Zionist cartoons

When it comes to discussions about Zionism in X-Men, it does become particularly obvious concerning one particularly prolific scribe’s contributions to the X-Men canon. Chris Claremont is a man who admitted he doesn’t relate well to black people and Russians, spent time in Israel and the like to the point of feeling more sympathetic to Jews than he would with black people. Not that he dislikes them but it does explain why Storm’s written the way she is, and why in the earlier stories she was kind of othered. She is written through an Orientalist lens where she is an exotic black woman, the way she’s written is communicated through outdated ideas about Africans and African women most especially. From what I’ve seen African women don’t really go about in really skimpy outfits anymore, they even dress no differently from their western counterparts at this point. They speak the same languages as their colonisers do, well that’s what colonialism does to places like Nigeria and Ghana.

Many Africans are Christians and a good number of them are practising Christians even, something common depictions of Storm fail to take into account. She is ostensibly Kenyan but apparently doesn’t know that Boxing Day exists, even when it’s recognised as a holiday in not only Britain but also Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. Given writers indicate that Nightcrawler is German by sprinkling in German words whenever he talks, it shouldn’t be any different if writers did this to Storm when it comes to Swahili. It might even be more plausible because both Swahili and English are the national languages of Kenya, so a degree of code-switching would be inevitable. Unfortunately Marvel never bothered hiring Kenyan writers to do Storm stories, even when Kenya’s own Shujaaz publishes comics as well.

So roping in Shujaaz writers to write Storm stories shouldn’t be a stretch, since many Kenyans are bilingual in Swahili and English to varying degrees. There is a good argument for the Jewishness of the X-Men canon, given a number of X-Men’s seminal writers are Jewish themselves. Most notably Stan Lee, Brian Michael Bendis and Chris Claremont, where it does make sense to see mutants as glorified Jews. They don’t look much different from humans, but are distrusted for certain reasons. The strongly Jewish and then the strongly Zionist sensibilities inculcated into the X-Men canon could explain why there’s not a lot of mutants who speak in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Welsh, Cheyenne, Apache and Hmong, as opposed to just one character (Kitty Pryde) speaking in some Yiddish herself. Whilst having mutants speak minority languages other than Yiddish would powerfully push the metaphor more, it’s not something that interests them.

Or most X-Men fans for another matter, even when it would’ve helped people learn minority languages themselves. I really got into learning Irish from listening to bands like Altan, people get into learning Japanese from watching anime (Japanese animations). People get into learning Korean from listening to K-Pop, having Pixie speak Welsh or Rahne Sinclair speak Scottish Gaelic is potentially no different either. But these never really came to pass, even when it could’ve piqued someone else’s interest into learning such a language. The X-Men canon is Zionist nearly all the way, whether if it’s the mutant homelands being frequently likened to Israel, the antagonistic Arabs in the form of the Shadow King or how and why more attention’s paid to Jewish languages like Yiddish than to Gentile minority languages like Cheyenne, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. It even makes speakers of these languages even more underrepresented this way.

If Hebrew deserved to get revived, shouldn’t it also apply to Welsh? The argument is just as strong given it was suppressed in Wales for ages once it got incorporated into the United Kingdom, having Pixie speak in Welsh might make other people want to learn Welsh, even when they’re not Welsh themselves. But the pro-Zionist bent a number of X-Men writers have, accidental or not, would have this ignored for long. The pro-Zionist bent would explain why Jewish characters like Kitty Pryde and Magneto that even at their most deplorable are still portrayed more sympathetically than is given to others, sort of like how and why Kitty gets away with the same thing that got John Proudstar, a Native American, into trouble but thrice as he died until lately. That is angrily talking back to Professor Xavier, who’s the actual leader and figurehead of the wider X-Men organisation, John Proudstar did this once and then died. Kitty Pryde does this thrice and gets no lasting consequences for this, that it’s racist why a brown character had to suffer from the consequences of doing the same thing that a white character often gets away with.

