Of Gods, Men & Overmen, Part4-the Cult Of The Overman

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Little thing, little thing, you’ve such a long way to go…

Of Gods, Men & OverMen, part4- The Cult of the Superhuman

I didn’t believe in superheroes when I was a kid. 

Oh sure, I enjoyed their colorful suits and their flashy superpowers and I always dragged my ass out of my comfy bed every weekend so I could watch the Batman cartoon.

Pictured: childhood prescription cocaine.

But I always listened to my friends argue about superheroes about who would beat who in a fight and we’d pretend to play in the schoolyard and I could never really invest myself into it, you know? I always considered superheroes to be things of fantasy, man-shaped black holes that sucked in time and enthusiasm and left you feeling empty.

The shitty 10-year old cynic in me was making sure I was rooted to this mundane, simple Earth we live in.

Little did that cynical tyrant know that his reign was coming to an end.

The day of revolution came on the eve of my 12^th birthday, when I stumbled upon the SINGLE MOST AWESOME AND IMPOSSIBLE THING EVER:

Like finding your lost car keys by that winning lottery ticket on the coffee table right next to every hot girl you ever met and wanted to bone, as they’re all about to tell you how much they want to have sex and that they don’t mind sharing, really.

The tyrant did not feel the immediate repercussions of this revelation. In fact, he held on with admirable tenacity upon his throne and resisted the surges and the quaking of the sleeping nerd that was stirring in the depths of my brain.

The final blow came after I read War of the Worlds, which pretty much served to set a wonderful transmogrification in motion: the gentle and gradual transformation of an ordinary boy into an aspiring pop culture enthusiast.

Because there’s only so many ways you can call yourself a nerd before you start taking offense.

I was not a zealot (and never will be) but I studied the Scriptures of the OverMen thoroughly, I looked into the literature that spawned them, followed the cultural currents that foretold of their coming as best as I could and now I stand here, calling myself an adherent to the Cult of the OverMan.

But to know the cult of the OverMan, you must first examine its origins and its function. The idea of the thing that is above human, of the anthropomorphized force of nature has existed throughout our mythologies and our stories, even our religions. It has been retold, recast, remade into a million iterations.

In the dawn of the 19^th century, it was the pagan gods of old. By the middle of it, the Vril-ya. Then came the Secret Masters, who dwelt in Tibet and possessed the sum of human knowledge. Then along came old Nietzche who remade the OverMan into a creature that does not only possess considerable fortitude, but is also unchained by morality and human limitation.

Then came the psychics, beings that were human but could manipulate matter with their minds. Afterwards, they communicated with unworldly beings. Then they were unworldly beings themselves, some of them either direct descendants of deities or deities themselves. 

By the middle of the 20^th century, the OverMan was a human who had reached the stars and was well on his way to claiming absolute mastery on the universe. But then space was deprived of faith and it became just a cold, everlasting void as the OverMan became a creature that sat upon a golden throne in the Earth and chose instead to look into the fundamental trappings of the universe, to analyze and probe the workings of Everything Everywhere and learn how to manipulate them without ever once having to leave the house.

With each iteration, OverMan became less and less wondrous. With every single retelling of the archetype, the OverMan became more ordinary, more flawed, more…regular. He turned from the creature of marvels, the absolute pinnacle of our species into Joe Quantum and Jane M-Brane. 

By the beginning of the 21^st century, the OverMan was a pastime, a spectacle, a thing that we trapped in 2-dimensional, silver screen cages and made him dance and hurt and scream and fight for our amusement.

After centuries of collective effort, we had finally subdued him. We were now ready and able to begin worshipping the OverMan on our own terms.

So: no more fire and brimstone, we’re not gonna have any of that, thank you. And could you do something about this whole End of Days business? It’s awfully depressing.

But this is not a religious article, nor is it a biographical one. I don’t write all this so I can project my beliefs and ideas into an audience that doesn’t want to hear them. What this is, instead, is a bare-bones approach to the modern iteration of the OverMan… 

If you guessed anything other than Superhuman, then thank you for playing and I’ll see you next week.

Superhumans have been around since the beginning of the 20^th century, though the term became widely popular after the well-known abuse it received at the hands of some black-haired asshole who wanted to kill everyone because they weren’t blonde and blue-eyed.

Who could I possibly be talking about? Also, watch Downfall, you bastards!

The first Superhumans, examples of men who possessed uncanny abilities beyond those of mortal men first appeared in the 1920s, in pulp magazines. They were crimefighters, adventurers, explorers and all-around badasses that possessed an innate cynicism and brutality you’d be hard pressed to find even in today’s gore-happiest Superhumans.

From top to bottom: super-powered junkie genius, machine-gun totting psychic serial killer

They were heroes of a harsh age and they catered to their tiny and shunned audience, an audience consisting of proto-geeks who lived their lives in a world that seemed to be tumbling into madness. In many ways, Doc Savage, the Shadow and Captain Occult were like the great prehistoric gods of pop culture. They were sluggish, rough things that were made for the purpose of appeasing their worshippers and providing them with monthly escapades that allowed them glimpses of an impossible world full of wonder and danger.

Also, gratuitous spaceship battles, laser pistols and tits.

Then the world went through a case of ‘turning into shit for a while’ (as it’s often wont to do) in the 40’s and the new generation of audiences (and the faithful among them) found that the stone-faced gods in the pulps could not appease them. We did not need bloodthirsty barbarian lords to worship and lead us among the rubble from where our new pop culture would spring, no sir! What we needed were gods with ideals. We needed OverMen that would lead us on into pastures new and show us new worlds so we could build more hopeful wonders around them.

The necessity for the invention of such tools arose in the age of M.A.D., of constant threat of another global war, of all-around International Confusion. The real world had suddenly become madder than the one detailed in our fiction. We needed solace. We needed guidance.

More than ever, we needed heroes.

Heroes that could stand against the growing tide of shapeshifting rat-lobsters that aimed to destroy our heavy machinery.

The advent of the Superhumans in fiction was inevitable. They were the product of the time that spawned them. They burrowed themselves in our collective conscience and have lingered to this day because first and foremost, they are symbols.

Oh sure, they’re oversimplified and downright ridiculous upon closer examination and they perform insane, endlessly looping rituals that seem to serve no clearly defined purpose whatsoever at first glance, but that’s the fault of the audience, not theirs.

To not take a life, to protect the innocent, to transcend the barriers of the known universe and to save the world every month is the sole duty of the Superhuman. Nothing less, nothing more. Their only function is to offer hope and a chance to escape our routine and pessimistic fixations. Such wondrous creatures could not exist beyond the pages that they inhabit, after all.

But what are the roles of these fictional OverMen? What do they represent and what do they stand for? Here’s a quick rundown:

Superman-Everything’s going to be okay.

Of all the representations of the OverMan idea, Superman is by far the most straightforward and simplistic of them all. He’s strong, he’s fast, he shoots lasers, he’s very nearly omniscient and his sole purpose is to protect us from the horrors that seek to destroy us from beyond our world, but remains neutral toward humanity’s internal struggles. In many ways, Superman is like God.

In many respects, Superman should not have lingered after all these decades. He should have slipped into obscurity along with his pulp predecessors, being the safe and non-challenging character that he is. And yet, here he is. Why?

Because Superman is Hope. He is the force that makes everything okay. He is a being that saves our ass every month only so we can keep being who we are, even as we pull ourselves inexorably toward Armageddon.

Batman-Adapt and Overcome

A mortal man that has reached the absolute peak of human achievement. A frail creature that is the companion and antithesis of the God figure of Superman. In many ways, Batman should have taken Superman’s place in pop culture and even replaced him, yet he hasn’t.

Frank Miller put it best, in Dark Knight Returns. That iteration of Batman presented his old, tired and quite frankly pathetic Bruce Wayne as an empty vessel that was there to channel tenacity, anger and an insane adherence to survival. He is a creature that has been stamped on, beaten and broken in every possible way, yet he keeps on his crusade.

Batman is a symbol of perseverance. Of holding on to your morality and struggling not to lose yourself, even in the face of ultimate evil.

Wonder Woman-The might of the gods in the service of man

Wonder Woman is in many ways, Superman’s counterpart. There’s the widespread belief that she’s also a symbol for justice. In my opinion, this is not so.

Wonder Woman exists as a construct that has gone through a dramatic change: from oversexualized soft porn symbol, she has become a creature of wrath. Despite the writers’ best efforts, she has not managed to establish herself as a symbol for justice or as a champion of order.

 Her best stories always present her as a powerful ally and a terrifying foe, but also as an instrument of fury that puts both her friends and her enemies in mortal peril. Out of all the Superhumans, Wonder Woman is the one creature that is more like her pagan ancestors than her contemporaries.

Spiderman-What Would Peter Parker Do?

I have openly stated that I dislike Spiderman and will stick to my opinion. But he serves a very useful purpose, either way. When he was conceived, the slogan Stan Lee used was “the hero that could be YOU!”

It took me nearly a decade before I finally realized the hidden meaning behind that quote. 

Spiderman’s charm doesn’t lie just in the fact that he’s a creature that the audience can sympathize with. He’s a creature that is constantly questioning the reader, trudging on through his everyday dramas, bearing the entire world on his spindly shoulders, as if he’s asking the reader:

“What the hell else would you have done, if you were me?”

Captain America-Justice For All

An old fashioned slogan for a man who’s found that the world has passed him by. For a Greek, Captain America is a very hard sell. Pop culture has presented him as an ultimate American symbol and to be fair, that was his original purpose.

But the Captain isn’t just about America. He’s a romantic creature, a thing that has sprung up from a mad time, preaching mad ideas, trying to cope in a world which, to be perfectly honest, can’t quite find a place for him.

The Captain is a creature that represents an endless struggle for the greater good, in a world that refuses to understand or acknowledge morality.

Hulk-The Pariah Eternal

Hulk is one of those symbols that at first seem to serve no other purpose except to look cool and fill a spot in the pantheon. His true purpose eludes everyone but the most frustrated nerds who have chosen to believe in him.

Because the Hulk is the Perpetual Geek, stuck with the Cool Kids in the same school yard, pushed and picked around for his dorky glasses. He was made by Jack Kirby, a man who went through similar phases in his life and he is essentially the very personification of nerd rage.

He is a creature that seeks to tear at the Universe, wanting to vent the frustration of his audience. No wonder he didn’t work in his movies: the Hulk is a fantastic creature, like the perfect lover we conjure up in our dreams. He is impossible to exist and he speaks out only to a very select few. He’s not movie material. He’s actualized fantasy.

But what will the OverMan truly be? He can’t possibly be a thing as symbolic and simplified as our fictional Superhumans. After all, they only exist within the confines of their fictional universe and even then, they are relieved of repercussions and responsibility, existing in a world of their own.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that the collective masses of humanity exist in a duality of both conquest and responsibility. As our knowledge and capability of manipulating our environment grows, so does our understanding and responsibility toward it.

The OverMan, no matter how fantastic he may be, no matter how ideal his existence, will be burdened with duties of titanic proportions and perform follies and experience ills of unimaginable magnitude.

The OverMan will be just like us. He may be able to fly unaided, but we’ll be no less human for it. 

It’s funny how this train of thought reminds me of the ideas of 17^th century philosophers, who speculated on the chance of stumbling into a Heaven upon Earth. They too considered that when we inhabit Heaven, we will be free of our ills, of our terrors and our responsibilities. They called this earthly paradise Arcadia and they claimed it would be the future abode of men, who would become as gods.

 Giovanni Barbieri gave them the best possible answer: 

Even in the green pastures of Arcadia, you will find death, o man.

What I Think About Stuff-the Dark Knight Strikes Again

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The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Or How to Turn the very Character you turned into an Icon into a Huge Joke in 100 pages or less.

DISCLAIMER: This review may contain a number of heretical Batman-related opinions. Fanboys are kindly requested to show some understanding and refrain from shaking the Pillars of Heaven in rage against this reviewer.

The other day, a friend of mine told me how writing reviews about good (or moderately good comics), actually ruins the comic book for anyone who’d be interested in buying it. He told me that it would be best if I tried a really bad one.

I chose to take his advice, so here’s a piece of shit for ya:

The cover promises Revolution, Rebellion and if it was part of a song, it’d be the guitar shredding bridge before the chorus. Sadly, none of this applies to the actual comic book.

