I know this makes me somewhat hypocritical as a critic, but I have come to despise a lot of modern literary critique. I see so many reviews and analyses that have to be ignorant of either context, the source material, authorial intent (Yeah, I know, Death of the Author and all that) and even the content of the work itself. Why do people do this? Is there some benefit to it? If so, what? What benefit is there in ignoring the objective truth for the sake of a thought experiment? There is such a thing as objective truth and objective falsehood. There's also such a thing as objective nonsense, and I cannot say how many times I've seen articles written by people who were paid to write them who couldn't have had the slightest clue what they were talking about based solely on the fact that they either talked about things that didn't happen in the work being discussed, or went on at length about something that literally didn't matter and had no meaning at all.
This typically happens with recent movies such as Man of Steel, and classic literature such as the works of Shakespeare, various myths and legends, and songs as well. The Beatles notably wrote a few songs that were utter nonsense in an attempt to confuse literary critics who analyzed their music, at least if I still recall correctly. In fact, I think the entirety of Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol's artistic careers were attempts to destroy the people who tried to find meaning. Sometimes there's no greater meaning, sometimes a spade is a spade, or as Freud put it, "A cigar is a cigar."
Every time I see something like this, I'm reminded of a fictionalized, yet entirely appropos scenario wherein an author writes "The curtains were blue." and some literary interpreter or critic goes on some spiel about the curtains being some emotional symbol, when what the author meant was "The curtains were blue."
Friday, August 31, 2018
Friday, August 24, 2018
On Creation Myths in Superhero Comics
Recently, a clickbait headline about Batman #53 was published by ScreenRant stating that Batman is an atheist. This came despite him sharing a team with Wonder Woman, the daughter of Zeus, and having met not only most of the Greco-Roman pantheon but also a decent chunk of the Norse pantheon (The Marvel version at least) and fought some of them. Additionally, Batman has encountered a number of DC-original gods.
This somewhat brings into question the nature of the origin of the primary DC universe, especially given the established multiverse nature of DC's comics, television programs, and films. A version of the Abrahamic deity, who herein will be referred to as Jaweh, does exist. This entity is known as The Presence, The Hand, The Voice, The Source, and Wally depending on what form it takes. While "Not believing in the Abrahamic deity" is not what Atheism means, let us address the core of the problem with how Christianity (And indeed, every deistic religion that's not Norse or Greco-Roman) works in DC's multiverse.
There's a certain amount of conflict with what Christianity says about how the universe started. See, the primary pantheon within DC is the Greco-Roman one. As previously mentioned, Diana Prince, AKA Wonder Woman is one of Batman's closest friends and a member of the Justice League of America alongside the Dark Knight. This means that, in some fashion, the Greco-Roman creation story must have some aspect of truth, bringing a certain amount of doubt in the validity of the Abrahamic one. The Bible notably implies that there was nothing before Jaweh created the heavens and Earth, and spent the six days creating everything that was.
In the main DC Universe, there's a group called Endless, and one of its members, Destiny, was chronicling the history of the DCU before The Presence came into being. Additionally, the creation of the Multiverse is directly correlated to a Dark Multiverse with its own dark god, the Great Dragon, Barbatos. Previously a servant of a completely different god, known as The Forger, who is a counterpart of two other gods or godlike entities known as The Monitor and The Anti-Monitor. In the series The Forger was introduced in, Dark Nights Metal, a creation story is given for all three primary multiverses in DC. All of them were created by a spark of potential. The Matter Multiverse that The Monitor was tasked with... Monitoring and The Anti-Matter Multiverse assigned to his brother, the Anti-Monitor. A relationship eerily similar to Kane and Abel, especially since the Anti-Monitor went on to kill The Monitor. A third entity, The Forger was assigned to that which would become the Dark Multiverse, The Forge of Worlds, where all that resided in both other universes would be created, right down to the various gods of each universe. This directly contradicts the idea that Jaweh could have created all that exists within the universe, especially when one delves into the Greco-Roman mythologies all primary DC universes are steeped in.
Greek mythology places Gaia, spirit of the Earth as the mother to all beings that would follow within that universe, and given the nature of this universe, one can readily assume that statement to be true. Which places Jaweh as a lesser deity mistaken for a far more powerful one. In fact, he might not be a deity at all, he could be an alien or a superhuman for all we know. The Presence was given power by the God Wave, and only has power as long as people believe he does. There's also the fact that prayer is a form of magic within DC Comics, as one of Superman's weaknesses is magic, and in Superman #41, it is established that prayer magic can weaken Superman. This contradicts the idea from Abrahamic faiths that Jaweh is all-powerful and needs not the power of others to perform his works.
