This is why people call comic books our modern day mythology. Small little connections in stories like this show that these myths are part of universe building.
And while we are talking about comics, let's address how, like the Greek, we venerate people who do horrible things as heroes in our tradition. The first person that comes to mind is the Punisher.
I was tempted to use the picture from the swimsuit edition.This guy kills anyone who could be considered at all bad, and does so viciously. However the marvel universe clearly shows that nobody really agrees with or likes Frank here. So lets try a more reputable group, like the avengers.
The Scarlet Witch is a former terrorist who later attempted to kill her closest friends and managed to destroy the Avengers.
Hawkeye divorced his wife because she "killed" her immortal rapist.
The Vision tried to take over the world and the internet.
Thor I guess invaded a country. That's kind of uncool.
Hank Pym (Ant-Man) beat his wife, betrayed the Avengers, is blonde, and made a robot responsible for the death of the entire population of a fictional country about the size of Lithuania.
Iron man has done way too much awful stuff. There's no point in really going over it all so I'll just summarize that he is an arrogant, manipulative, and controlling gentleman.
Your comment about Ant-man being bad because he's blonde made me laugh. According to How I Met Your Mother, being blonde indicates that someone isn't a real man, so your comment must be valid. Though I'm not familiar with the actual stories of many of these characters, I think what you have written definitely supports that modern stories have not deviated much from the framework of ancient myths.
ReplyDeleteThis is truly an education for me. I didn't know any of these characters, and I am impressed at the wide range of problematic behavior (including being blond!) that these heroes show.
ReplyDeleteBryce, you are just too funny. I also agree that invading a country is kind of uncool of Thor :) Very good and unique examples. I honestly was not too familiar with the characters you gave examples for and it really helped prove the point of how our super heroes today are similar to that of ancient times. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDelete