Comic Book Religion: Which is your favorite?

[MehGuy]

I hope you don't mean that femdon is a negative thing - and I'm not certain how Wonder Woman's creator was weird, LOL -as I find it unique how she brought in Greek Mythology to create the character.

Femdom is not a negative thing in fiction. I would not want to see it forcibly imposed on anyone in real life, nor would I want to see any such thing happen with maledom.

The creator of Wonder Woman was a little strange. He made some statements indicating that society would be better off if men learned to find enjoyment and eroticism in submitting to stronger women.

"The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound... Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society... Giving to others, being controlled by them, submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic element."

"Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves!"

World peace through bondage? I guess it's worth a shot.. lol.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Femdom is not a negative thing in fiction. I would not want to see it forcibly imposed on anyone in real life, nor would I want to see any such thing happen with maledom.

The creator of Wonder Woman was a little strange. He made some statements indicating that society would be better off if men learned to find enjoyment and eroticism in submitting to stronger women.

"The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound... Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society... Giving to others, being controlled by them, submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic element."

"Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves!"

World peace through bondage? I guess it's worth a shot.. lol.

Wow..

Had no idea. Would you happen to have a reference for where you got the information that you did so I could investigate?

 

[MehGuy]

Wikipedia..

Original heard it from a bdsm site long ago.

Can't remember the link though.. (plus I'm not sure how CF would feel if I posted them, lol..)

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Wikipedia..

Original heard it from a bdsm site long ago.

Can't remember the link though.. (plus I'm not sure how CF would feel if I posted them, lol..)

That makes sense..

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Femdom is not a negative thing in fiction. I would not want to see it forcibly imposed on anyone in real life, nor would I want to see any such thing happen with maledom.

The creator of Wonder Woman was a little strange. He made some statements indicating that society would be better off if men learned to find enjoyment and eroticism in submitting to stronger women.

"The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound... Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society... Giving to others, being controlled by them, submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic element."

"Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves!"

World peace through bondage? I guess it's worth a shot.. lol.

On the issue of origins, there is actually an excellent presentation on the matter of Wonder Woman that I think would be pretty amazing to check out...

The Hero Guide Episode 36: Wonder Woman

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

It saddens me that they retconned her unique and fascinating origin story in the "New 52"-event, turning her into just another generic demigod with an "illicit child of Zeus"-backstory.

I mean, those really ARE a dime a dozen, aren't they?

 

[MehGuy]

I am so confused, lol. I just watched 5 minutes of the origins video but decided to stop because I actually plan to read these comics someday and I want to avoid spoilers. Yet they changed her origin story? So the video being presented is not the original?

How easy is it to find access to the original comics? Wonder Woman is over 70 years old too, how much reading martial has the comic accumulated over the years?

When it comes to comics, I am pretty much clueless. The only comic I have ever really read was the Archie comics during middle school.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I don't think knowing the (original) origin story ruins the fun for anyone, especially not with the relatively simple and straightforward story-telling that went into characters who have existed for more than fifty years.

There have always been re-tellings every couple of years, but they seldom change the essence of an origin story:

Superman will always be Space Moses, sent in a tiny capsule across the void to grow up on Earth, in Kansas, with the Kents.

Batman will always be an orphan boy who lost his parents to an armed robbery in a back alley.

Spider-Man will always be a geeky boy who was bitten by a scientifically manipulated spider.

And Wonder Woman? Wonder Woman is supposed to be a gift of the gods to her mother Hippolyta, whose desire for a child culminated in her forming an infant from clay, who was then brought to life like Pygmalion's statue. (The Amazons lived on their secluded island then, without any men. Accordingly, ordinary childbirth was not an option.)

 

[Gxg (G²)]

I don't think knowing the (original) origin story ruins the fun for anyone, especially not with the relatively simple and straightforward story-telling that went into characters who have existed for more than fifty years.

There have always been re-tellings every couple of years, but they seldom change the essence of an origin story:

Superman will always be Space Moses, sent in a tiny capsule across the void to grow up on Earth, in Kansas, with the Kents.

