thebitterguy

Does anyone else find it indicative of the Catholic Church's sense of humour (at least during their third century glory days) that Saint Sebastian, the saint who was martyred by being shot full of arrows by a group of Roman soldiers* is the patron saint of archers?

Imagine getting to heaven and being handled THAT portfolio. "Hey, Seb! We've got some longbowmen going into battle today, and they're shooting you a lot of prayers. Maybe you can go give them a little divine puissance, eh?"

"Yeah, how about they go fuck themselves with their longbows sideways, instead?"

Isn't it a little ironic, though? A guy being designated the patron of the act that killed him? Especially if it wasn't, you know, his idea? Because I can totally see the guy who got blown apart by an explosion being the patron saint of demolitions teams.

* Although I read once that he survived the arrows so they beat him to death with clubs.

Anyway, while theweaselking was railing against the evils of Christianity, he mentioned this: The Super Heroes Bible.

According to the Zondervan website, "The NIrV Super Heroes Bible is packed with ordinary people zapped by God into super hero status."

Included in the Super Heroes Bible are "40 FULL-COLOR PAGES: action-packed illustrations by Dennis Jones. With metallic ink! "

"450 POWERSURGE notes: highlight Bible verses that show character traits, like “Brave,” “Truthful,” and “Wise.” Is "God will summon bears to eat the children that make fun of you" an available trait?

"66 BOOK INTRODUCTIONS: summarize the super hero impact of that book."

"More than 200 character sketches tell the stories of Bible men, women, and kids—from Genesis to Revelation—and will help kids ages 6 to 10 learn what it takes to be a hero of faith. (Some bad guys are in there, too!)" I wonder how awesome it would have been to get OHOTMU type entries for the book.

Seriously, if I'd had a Bible like this, and hadn't been sent to Catholic school where I learned that the church was populated with racists and hypocrites of the worst order, well, I probably would still be vaguely agnostic. But it still looks neat.

If that bores you, I got a website that lists comic book characters by their religions.

Hey, who knew Captain Canuck was a mormon?

Someone should do a piece on the evolution of the presentation of religious imagery in comics over DC’s history.

Marvel, although it’s had characters such as the Gargoyle and Angel, has always had a much more pagan world-view. Seriously, aside from Nightcrawler, are there even any Marvel characters with anything resembling JCI religious tendencies?

Aside, of course, from all the evil Arabs. Thanks, Fabio! Fucker.

The occasional Marvel Christmas special would focus mostly on vague generalities of ‘the holiday spirit’, with occasional amusing Doc Sampson Hanukah stories.

And while Death is a frequent romantic interest for Thanos, you never see anything having to do with afterlives or greater powers, at least other than Thor. I’m pretty sure Valhalla/Hel are the default afterlives of the MU.

Even Captain Marvel’s death (in The Death of Captain Marvel) didn’t show him strolling through the pearly gates for a final reward. Of course, that would have required a fleshed out Kree afterworld, or an explanation of why an alien is going to a paradise that’s pretty much that established by humans. Ohhh, the implications.

I think the OHOTMU type listings for the New Universe guys actually listed religious leanings, which was a bit of a shock to my young system at the time. That, and everyone was like a lapsed Anglican or something.

Over in the DCU, the Spectre’s had it be known he’s an agent of God for quite some time; he used to get orders from The Voice about who needed a vengeance dropped on them, and the Demon was a player for the other team.

Since Moore & Gaiman got into the henhouse, there were angelic/dmonic hordes crawling about; remember the Swamp Thing annual where Heaven’s armies met up with the forces of Hell? Or the time Swampie went looking for Abigail in the afterworld?

The way various characters were integrated into the stories were quite interesting. The Spectre was given a very strong presence ("he is opening his eyes"), and Etrigan (the demon) was integrated into a demonic hierarchy. Even the phantom Stranger was given a sort of role in the afterworld, acting as a guide for the elemental hero.

One of the Apocryphal Phantom Stranger origins was that he was a fallen angel, and another was that he was the Wandering Jew.

Sandman had Dream strolling into hell on personal business, and Lucifer hanging up his pitchfork (metaphorically, of course) and handing over the key to hell. He even got his own series a while later, and I believe it involved piano bars.

In the early ‘90s, we got to see how far DC wasn’t willing to go. Does anyone remember the Veitch story about Swamp Thing bouncing through time? Most people familiar with the storyline will be familiar with the speedbump author Rick Veitch hit.

You see, in issue # 88 Swampie was going to pop into early first century CE, where he’d meet up with a ‘white magician’. The story was not going to star Jesus, but I understand His presence would be felt.

The intervening 15 years have blurred my recollections, but DC, in the wake of the controversy surrounding The Last Temptation of Christ, decided that the story wouldn’t go (even though, iirc, it was ready for print), which caused Veitch to quit and write TMNT.

(Update: According to this page about ST #88, it was, indeed, going to be Jesus heavy.)

I wonder if today they’d even hesitate to do such a story. Hell, Ennis would probably make one of the apostles a kid-toucher or something. Friggin’ Irishman.
A while after that, Gaiman started up with theologically interesting stories in his own book, and they spun off Vertigo, where you can have a book like Preacher.

I haven’t read enough of Preacher to get a solid grasp of its position on divine issues and faith, but what I’ve seen makes the White Magician/Swampie as Cross stuff from Veitch’s issue look like an episode of Veggie-Tales.

DC has gone kind Angel crazy lately. Supergirl was an angel for a while, and another angel (Zamiel?) joined the JLA.

Recently, Hal Jordan (the silver age Green Lantern) even took up the mantle of The Spectre, divine force for justice. He even squished the universes back into shape during the JLA/Avengers crossover.

So, yeah. Someone should write about that. The evolution of the presentation of religion as an aspect of the universe constructed for superhero comic books.

Cindy's in bed with a Migraine (the cats are keeping her company and I've taken her in some tea). I suggested we call Telehealth, but she declined. She's not one to seek medical attention unless she's actively bleeding or her Bronchitis is acting up.

Which is annoying, given my personal family history of growing up with medical professionals who got pretty much everything treated.

Was mildly disappointed this morning when I went upstairs. The TV said that a Scientology show would be on, featuring "the music of L. Ron Hubbard".

Instead it was a show about Messianic Jews, or as I like to call them, Slow Learners.

Ah, I kid. Welcome to the party, I say.