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Little thing, little thing,
you’ve such a long way to go…
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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.
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| 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.
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| Little did that cynical tyrant know that his reign was coming to an end. |
The day of
revolution came on the eve of my 12th birthday, when I stumbled upon
the SINGLE MOST AWESOME AND IMPOSSIBLE THING EVER:
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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.
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| 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 19th 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 20th 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 21st 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.
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| 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…
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| 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 20th 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.
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 17th 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:
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| Even in the green pastures of Arcadia, you will find death, o man. |
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