Dark Knight Strikes Again is Frank Miller’s worst work, overshadowing (in my opinion) even All-Star Batman and Robin, that other bat-sturbation festival this man chose to write in the process of turning himself and his most beloved character into a miniseries-long farce.

I can’t stop imagining Batman flipping a switch and turning on Batmobile’s neon decals after this, synched to the rhythm of a Snoop Dog song.

To be fair, this miniseries wouldn’t have been half as bad on its own right (in fact it would have been funny and awesome as all hell), but what made it so goddamn terrible was that this was intended as a SEQUEL to the Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller’s most stellar work, and at the same time the comic book which forever resolved the who would win in every fight in every possible comicbook crossover ever, if Batman was one of the contestants.

Hint: Batman would win. Batman would win every goddamn time.

What can I possibly say about the Dark Knight Returns except that you should buy and read the shit out of it, unless you want to die unfulfilled? What praise could I possibly heap on comic book that summarizes (and reinvents) Batman as a character on its own right? How can I not marvel at something that was created by a 30-year old comic book writer/artist in 1986 that has become lodged so hard inside our pop culture that we can’t even CONSIDER a superhero universe without a Batman in one form or another?

And at the same time cause us to support the shit out of the multiversal theory if only for the off-chance that each of us is Batman in some distant, possible universe?

What I’m trying to say is that the Dark Knight Returns was an awesome comic book and that it shows a certain kind of narrative genius and consistency I’m hard pressed to find in comic books to this day.

The other thing I’m trying to say is that it was just goddamn fine on its own. It did not need a sequel. Because there was absolutely no way anybody would ever be able to follow up the Dark Knight Returns in any meaningful, equally awesome way.

It would be like Kurt Vonnegut writing a sequel to the Sirens of Titan, where Malachi turns into a zombie, gains superpowers and has a punch-out with Winston across the outer rim of the Galaxy.

When I found out, however, that the Dark Knight Returns had a sequel, I absolutely shat my pants with joy (being the impressionable, misguided youngster that I used to be) and rushed to buy it. In my defense, I considered that the fact that this had been written by an older, more mature Frank Miller would be much more focused and interesting and would expand on Return’s themes consistently.

I thought I’d get my hands on a short, yet violent and sweet addendum to Returns, sprinkled with just a bit of political commentary, featuring superheroes beating the everloving shit out of each other. What I got instead was this:

Riveting stuff.

Pages upon pages of sociopolitical satire. In a goddamn Batman comic book. Just try to wrap your head around that, why don’t you? I know a lot of people accuse Frank Miller of adding way too many far-right political undertones in Returns, but at least in Returns, those undertones were subtler but also served as a plot point!

The kind of plot point whose end result is a giant motherfucking a-bomb.

But in Strikes Again, the satire is set here on its own right. Granted, Miller does try to shoehorn it into the narrative but let’s face it honey: you can’t use a pile of diarrhea. In my opinion, it’s obvious that Miller used his Returns fame as a tool for blackmail against DC comics in order to force them to print this goddamn mess.

I even bet he slapped one of the editors in the face when he presented them with the finished pages and they told him that there is no way DC would agree to print this drivel. I bet he also called his mother a whore and kept shouting “DO YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM? I’M FRANK GODDAMN MILLER, BITCH! NOW SEND THAT SHIT TO THE PRINTERS AND PACK YOUR STUFF FROM YOUR GODDAMN OFFICE BEFORE I HAVE YOU THROWN OUT OF THE GODDAMN BUILDING!”

The same argument was obviously paraphrased as the sole sales pitch for every dumb-ass DC miniseries since.

But you’re not here just to see me heap praises on Returns and damnation on Strikes Again, are you? No, of course not. The internet hates Strikes Again and you can get that hate anywhere you like with just a simple Google search.

Internet’s handiest hate machine.

What I’m going to do instead (before moving on to further bashing), will be to try and outline some of Strikes Again’s best features. And trust me, it has a couple good ones going for it.

·         The Dark Knight Strikes Again sequelizes the shit out of Returns (in a good way):

No matter how much I hate this comic, this frame makes me punch the air and shout FUCK YEAH!

