We Live in a Bizarro World

His, or its, name is Bizarro, an imperfect clone of Superman, who lives on a square planet he created when he realized he could never fit on our strange world. Bizarro World is populated by imperfect copies of Earth's inhabitants and its culture is based on chaos and disorder, failure is celebrated, and stupidity is highly respected. To a Bizarro, ugliness is beautiful.

The character is used in the Superman comic book universe to make statements about us and our illogicalities and absurdities. We live in a Bizarro World where the popular culture is more interested in parties, or in mixed drinks, or in getting as much unencumbered sex as possible, and in casual drug use, than it is in what is happening in Darfur, or in Colombia, or in the international sex slave trade. More people know about the latest happenings in the lives of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton than can name a single person in U.S President Barack Obama's cabinet.

In the DC Comics compilation trade paperback, Superman: Escape from Bizarro World, one of the stories is the 1984 tale, "The Mark of Bizarro."  Bizarro Superman grows weary of fighting his Bizarro clones of Earth's superheroes (the Bizarro Justice League) and decides to create a supervillain.  Bizarro Flash tells him, "Hah!  You beat us all up again, Bizarro Number One ... so naturally, you lose!"

Bizarro creates Bizarro-Amazo, a clone of a villain who almost defeated the real Justice League by stealing their superpowers.  In true Bizarro fashion, Bizarro-Amazo returns his stolen superpowers to the members of the Bizarro Justice League.  This makes him the greatest super-villain: having no superpowers.  When Bizarro Number One reminds him that Bizarro-Joker and Bizarro-Luther also have no superpowers, Bizarro-Amazo decides to one-up them all and turns himself off.

The citizens of Bizarro World erect a glass case (cracked of course) in which they place the body of Bizarro-Amazo.  The last frame of the story has Bizarro Lois Lane looking admiringly at the encased body and saying, "No wonder everyone admire him!  Us merely think stupid ... him not think at all!"

Super Obama

This is not, never has been, and never will be, a political blog, so this is not a political post. This is a comment by a Christian man on a situation involving another Christian brother, President Barack Obama.

On 30 August 2009, I wrote about an Obama Christ painting on http://www.jesusoftheweek.com and said that, as a Christian man, President Obama should be offended by the picture and should be trying to discourage others from doing similar paintings.

Now, on http://www.stylinonline.com/barrackobama.html there is a posting of a Super Obama T-shirt by the artist Alex Ross. The painting depicts the President tearing open his business suit (just like Superman) to expose his superhero uniform underneath. On his chest, instead of Superman's "S" is a large red "O." It is well-known that Superman is considered to be a literary Christ figure.

I am aware that most people will just find the Super Obama shirt to be funny and will think nothing further of it. I suppose that I am holding President Obama to a standard to which he does not hold himself. I just wish he would make some sort of an effort to discourage this sort of thing.

This, and other issues, is discussed on the group blog (six writers), Holy Heroes, Religion in Comics. http://holyheroes.blogspot.com/. A warning: you will not agree with every post and some of the subjects discussed may offend you.

Superheroes Have Religious Beliefs

     The superhero character Superman has long been recognized to have been based on the Christ/Messiah story.  Kal-el is sent by his father to the Earth where he is raised by foster parents.  The "el" of his name is the Hebrew root meaning "divine," or "god" and, in its plural form (more about that in a later post) occurs as elohim, one of the biblical names of God.

     There are hints during his childhood and adolescence that he is "special" but the full truth is not apparent until he reaches adulthood, when he exhibits powers and abilities not available to normal humans.  In one major story line he even rises from the dead.

      During his childhood he is raised as Clark Kent by a kindly older couple named Jonathan and Martha Kent.  A little known fact is that the character is a Christian, raised as a Methodist in Smallville, Kansas.  The two creators of the character were Jewish.

     While overt religion was historically little mentioned in comic books, it was always there, slipped in as asides and used as the basis for numerous story lines.  Overtly Christian superhero comic books and television programs have begun to appear with characters such as Bibleman, Biblegirl, The Crusader, and the Crossbreeds. 

     The religious beliefs of many superhero/supevillain characters have been determined.  The results are listed and discussed on two excellent websites:

http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/comic_book_religion.htmlhttp;//www.comicbookreligion.com

      A short list:

Ant Man: Atheism

Aquaman: Greco-Roman

Batman: Episcopalianism/Catholicism

Blackhawk: Communism

Captain America: Protestantism      

Daredevil: Catholicism

Doctor Strange: Magic

Dust: Islam

Mr. Fantastic: Humanism

Green Arrow: Marxism

Hawkman: Ancient Egyptian

The Human Torch: Episcopalian

Mandrake the Magician: Buddhism

Nightcrawler: Catholicism

Punisher: Catholicism

Red Skull: Nazism

Rogue: Southern Baptist

Shadowcat: Judaism

Sunfire: Shintoism

Superman: Methodism

Thor: Norse

Timeslip: Hinduism

Wonder Woman: Greco-Roman

Professor Charles Xavier: Judaism