Batman will always be an orphan boy who lost his parents to an armed robbery in a back alley.

Spider-Man will always be a geeky boy who was bitten by a scientifically manipulated spider.

And Wonder Woman? Wonder Woman is supposed to be a gift of the gods to her mother Hippolyta, whose desire for a child culminated in her forming an infant from clay, who was then brought to life like Pygmalion's statue. (The Amazons lived on their secluded island then, without any men. Accordingly, ordinary childbirth was not an option.)

True enough...

 

[freezerman2000]

"Superman will always be Space Moses, sent in a tiny capsule across the void to grow up on Earth, in Kansas, with the Kents."

In retrospect,Superman is the male counterpart of Dorothy..
She took off from Kansas in a house and rid Oz of evil..
He landed in Kansas in a capsule and proceeded to rid the Earth of evil.
Striking similarities,don't you think?

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

"Superman will always be Space Moses, sent in a tiny capsule across the void to grow up on Earth, in Kansas, with the Kents."

In retrospect,Superman is the male counterpart of Dorothy..
She took off from Kansas in a house and rid Oz of evil..
He landed in Kansas in a capsule and proceeded to rid the Earth of evil.
Striking similarities,don't you think?

Except that Joel Shuster and Jerry Siegel specifically patterned Supes after Moses.
The issue came up again when the latest Superman film so heavy-handedly compared its titular hero to Jesus at several points: here's a good article on that.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

There's also the Nietzschean connection to consider here:

"Superman" was the most common English translation of Friedrich Nietzsche's term "Übermensch" at the time, popularized by Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Nietzsche believed that homo sapiens would eventually be replaced by a superior species, an evolutionary successor.
As you may or may not know, this concept was insanely popular with the Nazis, and they incorporated their garbled understanding of it into their ideology (which would have bugged Friedrich Nietzsche to no end, since he felt nothing but disdain for nationalists and racists; unfortunately, his proto-Nazi sister became the editor of his writings after he lapsed into senility).

Accordingly, the fact that two Jewish authors gave this name to their most famous and long-lasting character gives it a certain poignancy, don't you think?

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

In retrospect,Superman is the male counterpart of Dorothy..
She took off from Kansas in a house and rid Oz of evil..
He landed in Kansas in a capsule and proceeded to rid the Earth of evil.
Striking similarities,don't you think?

Well, "a mother places her infant son in a tiny contraption to save it from the death of its people, setting it adrift, and the child grows up in a different culture, raised by foster parents" does not quite fit the "Wizard of Oz" as much as it does the Exodus, but intertextuality and reader-response theory weird that way: if *you* see a link, it is there.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

"Superman will always be Space Moses, sent in a tiny capsule across the void to grow up on Earth, in Kansas, with the Kents."

In retrospect,Superman is the male counterpart of Dorothy..
She took off from Kansas in a house and rid Oz of evil..
He landed in Kansas in a capsule and proceeded to rid the Earth of evil.
Striking similarities,don't you think?

Never considered seeing Superman from the perspective of OZ - although it is definitely an interesting concept to consider...

Of course, as Superman never rids the world entirely of evil, he's not quite like Dorothy. Then again, even Dorothy never rid the world of all evil in Oz since she made several trips back and became a part of the politics in Oz.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

... Joel Shuster and Jerry Siegel specifically patterned Supes after Moses.
The issue came up again when the latest Superman film so heavy-handedly compared its titular hero to Jesus at several points: here's a good article on that.

Excellent article on the issue with how Superman is the same as Moses...

I like how one Jewish organization framed things - as seen in the following (for excerpt):

Moses is the closest thing we have to a Jewish Superman. Look at his origins. As a baby, Moses is abandoned by desperate parents faced with the probability of his death. Seeing how beautiful he is (Exodus 2:2) they leave him to float down the Nile in a wicker basket. Ramban notes correctly that all parents would thus try to save their child, regardless of what the baby looks like, so the reference to Moses’ “beauty” must denote not just physical qualities but the recognition that Moses would become a miracle maker. Pharaoh’s daughter saves him for his destined task.