Frank Miller started this series with a very clear (and awesome) goal in mind: to reunite and reinvent the JLA as a whole. This is made apparent in both the opening intro to Returns and Strikes Again and it’s something you can both root for and dream about:

The resurgence of heroes in a world that once shunned them, but now desperately needs them.

Returns dealt with Batman’s perspective on this matter. But when Batman’s tale was said and done, it was only natural that the rest of the lot would follow his lead and return to active duty. If Frank Miller hadn’t spent more than half the goddamn series on a bunch of talking heads that contribute absolutely nothing, this could have been the best JLA story out there, hands down.

Though I have to hand it to him, Batchick was pretty fucking hot. If only the rest of those panels weren’t getting in the way…

·         Strikes Again has a very interesting character development arc for Superman:

Granted, it does only cover a tenth of Superman’s screen time on this comic book, but it’s otherwise a story that I’d have loved to see unfold.

And it would have been so, had Frank Miller not been so preoccupied with turning the whole thing into a Batman fanfic.

Some spoilers ahead. But then again, you’d care if that comic wasn’t so full of shit, its binding is brown.

1.       Superman hooks up with Wonder Woman: This is a development I was expecting and anticipating since I read Alan Moore’s For the Man who Has Everything short Superman story.

What’s that? You haven’t read it? That’s okay, lots of people live their lives without truly knowing beauty.

A lot of people will call this opinion of mine shallow and pedantic. How I choose to pair up two superheroes in my mind, simply because their powers fit well together and not on the merit of their interactions, their backstory or their mythos. That Superman and Lois Lane work as a couple because of her lack of powers.

These people also fail to consider that I give less of a fuck about Lois Lane than I do about Spiderman.

And trust me: if I cared any less about Spiderman, he wouldn’t have existed in the first place.

Personal bias aside, it is inevitable for Superman and Wonder Woman to end up together. Why? Because they’re both super-powered beings that have faced countless dangers across time and space and have worked together to save Life, the Universe and Everything on innumerable occasions.

What I’m trying to say is that they’re the only people in the entire DC universe that have anything in common with each other.

Let’s face facts: After spending a whole day fighting off cosmic invasion forces hell-bent on eradicating humanity, you can’t exactly go back to talking about your day at the office.

2.       Superman and Wonder Woman have a kid:

YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK YOUR OBJECTIONS LOUDER, SINCE I AM UNABLE TO HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY POWER SCOUTER EXPLODING!

Her name is Kara, she’s half Kryptonian and she’s raised as an Amazon, meaning she’s stronger than her dad but lacking proper moral directions. She could have been the star of the show, right next to Batman. Instead, Frank Miller presents her like an absolute goddamn idiot fascist teenager.

All this AND MORE from her first exchange of dialogue with her dad, no less!

3.       Superman comes to terms with the idea that even though he serves and protects mankind, he is not entirely human:

Trust me, this frame is absolutely RUINED when taken in context.

This is a good thing to see. Every good Superman story does contain Superman’s struggle to remain human and not turn into the invincible Big Brother figure. He tries to abide by the laws of men while at the same time protecting them against an increasingly hostile cosmos.

And that makes him much more human than human. The fact that he constantly tries to get on the same level with us powerless little Earth Monkeys, despite him being able to snuff out suns is his most endearing and interesting characteristic. In Strikes Again, Miller tries to see what would happen is Superman lost that characteristic, but fails miserably because he was too busy ejaculating over every panel and piece of dialogue featuring Batman.

·         For the first time in his entire career, Batman has an obvious and meaningful goal:

This is the whole point of this shitty miniseries, right here, in just this one panel.

This is strictly my opinion and I’m not aiming to infuriate somebody and I sure as hell ain’t in the mood for trolling. With that in mind, I need you to consider this:

Batman is a wasted character.

Why do I think that? Not because Batman doesn’t have any powers. Hell, having powers is what holds back most of DC’s heroes. In fact, not having powers (and a huge goddamn fortune to spend on superheroing) frees Batman and allows him to do much more than all of them combined.

So why the hell doesn’t he do that? Why does he insist on trying to rehabilitate serial killers and clean up Gotham

A city which has repeatedly proven itself not to be worth the effort.