It’s kind of bad enough that Chris Claremont identifies more with her to the point where assumptions that she is a Mary Sue might be kind of justified in here, which would explain why she’s written the way she is and doing the same thing that gets a brown character into trouble. If a Mary Sue character is an idealised author-surrogate, then it makes sense to label Kitty Pryde as such when under Claremont’s pen. It risks being kind of racist whenever an Arab character’s portrayed kind of unsympathetically, especially if they’re the only Arab around or that a brown character like John Proudstar is unable to get away with doing what Kitty Pryde does to Professor Xavier on a really bad day. The Zionist influence still lingers as Kitty Pryde’s apparently not above massacring an entire group of people and yet not get charged with murder, whereas actual marginalised criminals like Axel Rudakubana and Audrey Hale are slammed for doing something similar.

It’s even more telling that both of them are like Kitty Pryde in the sense of being moody but unassuming people with marginalised identities who take their anger out on people by killing them, Kitty Pryde even did this multiple times before. She killed somebody with a sword, threatens to kill William Stryker, has killed Emma Frost in one apocryphal story and isn’t above killing a lot of people in a single go. Whilst it’s true that Chris Claremont didn’t write these other episodes himself, but there is a precedent for this in his own run. It’s not just that Kitty Pryde has killed somebody out of anger before, but that she’s shown to fly into a rage quite often. She’s thrown tantrums, overreacted to Storm’s makeover, beating up a boy for being a bigot, beating up her classmates out of anger and then getting mad at a creature named Douglock.

Both Rudakubana and Hale were described as irritable and the former was even violent to his own classmates, that seems to resemble Kitty Pryde a lot. It could even be argued that what became of Kitty Pryde gives an idea of how and why both Audrey Hale and Axel Rudakubana ended up doing what they did to others, the anger at others was there before but it eventually escalated to the point of becoming very vicious. Kitty Pryde’s actually shown to be rather vicious when moody, vindictive even towards those she hates that she’s actually far from a nice person when looked at objectively speaking. But it’s not seen as it actually is because of the Zionist bias many X-Men writers and fans have, even when Kitty Pryde’s resulting personality more strongly resembles those of Axel Rudakubana and Audrey Hale than it does with the nonviolent protests done by many well-meaning activists.

DC’s Stephanie Brown does have a temper herself, but Kitty Pryde’s consistently more ruthless in her dealings. To my knowledge, many Batman writers don’t seem Zionist and it shows that a Gentile character like Stephanie Brown is allowed to suffer from the consequences of her mistakes in a way Kitty Pryde’s not allowed to when it comes to Zionists like Chris Claremont, even when she’s shown to be much more vicious towards people than Stephanie will ever be. My experience with the Batman canon’s pretty limited but it’s kind of obvious that Stephanie doesn’t seem to be excused a lot for her shortcomings the way it’s done to Kitty Pryde, despite both characters being kind of hot-tempered. It’s kind of telling that another Gentile like Jason Todd also doesn’t get excused for what he does either.

On a geopolitical scale this is reflected in the way western media portrays Russia and Israel as, both of them are white-majority countries but when Russia oppresses Ukraine it’s immediately painted as a bad guy. When Israel does the same thing to Palestine, it gets excused for doing this. It’s a double standard that gets people into boycotting Israel a lot, that if Eurovision banned Russia for oppressing Ukraine then it ought to do to Israel in kind towards Palestine. Israel has a strong one of us vibe that Russia doesn’t have, in the sense of being pro-gay rights and allied with America. Russia, despite being white-majority, is farthest from this in a sense. It’s not big on gay rights, kind of politically incorrect and one of America’s biggest enemies, Israel resembles other western countries more. Not just in being pro-gay rights but also having a lot of immigrants from nearly all over the world.

No different from countries like Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands in a way, to the point where any suspicion of Israel being a settler colony might be onto something. Though a historical Israel did exist, it’s most likely very different from political Israel. The modern nation-state of Ghana named itself from another African empire altogether, since it’s really the successor state to the Ashanti Empire. Another point of difference is that Ghana’s not that big on gay rights like Russia, which makes it more different from the west at present than Israel is. One possible reason why a number of Gentiles readily warm up to Zionism is the subconscious belief that Jews are the ultimate model minority, in some regards much moreso than with East Asians. Not just numerically because many East Asian countries (Vietnam, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan and Thailand) are densely populated.

But that Jews have resided in the west for a much longer period of time that they’re practically less othered than East Asians are, despite three of them being subjected to European colonialism before. Most especially Indonesia and the Philippines for nearly the same period of time together, but when it’s not uncommon for Jews to make it in high-earning fields coupled with being less ‘different’ from presumably Protestant-majority populations in some European countries that gives them a strong model minority glow that’s not afforded to others to the same degree. Coming from a Protestant background it’s not uncommon for a lot of Protestants to be more sympathetic to Jews, on the belief that Jews are Protestant-lite. I really personally don’t know much about Judaism but it does have the appearance of being Protestant-lite in some regards, even when Jewish temple services could still differ from their Protestant counterparts.

With both Protestant and Catholic sermons, they start with reciting Bible verses/scriptures before getting to the meat of the message. But Judaism seems more Protestant-lite simply because Catholicism relies on the intercession of saints and Mother Mary to help sort things out, even when it doesn’t always appear to be this way with the latter where despite the existence of feast days many Catholics don’t actually worship them for most of the part. Mind you I have a habit of listening to Catholic sermons a lot these days, though it can be selective at times but generally it’s not always the case. Even then I feel Zionism is an ideology that’s easy for Philo-Semites (which Protestantism has a lot of those) to latch onto due to a feeling that Jews are kind of Protestant-lite, that feels much easier to co-opt from and project onto. So they really are a model minority’s model minority in a way that’s not the case with the Romani.

They’re another immigrant group that moved to Europe but from India and although they’re just as disadvantaged as Jews are at various points, they don’t attract that same model minority glow. Although both Jason Todd and Stephanie Brown aren’t Jewish, nor are they Romani, I don’t consume Batman media enough to know which Batman writer might harbour a Zionist bias themself in any way, but it’s still telling that they’re allowed to suffer from the blowbacks of their mistakes in a way that Chris Claremont and his ilk would never do to Kitty Pryde. It’s like this in the Power Mark comics where the Chinese, Russian, African and Latin American characters are allowed to have flaws to grow from, but other than Biblical characters the Jewish characters don’t seem to have any flaws to get worked on in any way. It’s as if being Jewish is enough to cancel out any failings they have.

It’s like being Jewish is enough to absolve oneself of their own failings, as it’s quite evident that Chris Claremont identifies more with Kitty Pryde than he does with Ororo Munroe and Pyotr Rasputin. The Zionist mindset can’t really imagine that Jews can be and should be held accountable for their own mistakes, the way Gentiles are often allowed to or made to in any way. That’s why Kitty Pryde doesn’t face lasting consequences for her own shortcomings throughout the X-Men canon, if writers did that would mean she actually messed up big time. And why the Zionist bias is painfully strong in the X-Men canon.

He looks drab

Somebody on Reddit postulated that DC’s Poison Ivy/Pamela Isley might not be that good-looking but still manages to seduce men well due to something in her arsenal: the ability to manipulate pheromones, but since it can’t be conveyed well in cartooning as people can’t smell cartoons unless if they have synesthesia, she had to be portrayed as attractive as possible. Though it seems fairly reasonable in the DC Comics canon, barring ongoing sexualisation, but I feel similar things about Nick Carter at this point. I actually had a crush on him when I was younger, but upon getting more exposed to certain bands and musicians that made me realise how plain he dresses.

Like it’s really shocking to realise that the guys at Bauhaus and Duran Duran as well as David Bowie consistently dress much better than he does, that you get the impression that Nick Carter’s rather sartorially drab. He does wear suits but they’re not too fitted to his body, even when he made the means to show it off in another way on a good day. Contrast that to Bauhaus’s David J who not only wears suits from time to time, but that they fit his thin frame well. David Bowie may not be famous for having a wonderful physique, but that’s really nothing compared to his fashion game which is often impeccable. Or for another matter, Prince Nelson for most of the part.

Given how some women appreciate it when men dress well that it makes for a painful irony that barring Duran Duran and Tokio Hotel, western boy band members like those coming from Backstreet Boys dress boring despite that they were heavily marketed to young lasses in their prime, whereas bands like Interpol have members who’re closer to what women want in a man. It’s as if Backstreet Boys are a whole team of Pamela Isleys, rather drab-looking people who manage to seduce folks just fine due to something in their arsenal. Though in their case it’s got to do with marketing that makes them more attractive than they really are at times, coupled with nostalgia that sometimes blinds them to reality at present.

