It’s very rare for Christians to criticise superhero stories, let alone on the basis of the characters being demonic without complaining about magic. Spider-Man being based on a demon seems really plausible given he has to do the Devil’s Horns whenever he makes silk, though he could’ve used an ordinary hand sign instead to do the same thing. Not to mention he scarcely looks like a spider, apart from any attempts at making him resemble one and I’m saying this as an arachnophobe. I feel the existence of the Spider-Man stories and the way their authors construed the characters to be seems like a mockery of one of God’s creations (spiders), like instead of making Peter Parker make spider-webs with an ordinary hand gesture, he does the Devil’s Horns instead.
Conflating the innocent (spiders) with the demonic (Spider-Man doing the Devil’s Horns), it’s like the Devil’s out to undermine Christianity in some other way, that’s by making a heroic figure do this gesture whilst making silk. If the Devil’s out to destroy people, perhaps it’s no surprise why later writers would have Peter Parker make a deal with the Devil to annul his marriage to Mary Jane. Whilst divorce and the like are painful, but when you have a heroic figure who not only does the Devil sign but also makes a deal with the Devil to end or undo a relationship just to save a family member it’s like the writers are giving into the Devil’s ability to tear apart families. To the point where it may not be worth supporting the Spider-Man stories anymore, especially if writers continue to undermine Christianity in some way.
But perhaps despite consuming Marvel media before, I never really became a big Marvel fan. Not that I dislike Marvel and I do like some Marvel characters myself like Tigra for instance, but there’s something about the Marvel canon that feels spiritually odious, the more Christian I get. DC, which is something I’m more familiar with, does have its own spate of spiritually dubious heroes in the forms of Blue Devil, Kid Devil, Zatanna, Zatara, Timothy Hunter, the Enchantress and more because they are either demonic or practise magic themselves (which is forbidden in the Bible). Marvel has its own with Scarlet Witch, Agatha Harkness (who’s reimagined as a younger woman as of late), Illyana (demonic and also does magic), Nightcrawler (a Christian who looks demonic), Daredevil, Damian Hellstrom, Doctor Strange and Satanna.
But the disturbing thing with Marvel is that a handful of them have had their own dedicated magazine series before, with Daredevil several times over. There was a Doctor Strange writer who got into the occult whilst telling the character’s stories, DC has this cornered with Alan Moore being into Aleister Crowley style witchcraft and Grant Morrison being into chaos magic as well. But the Marvel thing is even more disgusting because the two characters who are practising Christians (Daredevil and Nightcrawler) also resemble the Devil and/or demons, it’s like those at Marvel call evil good and good evil, especially with demonised portrayals of practising Christians who don’t fall into this portrayal at all. Not just with Reverend William Stryker being a preacher and an enemy of the X-Men.
But also how the X-Men’s lone sympathetic Protestant Rahne Sinclair has been brainwashed twice into attacking innocent people, like the X-Men writers seem to have a demeaning view of Christianity as something that brainwashes people. I don’t think DC has done something like this outside of less popular magazine stories, well to my knowledge, and if I’m not mistaken Peter David (who also worked on Marvel stories himself) had Supergirl merge with a girl who got involved in something wrong, with both of them coming to do right as an angel or something. Though this portrayal was eventually undone when Supergirl reverted to being Superman’s cousin again, but if portraying Cassandra Cain as a sympathetic Christian is too much for publishers, what does this say about their view on Christianity?
That Christianity as done by practising Christians is an inconvenience at best, whereas polytheistic religions are portrayed more sympathetically and lovingly instead. It would be uncontroversial to say that both DC and Marvel portray magic and characters practising this more sympathetically than they would with Christianity, let alone without messing around to the point where a character like Rahne Sinclair’s a sad exception to the rule. A practising Christian who doesn’t look like a demon gets brainwashed twice into doing evil, whereas demonic looking characters are almost always on the side of good. Calling good evil and evil good, perhaps the way they portray Christianity is really messed up. There are superhero stories out there that portray Christianity more respectfully, most notably Power Mark. But he too is an exception to the rule.
The superhero school isn’t necessarily anti-Christian, if Power Mark’s any indication, but large swathes of both the DC and Marvel canon are unfortunately anti-Christian. Not just in condoning magic, but also anything and everything else despised in the Bible.
fynm 