Thus wasting his money, abilities and freedom? Why doesn’t he do more? Sure, before the DC reboot he did attempt to bring out Batman’s brand of justice globally by founding Batman Inc., but that only occurred to him after more than 50 years’ worth of adventuring!

Frank Miller knows this to be the case and tries, while examining Batman through rose-tinted glasses thicker than Saturn’s belt, to bring this point to light and use it to the story’s advantage. And that’s a good thing. That’s a damn good thing.

Too bad it’s ruined by lack of background and Miller forgetting this whole damn point during the entirety of the narrative.

In my opinion, this a conclusion Batman needs to reach as soon as possible in the rebooted DC run, before the character gets bogged into the mire of decades-long continuity once again.

That’s it for my good points in Strikes Again. In case you haven’t noticed, only one of the three is referring to Batman. Why is that, you ask? Well, mostly because Miller took Batman and turned him from this:

Pictured: the reborn avatar of justice and vigilantism, risen from its ashes

Into this:

Pictured: a bitter old fuck with kryptonite powerfists.

He turned Batman into an unfunny little person who keeps reminding everyone (and constantly being showered by remarks of) how awesome and excellent and great he is, how he changed everything and brought the superheroes back, how he’s the only one who can stop the evil powers that have taken over the world, etc., etc.

But you know when else he did the exact same goddamn thing and we believed it, without once needing to be reminded by it by anybody? In Dark Knight Returns. That’s where Bruce Wayne was both a hero and a symbol. In Strikes Again, he’s just a kid in an old man’s body screaming: “Hey! Hey, superpeople! Everybody! Look at meeee! LOOK AT MEEEEE!

”

“I MEANT TO DO THAT! I’VE PLANNED FAR AHEAD ABOUT EVERYTHING BECAUSE I’M AWESOME AND COOL AND REALLY SMART! Now will you please like me? Pleeeaaaassseee?”

Also, the art sucks balls. There’s no backgrounds in almost any frame and Miller’s style was obviously slipping, as evidenced by the following example:

“Frank, there’s no way you can convince me this page is finished. You just-” “FUCK YOU BITCH, I’M FRANK MILLER!”

And that’s not even the worst example. It’s just the first, worst clue toward how little a fuck Frank Miller gave about the art.

You know what kind of food Strikes Again would be? It would be the cheese and bacon-smeared French fries complimenting your huge-ass, delicious Dark Knight Returns smokehouse burger.

You’d try it once, then bust your friends’ balls for the rest of their lives on how dumb they were for picking the Jack Daniels sauce steak over this piece of culinary art.

They’re greasy as fuck, unnecessary and you can’t even stand to eat them along with the burger, for fear of ruining the taste it has left in your palate, opting instead to try a few, then push them to the side of the table and never take a second look at them again.

They’re the culinary equivalent of trying to date that stripper you met on your bachelor party.

Addendum:

Another theme that’s made apparent in the intro of both Returns and Strikes Again is how much Frank Miller is counting on something much greater than us to come and save us in our time of need.

And I get that. I get what he means by presenting Batman as the ultimate human symbol and Superman as the almighty agent of the machine that oppresses us, but let’s face facts here:

If this story was written any better, it would have been Superman that would have been the bad guy. Why? Because Superman already knew how corrupt and far gone his enemies were and would have anticipated Batman’s return in the near future.

Also, by the end of Returns, Superman’s defeat changes his way of thinking: Instead of reporting back to his corrupt, retarded leaders, he opts to keep his own agenda. So what’s exactly stopping Superman, who knows his masters/supervisors are evil as fuck and irresponsible to boot?

Nothing. Absoluytely fucking nothing.

I understand that Miller decided to take the safer solution and make Luthor and Brainiac the villains, but let’s be honest here: the resolution shows that they had nothing on the Last Son of Krypton in the first place. It meant that Superman (if not dumbed down for the purposes of this narrative) would have whooped their asses and taken over.

And that’s the kind of story I’d love to write and/or read. Batman and the JLA fighting against Superman, with a repeat of the Batman vs Superman showdown from Returns, albeit with a shitload more explosions.