Daily Batman

Cover to Batgirl #13. Art by Artgerm.

No Less Potent, No Less Terrible

Scorn not the Gods: Despite their non-existence in material terms, they're no less potent, no less terrible.
The only place Gods inarguable exist is in our minds where they are real beyond refute, in all their grandeur and monstrosity.
What's Mars but mankind's violent attributes personified? Or Aphrodite, save mankind's desires? The Homeristic sages recognized all Gods as aspects of "The One" yet missed the greater truth.
"The One" is us, each with a pantheon of Gods in our Right Brain, whence inspiration and all instinct springs.
Athena gives us automobiles, Mars our Mahdi uprisings. Is that not plague and miracle enough to sate the God of Exodus?

From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

Daily Batman

Cover to Batgirl #12. Art by Artgerm.

Our Lunatics Were Prophets Once

William: Born in the Eighteenth century, our greatest prophet, William Blake, experienced visions; spoke with Milton's ghost, or the Apostle Paul...
Netley: Sound barmy.
William: Possibly.
And yet, as Alexander Gilchrist, Blake's biographer, suggests, 'Tis but comparatively recently that seeing visions would call into doubt a person's sanity.
Why, Roman military logs describe divine encounters quite routinely; less remarkable than horse-shoes lost or Quartermaster's lists. Our brains were different then: The Gods seemed real.
..........
In Gilchrist's words, Blake's spiritually belonged to earlier ages of the world, since when, as Hazlitt has remarked "The Heavens have gone further off."
Our lunatics were prophets once, and had a prophet's power. Never forget that, Netley.

From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

Daily Batman

Cover to Birds of Prey #7. Art by Stanley "Artgerm" Lau.

All About Getting Presents

Pope: What's the matter?
Jesus: Christmas. Everybody's worried about what they're getting and what they're getting other people.
Nobody cares about my birthday anymore...it's all about getting presents!
It's like I was never even born.
When people hear "Christmas" they think of trees before they think of me!
It was bad enough when my mom used to tell me all my Christmas presents were for my birthday, too!

Battle Pope #11

by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Cory Walker

Daily Batman

You know how comics are supposed to be all dark and realistic now? That clearly wasn't always the case.

A Task Most Difficult

Father: Think less on tomorrow's work, boy, and more upon today's.
The Lord has his own plans for each of us, and tis vanity to speculate.
The scriptures...ung...The scriptures say "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and hurp...to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"
Son: Yes, father.
You are right.
Father: Uwp.
Son: Father? Is it vanity to hope the Lord may choose for me a task most difficult?
Father: No, that would seem a worthy Christian attribute, so long as it were not for glory's sake.
Son: Oh no.
Though I should have a task most difficult, most necessary and severe, I should not care if none save I did hear of my achievement.
Only the Lord and I shall know.
And that shall be sufficient.

From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

Daily Batman

Batman and Robin #15

Pulp Fiction [NSFW]

Yorick: You will know I am the LORD when I lay my vengeance upon you!
Amazon 1: That's not real Scripture, it's a line from fucking Pulp Fict--

- Y The Last Man #25

by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

Daily Batman

Because Batman: The Animated Series is one of the best cartoons and best iterations of Batman ever produced.

Would You Rather Have Toys?

Is dying for your sins not good enough?!
Would you rather have toys instead of the chance to go to Heaven?!
Is that what it's all about? Toys?!!

Battle Pope #11

by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Cory Walker

Daily Batman

Cover to Gotham Knights #59. Art by Jae Lee.

Run by Humans [NSFW]

Beth: Anyway, Magdalene Asylums were an Irish-Catholic thing, spiritual sanctuaries for "sinful women." You know...prostitutes, abuse victims, flirts.
The hilariously misnamed Sisters of Mercy would lock these girls inside sweatshops, force them to work under the whip for their penance.
And this wasn't the Dark Ages, mind you. I found out my biological mom died in one of these hellholes in fucking 1989.
So you don't need to tell me how screwed-up the church was, all right? You're preaching to the goddamn choir.
Amazon 1: If that's true...then renounce your God.
Beth: Go to hell.
Amazon 1: Renounce your allegiance to this patriarchal hate machine...or I kill you where you stand.
Beth: Patriarchal? Did you hear anything I just said?
The church wasn't fucked-up because it was run by men, it was fucked-up because it was run by humans.

- Y The Last Man #25

by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

100th Post!!!

Yes, that is correct! This is the 100th post on Wednesday Theology! Hooray! Are you excited? I'm excited! And I'm quite impressed that my attention span has lasted this long. It's been fun. I've enjoyed working on this and throwing my thoughts and findings up on the interwebs for all the world to see.

How about you, faithful AFB (Avid Fan Base)? Have you enjoyed it as well? I hope you have. If not, let me know what I can do to improve your Wednesday Theology experience.

So what is this 100th post going to be about? Daily Quotes. Because I love finding them and sharing them. It's always fascinating to me to dig around in a comic collection and suddenly find a bunch of theological issues mentioned or discussed. As of this writing, there are currently 48 posts with the Daily Quotes tag. Which I think is just great. If someone asks me (or even you!) what comic books have to do with theology, I (or you!) can just point them to this list of 48 examples of theology and graphic literature colliding. And I plan on that list only getting longer and longer.

So, 48 quotes. Let's have a quick rundown of my favorite five of them. In no particular order:

Daily Batman

Art by the always fantastic J.H. Williams III

Majored in Theology

Yorick: Time out...you're not a nun, are you?
Beth: Ha! The opposite, pretty much. I'm a flight attendant. Was, obviously.
But I majored in theology back in Georgetown. Sorta fell away from the church after I graduated.
Hey, have you heard of Agnes Snoth? I did my thesis paper on her.
Back in the 1500's, she and three other women used to preach against auricular confessions. They thought it was sinful to ask a man for what only God can grant.
Yorick: How'd that go over?
Beth: Not too great. The Catholics doused them with oil and set them on fire.