So too, did Jerry Siegel and Joseph Shuster, Superman’s inventors, craft Superman’s beginnings on Krypton as a baby who would have died had he not been set adrift by his parents. There too an unlikely stranger discovers and raises him, and he grows to work miracles for people threatened with evil. Both Superman and Moses are strangers in a strange land, the most pervasive theme in Torah. Siegel and Shuster were Jews; it seems likely that they imbibed this plotline from the seder. Superman’s native Krypton name was Kalel — conveniently close to kol El, Hebrew for “the voice of God.”
But as he grows up, Superman One does not completely fit the Jewish hero model. Unlike Moses (or for that matter, Abraham, Jacob, Rebecca, and the rest), he is not plagued with human foibles. Although he is allergic to Kryptonite and can’t see through lead, otherwise, he is perfect. That is why we like Superman Two better than Superman One. The comic strip featured a macho man who saved the world all alone, a complete loner. By contrast, the movies about Superman Two play up stumblebum Clark Kent — which reminds me of Moses the stutterer losing his voice in front of Pharaoh.

And this Superman needs Lois Lane. Similarly, Moses our greatest prophet (Torah tells us that), needed his wife, Zipporah. We glimpse that need in this sedra’s astounding narrative of only three verses (4:24-26). God unaccountably “seeks to kill” Moses, who is then saved by Zipporah’s decision to circumcise him (or his son — the story is ambiguous) on the spot. Either way, our commentators wonder why God “sought to kill” the very man who had just been chosen for a divine mission. In keeping with the Jewish hero model, they respond by demoting the great Moses to ordinary human stature. According to Rashi, for example, Moses hadn’t circumcised his son, a sign that he was negligent in fulfilling mitzvot. I like best the tradition that highlights the conflict between our personal and public lives. Moses’ “job” was a full-time position. Like a general dispatched to some far-off war zone, Moses was en route to save Egypt’s Jews. The Talmud thinks he put off circumcising his son so as not to delay his journey, thereby putting his job before his family responsibilities — more like Superman One.

Rashbam, however, argues just the reverse. The point to note is that he actually took his family with him. In this model, even the busiest people do not abandon spouse and children. At first God is angry. What does God know from family? He tries to kill this “family man” who cannot be trusted to do the job right. But even God is thwarted. Zipporah uses God’s own mitzvot to demonstrate the importance of family. She deliberately delays the journey by circumcising her son. And God relents. Moses is saved.

Having a family differentiates Moses from Superman One. But modern movies are catching up to Judaism. Superman Two settles down with Lois; that other popular superhero, Spiderman, loves the girl next door.....the evolution of superheroes from comics to movies intrigues me because they reflect America and, therefore, us. I find it fascinating that even Moses and Zipporah had to fight the issue of integrating family and job, while sacrificing neither to the other. Superman and Lois are fun to watch. Moses and Zipporah are instructive to contemplate. Shabbat is a time for contemplation.
​

And as it concerns the background of Superman from a Jewish perspective, I very much appreciated what one Jewish individual noted - as said here in the following (for brief excerpt):

Most Jewish historians are very kind to Superman. History books on Jews and comics are written to not threaten the gentile masses. The Jewish comic historians are almost begging for the Jewish influence on the comic industry to be acknowledged. ......Lucky for you, I am essentially kryptonite, I am the man who does not fear taking down Superman! This is not meant to be simply an attack piece, but this is not a politically correct ode to the Man of Steel either. Superman is my history- Jewish history. He is Moses on a ship to escape anti-Semitism, an immigrant in a new country, a nice Jewish boy who was forced to change his name and his identity. Upsettingly, the identity he took on was what the racist culture told his creators a Superman had to be- everything they were not.

