Jesus Christ, Superhero?
Filed Under: SF Comics, Speculative Fiction
I’ve been thinking about religion in the superhero genre, particularly as it pertains to Christianity.
One of my personal reasons for rejecting the religion is that I do not believe in the supernatural. I do not believe that a man rose from the dead, walked on water, turned water to wine, and so forth. I believe that modern evidence indicates such things to be utterly impossible. But my reason for disbelief here is not the subject–imagine if you lived in a world where such things happened on a daily basis?
How would Jesus be viewed in a world where superheroes soar through the skies, communicate with thought, and are indestructible? I have two trains of thought on this matter.
The first is that a lot more people would believe the basics of the story. You’d have no reason to disbelieve that a man once lived who did all those things. The supernatural is apparent in your day-to-day life. Mutants have powers, so it’s no stretch to believe that Jesus did as well.
But would people still make the leap of faith from these powers and acts to believing he was the son of god? Would they more likely to believe that anyone making such claims were a delusional superhero? Let me put it this way–in your favorite comic book universe, if someone showed up with similar powers to the stories of Christ in the New Testament, would you believe that they were Jesus reborn, or would you suspect that they were some nefarious villain posing as Jesus for his own sinister purpose?
A world full of super powers would have profound theological implications, and I don’t think I’ve read anything that deals with that exactly. Most comic books I have read seem to have the same basic religions we have. BUt would they remain unchanged by 100 years of history of supermen on the world stage? How would the Catholic Church respond to the existence of such things?
Feel free to point me out stories that have dealt with this idea before. This morning in the shower, I started thinking about writing a take-off on Superman, much like Cory Doctorow did, but instead of depicting his parents as a jewish couple in Toronto, I want to take him back to Kansas, but my Kansas, not the idea of Kansas of a New York comics writer. Superman as raised by deeply religious, fundamentalist, anti-choice Baptists.
How do you think he would have turned out in that kind of family?