Despite these facts, DC's primary multiverse is not all that exists, as was also revealed in Dark Nights: Metal and previously known throughout the history of pre-New 52-reboot. You see, DC shares a multiverse with Marvel Comics, especially the main universe of Marvel Comics, Universe 616. This was confirmed by the Avengers Vs. Justice League crossover event. This brings a number of other things into question about how the various universes came into existence. Marvel 616, rather notably, has a collection of Christian devil-figures, one of whom, Mephisto, tormented Silver Surfer and erased Spider-Man's marriage from history, a separate character named Lucifer (Who ISN'T a devil) who lives underground and paralyzed Professor Xavier, a Catholic Purgatory The Silver Surfer visited, a Norse Hel run by Thor's sister, a more general "Hell" that appears to be run by the aforementioned Mephisto, and a lot of gods. The Norse gods, some of the Greek ones, and a god The Fantastic Four went to visit in heaven to plead with to bring The Thing back to life. A god who was heavily implied to be Jack Kirby. Then there's the fact that the characters of Deadpool and The Joker know the multiverse they inhabit is fictional. And when you combine the fact that DC and Marvel all share a multiverse with the various live-action incarnations and adaptations of the characters, you wind up with some crossover into the rather bizarre Tommy Westphall universe. A universe created by the ending of a TV show called St. Elsewhere, that revealed the entire show was the product of the imagination of a young autistic boy. This revelation basically called all of reality into question, since one of the shows on the list is Law & Order, a series which repeatedly crossed over with the real world. It's amazing what a bunch of people with unlimited information can come up with.
Origin stories and creation myths keep getting stranger the more one knows about them.
This somewhat brings into question the nature of the origin of the primary DC universe, especially given the established multiverse nature of DC's comics, television programs, and films. A version of the Abrahamic deity, who herein will be referred to as Jaweh, does exist. This entity is known as The Presence, The Hand, The Voice, The Source, and Wally depending on what form it takes. While "Not believing in the Abrahamic deity" is not what Atheism means, let us address the core of the problem with how Christianity (And indeed, every deistic religion that's not Norse or Greco-Roman) works in DC's multiverse.
There's a certain amount of conflict with what Christianity says about how the universe started. See, the primary pantheon within DC is the Greco-Roman one. As previously mentioned, Diana Prince, AKA Wonder Woman is one of Batman's closest friends and a member of the Justice League of America alongside the Dark Knight. This means that, in some fashion, the Greco-Roman creation story must have some aspect of truth, bringing a certain amount of doubt in the validity of the Abrahamic one. The Bible notably implies that there was nothing before Jaweh created the heavens and Earth, and spent the six days creating everything that was.
In the main DC Universe, there's a group called Endless, and one of its members, Destiny, was chronicling the history of the DCU before The Presence came into being. Additionally, the creation of the Multiverse is directly correlated to a Dark Multiverse with its own dark god, the Great Dragon, Barbatos. Previously a servant of a completely different god, known as The Forger, who is a counterpart of two other gods or godlike entities known as The Monitor and The Anti-Monitor. In the series The Forger was introduced in, Dark Nights Metal, a creation story is given for all three primary multiverses in DC. All of them were created by a spark of potential. The Matter Multiverse that The Monitor was tasked with... Monitoring and The Anti-Matter Multiverse assigned to his brother, the Anti-Monitor. A relationship eerily similar to Kane and Abel, especially since the Anti-Monitor went on to kill The Monitor. A third entity, The Forger was assigned to that which would become the Dark Multiverse, The Forge of Worlds, where all that resided in both other universes would be created, right down to the various gods of each universe. This directly contradicts the idea that Jaweh could have created all that exists within the universe, especially when one delves into the Greco-Roman mythologies all primary DC universes are steeped in.
Greek mythology places Gaia, spirit of the Earth as the mother to all beings that would follow within that universe, and given the nature of this universe, one can readily assume that statement to be true. Which places Jaweh as a lesser deity mistaken for a far more powerful one. In fact, he might not be a deity at all, he could be an alien or a superhuman for all we know. The Presence was given power by the God Wave, and only has power as long as people believe he does. There's also the fact that prayer is a form of magic within DC Comics, as one of Superman's weaknesses is magic, and in Superman #41, it is established that prayer magic can weaken Superman. This contradicts the idea from Abrahamic faiths that Jaweh is all-powerful and needs not the power of others to perform his works.
Despite these facts, DC's primary multiverse is not all that exists, as was also revealed in Dark Nights: Metal and previously known throughout the history of pre-New 52-reboot. You see, DC shares a multiverse with Marvel Comics, especially the main universe of Marvel Comics, Universe 616. This was confirmed by the Avengers Vs. Justice League crossover event. This brings a number of other things into question about how the various universes came into existence. Marvel 616, rather notably, has a collection of Christian devil-figures, one of whom, Mephisto, tormented Silver Surfer and erased Spider-Man's marriage from history, a separate character named Lucifer (Who ISN'T a devil) who lives underground and paralyzed Professor Xavier, a Catholic Purgatory The Silver Surfer visited, a Norse Hel run by Thor's sister, a more general "Hell" that appears to be run by the aforementioned Mephisto, and a lot of gods. The Norse gods, some of the Greek ones, and a god The Fantastic Four went to visit in heaven to plead with to bring The Thing back to life. A god who was heavily implied to be Jack Kirby. Then there's the fact that the characters of Deadpool and The Joker know the multiverse they inhabit is fictional. And when you combine the fact that DC and Marvel all share a multiverse with the various live-action incarnations and adaptations of the characters, you wind up with some crossover into the rather bizarre Tommy Westphall universe. A universe created by the ending of a TV show called St. Elsewhere, that revealed the entire show was the product of the imagination of a young autistic boy. This revelation basically called all of reality into question, since one of the shows on the list is Law & Order, a series which repeatedly crossed over with the real world. It's amazing what a bunch of people with unlimited information can come up with.
Origin stories and creation myths keep getting stranger the more one knows about them.
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