I hate Superman because he is the assimilationist dream. His creators, two nice Jewish boys, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were bullied and picked on growing up; they created Superman to be the embodiment of what they wished they could be. They were poor Cleveland boys who met in high school. A pair of neurotic Jewboys, shy and not popular with the ladies, their Semitic looks did not fit America’s standards of beauty. They both loved the escapism of science fiction, producing their own fanzine prior to entering comics and eventually creating the Man of Steel. Superman shows the effect of anti-Semitism on the creator’s psyche because Superman is everything Siegel and Shuster could not be, he is the Aryan dream.

Superman signifies the assimilation and loss of culture many strived for. Like many Jews, he left his homeland behind as his people were killed. His real name, Kal-El, means “all that G-d is” in Hebrew. Much like many Jews in comics who chose WASPy pen names, Kal-El lost his Hebrew name and was given the most “gentiley” name ever, Clark Kent. Clark Kent yearns to fit into his society, surrounded by goyim and longing for his shiksa dream girl, Lois Lane.

I love Superman, because he is an analogy for Moses. Superman’s parents placed him in a ship prior to the destruction of his planet, the same way Moses’ mother saved her son by placing him in a basket and sending him down the Nile. Both Moses and Superman had to hide their heritage as they grew up in a foreign land, eventually acting as protectors of the oppressed in these lands.

I hate Superman for being the Ubermensch; Friedrich Nietzche, the 19th Century German Philosopher, came up with the concept of the Ubermensch, a person who is not influenced by the corruption of modern values and overcomes his weakness to be the greatest man he can be.​

 

[smaneck]

Except that Joel Shuster and Jerry Siegel specifically patterned Supes after Moses.
The issue came up again when the latest Superman film so heavy-handedly compared its titular hero to Jesus at several points: here's a good article on that.

But Jesus is modeled after Moses.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

But Jesus is modeled after Moses.

Oh my gosh, you are RIGHT!

They even introduced a murder of infants and a trip to (and extended stay in) Egypt into the tale in order to make the tales correspond more closely to each other!

 

[Gxg (G²)]

But Jesus is modeled after Moses.

The way that the patterns went, according to Deuteronomy 18, Jesus was essentially a prophet in the same manner as Moses was when it came to the authority/centrality of leadership and relationship to God - with Jesus being greater than Moses and the one whom Moses prophesied, as Christ noted in John 5.

• Yeshua - the Prophet Like Moses

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Joel Shuster and Jerry Siegel specifically patterned Supes after Moses.
The issue came up again when the latest Superman film so heavy-handedly compared its titular hero to Jesus at several points: here's a good article on that.

Fascinating as that is, it's even more interesting to me to see how Superman's religious background still would not allow him in our time to partner with others in religions others see as hostile. I am reminded of what occurred recently when they canceled a team-up between Superman and a Muslim superhero - making me wonder what would have happened if Superman was Muslim.

​

For reference, one can go here:

• Why Did DC Cancel Superman’s Team-Up with a Muslim Hero?

Granted, they did have at one point a massive team-up between Muslim heroes and those in the D.C universe - the "American comic-book icons to break down post 9/11 prejudices" - the group was known as the 99 and it was fascinating to see how they developed.

For reference, one can go here:

• The 99: Batman's Muslim allies | Books | The Guardian

• Islamic Archetypes THE 99 Meet DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE In Oct. | Newsarama.com

 

[Gxg (G²)]

For anyone interested,

It is rather fascinating that there is now a member of the Batman family who happens to be Muslim - known as Nightrunner, of the group Batman Incorporated. For reference, one can go to the following:

• Racists Totally Freak Out Over Muslim ‘Batman of Paris’

Fascinating as that is, it's even more interesting to me to see how Superman's religious background still would not allow him in our time to partner with others in religions others see as hostile. I am reminded of what occurred recently when they canceled a team-up between Superman and a Muslim superhero - making me wonder what would have happened if Superman was Muslim.

​

For reference, one can go here:

• Why Did DC Cancel Superman’s Team-Up with a Muslim Hero?