Still they manage to rig things in their favour just the same, no need for supernatural abilities to do the job. One would wonder if bands like Duran Duran, Bauhaus and Interpol could be analogised to any other DC cartoon superheroine, they could easily be whole teams of legitimate glamourpusses instead. People who do care about the way they dress well enough to bother consistently and constantly dressing well on any basis, far moreso than the Backstreet Boys would despite them being constantly marketed to young girls in their youthful heyday, maybe save for DD. It really makes for a painful irony that somebody who’s actually attractive would be overlooked and ends up desexualised by many, despite fitting the criteria in many regards.

Or how somebody could be technically ugly manages to arouse the libidos of others, something in the lines of Adam Driver and frankly, he’s rather a little drab looking yet he’s a good example of how hyping up something or someone makes them more attractive than they should be. It’s like the things with Marvel’s She-Hulk and also the hype around female bodybuilders that marketing and advertising can make them more attractive to certain people in a way they normally wouldn’t do, given female bodybuilders illicit a strong love it or hate it due to their unusual appearances.

It’s like how having considerable amount of muscle tone is appropriate for men to be point of being normalised and expected, yet it’s really unusual if expressed on women. Or for another the Backstreet Boys given the way they dress, especially for themselves, is usually drab and kind of indescripit but due to years of marketing to girls and coupled with the latter’s nostalgia that they come off as more attractive than one would actually find them to be, especially if bands like Interpol may actually fit women’s preferences for well-dressed men more consistently than the Backstreet Boys ever would.

It makes for a weird irony to think that even if Interpol might actually fit women’s preferences much better since its members don’t just dress stylishly, but also constantly so and on their own volition in a way it’s not with the Backstreet Boys, but it’s the Backstreet Boys that have been marketed as pinup idols to teenage girls for so long that it doesn’t feel the way it should. It’s not just Nick Carter who gives me these vibes as I get older from being exposed to more stylish men these days, given one could say similar things about AJ McLean and also Harry Styles, especially regarding one of their hobbies giving others a bad impression.

Since some women feel terrible around crossdressing men that if it weren’t for years of hyping both the Backstreet Boys and One Direction as hotter than they really are, that they’d actually be more repulsed by a crossdressing AJ McLean or Harry Styles than they would with Sam Fogarino (who doesn’t do this thing at all and like everybody else in Interpol, he often wears a suit, to my knowledge). It’s kind of disturbingly ironic that due to years of marketing the Backstreet Boys to teen lasses that they come off as more attractive than they actually are, since their usual fashion sense is way plainer than those of Duran Duran, Bauhaus and Interpol put together.

For every Duran Duran (a band that actually fulfills women’s other requirements for attractive men without even trying), there’s a Backstreet Boys as in it’s got people women wouldn’t normally find attractive, but rigs the game in their favour to pull it off well. Especially when it comes to years of marketing them to kids who’d become nostalgic broads that it went well as expected, despite going against certain women’s expectations for what attractive men should be and do, since the Backstreet Boys don’t normally go about dressing as formally as Interpol’s members do. It’s odd because despite women’s penchant for liking men in suits, it’s the Backstreet Boys that are marketed as hearthrobs for years.

Despite not consistently fulfilling this criteria in their entire lives, but everybody in Interpol does this yet aren’t marketed as hearthrobs for girls. It’s weirdly ironic but this goes to show you the power of marketing, to the point of influencing people’s tastes in idealised men and women.

Combinations

Believe it or not there was an attempt to combine both DC and Marvel characters into one back in the 1990s, with people coming up with their own combinations years later and this is known as Amalgam Comics. It’s kind of influential in its own right, inspiring fans to create their own versions of it in some way. Here are my attempts at creating my own Amalgam comics, some combinations may even be strange for some. Dark Claw is one official attempt at mashing up Wolverine with Batman, with Jubilation Lee being analogised to Tim Drake. There was somebody at a forum who suggested Shadow Bat (combination of Kitty Pryde and Cassandra Cain) but I don’t think it’s a good or even creative combination, given how Cassandra Cain regrets killing people whereas Kitty Pryde doesn’t hesitate to do the same, especially at this point.

She’s killed somebody in anger before, she’s beaten up people in anger a couple of times, she’s even killed Emma Frost at some point, she habitually throws fits, frequently gets angry at Professor Xavier (and Emma Frost), she threatened to kill somebody, landed in therapy for anger management and as of 2023, she has massacred an entire group of people. So analogising her to Jason Todd would be more suitable, since he’s also got a temper and doesn’t hesitate to kill people too. Cassandra Cain’s way too much of a goody two shoes to pull off the things Kitty Pryde has no shame in doing, whereas Jason Todd would do just that despite not having superpowers himself. So this amalgam would be Alley Cat (hood is also an abbreviation of neighbourhood), in real life his name would be Jason Pryde because Jason Todd takes pride in killing people.

