Stories About Messiahs [NSFW]

Pullman: Lots of Jews in this city. Lots of desperation, too. Who gives a fuck, right? I know, I know.
But it reminds me of another place, and another time. Judaea, couple of thousand years back.
Wilson: Judaea?
Pullman: Under the Roman yoke. Exactly. A people who never lost in war, now taking it up the ass on a daily basis. The desperate, Tallis.
And the disenfranchised. The most fertile soil in the whole damn world.
And you know what grows in that soil? I'll tell you.
Fucking messiahs.
Wilson: You mean...stories about messiahs?
Pullman: What else would I fucking mean?
Imagine a baby in a basket. Bullrushes. Or a stable. Some garbage like that.
But all freshly painted. The basket's a flying saucer. The baby's an alien.
Once that shit gets into the system, it takes blood and sweat to get it out again.

- The Unwritten #28

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

Oh man, I love this quote. I really do. Especially the part in the panel that I included in this post. "Imagine a baby in a basket. Bullrushes. Or a stable. Some garbage like that. But all freshly painted. The basket's a flying saucer. The baby's an alien." Of course the author Mike Carey is alluding to Superman here, comparing him to Moses and Jesus. This is not a new idea.

Really, the basic starting point when exploring theology or religion and graphic literature is the comparison of Superman to Christ. In the most vague terms, their origins sound very similar. A father sends his only son to Earth. When he grows up, he embarks on a mission to save anyone who calls out to him.

Again, this is not a new line of thinking. Speaking about Superman, Greg Garret writes in in his book Holy Superheroes! that "...at the heart of things, he is nothing less than a representation of the Messiah, the Chosen One of God: Emanu-El, 'God with Us'' (Garrett, 19). 

But that is oversimplifying things. Garrett quotes Mark Millar as saying, "Superman resonates with everyone because he's an amalgamation of the legends we've loved for 5000 years. He's Moses, Hercules, Icarus, and Jesus Christ all rolled up inside one American flag. He's the greatest fictional character of our time" (Garret, 17-18). Millar makes a good point here. The Superman/Jesus analogue isn't perfectly exact. Instead, Superman assumes traits from many stories, legends, and heroes. This makes more sense than the idea that two Jewish youths created a superhero based solely on the Christian savior.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, were indeed of Jewish ancestry. And that is an interesting idea that Pullman puts forth in this quote: Jewish people tell stories about messiahs that change the world. In The Unwritten, Pullman works for some sort of cabal that tries to control the world by controlling its stories. He seems quite worried that a new Jewish messiah would be impossible to control.

So I wonder, is there something to this? Is there something inherent in Jewish culture and history that makes them especially adept at telling stories about messiahs? They have a great track record. Out of their slavery in Egypt, the Israelites told the story of Moses, who led them out from their oppression. When they were ruled by the Romans, some of them began to spread the story of Jesus. This messianic figure was soon adopted primarily by gentiles and Rome eventually became a Christian state.

Of course Pullman should be worried about a Jewish comic book creator starting to tell messianic stories in the 1930's. Again, I'll let Greg Garrett speak on this: "It was easy to see why Siegel and Shuster were led to create a superhuman hero. It was the late 1930s; America was still stuck in the Great Depression. Overseas, Hitler had begun his march of expansion, the Japanese were rattling their swords, and disturbing stories were coming back from the Jews in Europe about the virulent anti-Semitism they were encountering and growing dread about the future" (Garret, 18).

In a way, he also agrees with Pullman's assessment. "In times of trouble, Jews, like all people, have remembered reassuring stories" (Garret, 18). It just so happens that these stories tend to be about great savior figures that still have a great influence in the world thousands of years later. Just think about how much of our society is structured or affected by Moses and the 10 Commandments or the life and teachings of Jesus.

Has Superman had that big of an impact? No. But then, we've only been telling stories about him for less than a century. Remember, it took a couple hundred years before those stories about Jesus really took hold in the Roman Empire.

Yeah, I just made that implication. Because why not? Superman isn't going away anytime soon. Man of Steel comes out in 2013.

And then there's stuff like this out on the internet that I come across from time to time. Whether they really intended to or not, Siegel and Shuster did tell stories about a messiah.

All Star Superman #10.