submission are constant leitmotifs in Wonder Woman’s adventures. Josette Frank, another psychologist hired to consult for All-American, resigned in disgust over Women Woman in 1944. In her resignation letter, she was blunt in her opinion of [William Moulton] Marston’s work: “Intentionally or otherwise, the strip is full of significant sex antagonisms and perversions. Personally, I would consider an out-and-out striptease less unwholesome than this kind of symbolism.”
Footnote: Daniels, Wonder Woman, p. 68, “There was a lot in these stories to suggest that Wonder Woman was not so much a pitch to ambitious girls as an object for male sexual fantasies and fetishes.”
Writer Greg Potter and superstar artist George Perez turned the title into a mythological fantasy series, with touches of sword-and-sorcery. Perez wanted to bring Wonder Woman back to her roots: “I wanted to get back to the mythology…”[Reference is made to: Ross being quoted in Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear, Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross. Also, Women Woman had a “mentor in the form of an elderly Chinese dwarf named I Ching” which is a form of divination.]
Miss Fury first appeared in 1941 as Black Fury, dressed in a black satin catsuit later appropriated by DC’s Catwoman. Miss Fury’s adventures are rife with bondage, lingerie, and cat fights…
Emma Frost, a.k.a. the White Queen, who is usually pictured dressed in extremely revealing fetish wear. Frost was originally a member of the Hellfire Club, which took its name from an English secret society of the 18th century that was dedicated to paganism and sex magic…
Elektra is not only a ninja, but is possessed of supernatural powers. Her foe…is the Antichrist…
The Defenders first assembled in 1971 in Marvel Feature #1 to battle an alien sorcerer…their stories featured occult-themed characters like Son of Satan, Valkyrie, the sorceress Clea, and the telepathic Moondragon [another S&M model and lesbian]…
Identity Crisis, which centers on the murder of the Elongated Woman’s wife by the Atom’s estranged wife. The titled was created by novelist Brad Meltzer, whose 2006 novel, The Book of Fate, deals with Freemasonry and conspiracy theory…
I am unsure as to whether Elongated Woman had a wife or if Knowles meant to write of “Elongated Man’s wife.”
Then again, homosexual comic book characters are not in the least bit unknown and I mean beyond speculations about Batman and Robin’s relationship. For example, there is Apollo and Midnighter who, “became the subject of controversy when it was revealed that they were gay lovers.”
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