 - Y The Last Man #24

by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

Illness Overcomes Obsession

Hey AFB. I'm still here. For the most part. I got hit hard this week with a case of the I Don't Feel Too Good. Yeah, I've been ill. Under the weather, even. So, I sincerely apologize that there haven't been any updates so far this week. I'm recovering, getting back up to speed, and things will be right as rain soon.

That is a weird saying. Right as rain? Why is rain right? And why is that just accepted as a correct and good thing? Whatever.

Anyway...did anybody even notice I've been absent? I know the AFB is fictional, but there are some real people out there that actually read this. A very few amount of real people, sure. But, there is a Comments feature, you know.

Anyway, yeah, I realize the absence of this blog these past few days probably disrupted no one's life. But that is irrelevant. Take it away, Oswald Chambers:

The tendency is to look for the marvelous in our experience; we mistake the sense of the heroic for being heroes. It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, no one paying the remotest attention to us.

Ouch. And this is what I take out of it as I apply it to Wednesday Theology. Even if no one else is reading this, I'm still going to do it and still try to make it as exceptional as I can. I'm still going to approach it as if this is what God has currently called me to do, even if it seems like there is no one paying the remotest attention to me and this blog.

And can I tell you something? The more I work on this blog, the more I love it. And the more I talk about you, the AFB, the more I love you guys. Fictional, real, whatever. You guys are awesome.

Daily Batman

Batman. He's your friend.

Making Myths

I'm making myths. For an age that doesn't have any of its own yet.

- The Unwritten #28

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

Daily Batman

Batman and Robin #3.

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

Daily Batman

This is why the internet exists. Thank you, internet. Thank you.

Transubstantiation

Yorick: Have you taken communion since you started looking after Saint...whatever this place is called?
Beth: St. Bernadette's. And how could I? Women can't consecrate the Host.
Without a priest, it's not the body of Christ, it's just...stale bread.
Yorick: Oh, come on. Did you ever really think you were eating Jesus' actual flesh and blood?
That's not Catholicism, it's cannibalism.
Beth: No, it's transubstantiation, and it's what set us apart from the heathens. We had magicians in our tribe.

 - Y The Last Man #25

by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

Daily Batman

Mad Swears

Hey there, AFB. We need to have a little talk about language. Specifically, the graphic variety. Specifically specifically, the graphic as in obscene, vulgar, or expletive variety.

Comic books are for kids. Right?

Christianity is family friendly. Right?

Auricular Confessions

Beth: Well, I wish I could help cleanse your conscience, but the Church only recognizes auricular confessions.
Yorick: Sorry?
Beth: You know, sins confessed to a priest. And since God decided to have a penis when he became incarnate in his son, only men are allowed to hear--

 - Y The Last Man #24

by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

I Do Wednesday Theology

I grew up in a church that had a pretty heavy focus on missions, both domestic and abroad. This small, rural church was frequently visited by missionaries from all over the globe. World missions was important, but so was reaching the locals all around us. We were always encouraged to witness to those around us that we saw every day, like neighbors, friends, and family.

I sucked at it.

Daily Batman

From Let's Be Friends Again. I think.

I CAN SEE YOU!

Animal Man: I CAN SEE YOU!

- Animal Man #19

By Grant Morrison and Chas Truog

Does anyone else find it a little disturbing when the characters in a story you're reading realize they can see you? Of course, it is probably far more disturbing for the characters...

Remember, Remember

Why, yes, of course I'm watching V for Vendetta today. The graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd have basically made today a geek holiday. Actually, the graphic novel, along with the 2006 movie adaptation, have transcended geek culture and infected the zeitgeist of today's youth.

Daily Batman

Art by Jock

Thunderings and Lightnings

There were voices...
...and thunderings, and lightnings...
...and an earthquake.
And there followed hail and fire mingled with blood.
There fell a great star from heaven, burning as if it were a lamp...
...and I beheld, and heard an Angel...
...saying with a loud voice...
...woe, woe, WOE to the inhabiters of the Earth.

-  Kingdom Come #1

by Mark Waid and Alex Ross

Daily Batman

All Dreaming the Same Dreams

Wilson: Radio. And newspapers. Movies. Paperbacks.
Miri: We call them pocket books over here.
Wilson: Whatever you call them, Miri. They're the future, is what I'm saying.
Miri: Actually...the future is the audience who reads and watches those things, isn't it? A million people, all dreaming the same dreams. Dreams that will still be there when they wake up. That's what I want to do, I think. Reach into people's minds, and paint dreams there.

- The Unwritten #28

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

Daily Batman

Cover to Batman: Noel by Lee Bermejo. New Today!

Sense of Humor

Are you there, God?
It's me, Margaret.
Heh.
Little Judy Blume humor for ya.
Come on, you've got a sense of humor, right?
Killing all the men on Earth except for the one who actually likes Judy Blume?

- Y The Last Man #24

by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

Daily Batman

Art by Jim Lee.

Rarer Than a Quark

Dr. Manhattan: Thermodynamic miracles...events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing.
And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive, meeting, siring this precise son, that exact daughter...
...Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged.
To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold...
That is the crowning unlikelihood.
The thermodynamic miracle.
Laurie: But...if me, my birth, if that's a thermodynamic miracle...I mean, you could say that about anybody in the world!
Dr. Manhattan: Yes.
Anybody in the world.
...But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget...
I forget.
We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away.
Come...dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.

- Watchmen #9

by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons