the Lottery Party XXI

the Lottery Party: Onward Christians Soldiers

posted on May 20th, 2009 in columns
by Richard Caldwell, Managing Catholic guilt with a bottle of rot gut

“When in the company of polite strangers, one should refrain from discussions of politics or religion.”

I don’t know who said that, but it’s bullocks, if you ask me. I’ll hit politics later, but for now, I want to share some observations regarding religion in comics. I am using here comic books as my defining case, but I believe this well applies to other media.

A curious, though undeniable fact of religious portrayal in the majority of modern works of Western fiction (beit in terms of mythology or theology) is the special treatment given to Christianity. I won’t say if this in and of itself is either a good thing or bad, but the truth does not wash with the general need of the average Christian mindset to see itself as persecuted. Unclench your fists and hear me out.
With Christianity as the seeming exception to the rule, all religions can be freely utilized by writers and artists without fear of being labeled a zealot or the equivalent of a bible-thumper. One of my favorite characters from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods novel was his take on Horus, but would anyone accuse Gaiman of following the Cult of Ra? You can read regular adventures of Thor or Hercules without presuming the creators involved belong to some bizarre Teutonic or Greek Orthodox sect. Even the Babylonian Gilgamesh had his shot, thanks to one of Walt Simonson’s runs on the Avengers back when. How cool would it be to read a mainstream book featuring the other epic strongman, Samson? This would never happen, as even the likelihood would cause too much debate. Meanwhile, the biggest of many differences between the Archie series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its Mirage predecessor, was the rampant New Age theologies injected into the Archie version. Even Jewish mysticism has been used many a time as a plot point, most recently in the pages of Top Cow’s Witchblade series. Nothing offensive or arguable there, on any counts. And yet Alan Moore, lest we forget, his own troubles with DC began with his rejected script for a guest appearance by Jesus Christ in the pages of Swamp Thing. Why?

When Christianity is shown in mainstream comic books, it is usually a very thin line walked, with nondescript accentuations on the basic premises of a higher good versus cartoonish representations of demonic evils. For example, I cite the entire Spawn property. In other cases of mainstream exhibition, the usage is borderline subliminal. How many readers picked up on the sublime clues that Chuck Dixon was writing Nightwing as being a devout Catholic? Equally, when comics that are specifically Christian in aim are released, they have never proven to be solid sellers, regardless of the fact that Christianity (including all of its many denominations) is the largest religion In America, by far. In the 80’s Marvel gave us the biographical comic of the life of Pope John Paul II, as well as the lesser known Mother Teresa comic shown above. No follow ups were warranted. Every year of the past couple of decades, if not going back further, there is somewhere a new startup publisher hellbent on putting out Christian comics, and none to my knowledge have ever survived a year. Nobody wants to be preached to, apparently.
So to push my argument, without outright trying to sell the Christian ideology as a belief system, why can the vast history of excellent imagery and settings not be more openly explored? Read your Old Testament (the admittedly funner Testament), god created MONSTERS, in the forms of Behemoth and Leviathan (aka Moby Dick). Why can’t we read about the Fantastic Four or the Challengers of the Unknown butting heads with the Behemoth? Why is it that Christian concepts cannot be exampled in comics with a level of research beyond a couple of hours of randomly surfing cable television, without people getting their scapulars in a knot? How neat would it be to read of the X-men clashing with the Grigori?
There are growing attempts to this end, and always sparking the dreaded case of controversy. Gaiman toyed excellently with many a religious construct in his Sandman series, including staples of Christian lore. Grant Morrison reportedly received death threats after his using of hosts of angels in his since-unmatched run on JLA. Actually, a few of the early stable of writers from Vertigo have tried to brave these stormy waters, always to mixed results.
A more recent and ongoing attempt is by RS Carbonneau in his Zoroaster in Aethiopia strip.

All I’m saying, is that there truthfully is a wealth of untapped story potential within the Christian mythologies, but as long as such remains un-P.C. by the standards of our status quo, a door is being ridiculously slammed shut on interested creators everywhere.