Imagine a gunman who goes through walls, looking for people to shoot or murder in some way. Since Kitty Pryde pointed a gun at somebody before, Jason Pryde would do the same thing because he’s really more of the same thing too. Remember cats have nine lives, so Jason Pryde phasing out of his coffin fits. Analogising Cassandra Cain to Jubilee is suitable because considering how fireworks can injure or kill somebody, Cassandra Lee would be very judicious and cautious with how she uses this ability for fear of repeating the same thing again and again. Despite or rather because of having a more lethal ability, Cassandra Lee would never be as ruthless as Jason Pryde is when dealing with enemies. So it’s something this poster didn’t consider regarding Cass Cain’s own conduct.

Another combination would be mashing up the other X-Man Cannonball with Firestorm to get something like Warhead, but since the other half is a scientist so the latter could be mashed up with Roberto Da Costa to yield Robert Stein. Mashing up Tabitha with Plastique would be easy, ability wise but she’d be willing to kill lives this time. Mashing up Rahne Sinclair with Killer Frost yields Snowdrop because wolfsbane’s also the name of a plant, assuming if the latter also becomes a werewolf then it would be too seamless. Mashing up Thinker with Dani Moonstar would be interesting in that Clifford Moonstar has issues with Warhead for tinkering with his reservation’s territory, considering the problem with nuclear colonialism onto indigenous lands. I could be wrong about certain things, so bear with me.

Now as for Mystique, there’s a missed opportunity in mashing her up with either the Joker or even Harley Quinn to get something like Brighella. Both the harlequin and the brighella come from Italian street theatre (commedia dell’arte) but the brighella is clad in mostly white. Mystique also usually wears white clothing, so mashing her up with Harley Quinn to get Brighella is something not many have considered. Even if this is a very interesting combination that if Sabretooth’s analogised to the Joker, shouldn’t Mystique be analogised to Harley Quinn by then? One would only wonder why nobody bothered to analogise Catwoman to Sabretooth, if because they’re both cat-themed in some way or another.

Considering that the sabretooth is also a felid, one could mashup Catwoman with Sabretooth to get Smilodon. Mashing up Wolverine with Batman has already happened before, but I feel calling this combination ‘Dark Claw’ sounds really stupid in my opinion. Renaming him to something like Lynx works in that it’s a predator that hunts at the wee hours of the morning, it also has retractile claws so it kind of does sum up the things he does. Much like the wolverine, Canada does have at least a handful of lynx species but most notably both the Canada lynx and the bobcat. Apparently we’ve got three felids around in the forms of Smilodon, Lynx and Alley Cat.

I’m at a loss to give Cassandra Lee a codename, whereas analogising Harley Quinn to Mystique to get Brighella is an interesting combination. Now as for X23 who’s a proper female counterpart to Wolverine, even when Kitty Pryde could’ve easily be her and at some point did come close to it a couple of times before in the X-Men canon, mashing up her with Spoiler to get something like Polecat. Polecats hunt by stealth and surprise, a spoiler is something or someone that spoils. Also polecats, like wolverines, are mustelids despite the name. Polecats were also used to hunt mice before the introduction of cats to Europe, much like how dogs were used to hunt mice and rats in China before the same thing happened.

Whilst mashing up Wolverine’s son Daken with Damien Wayne is nice, one would wonder why nobody bothered to mashup Forge with Tim Drake since both tend to be tech-orientated, though mashing him up with Barbara Gordon would work just as fine. Though I think an indigenous woman working in tech would be really interesting to consider, given how underrepresented this is and especially so in fiction. I actually know two Native American women (who are also white-passing) who have an affinity with video games, but only one of them knows her way around technologies meant to do drawing with. Also both Forge and Barbara Gordon are/were disabled, though in their own respective ways.

Whilst mashing up Barbara Gordon with Charles Xavier would be the more predictable conclusion, but I don’t think Charles is really this technology-orientated. Forge would be a more interesting and suitable character to mash her up with, if because indigenous women working in STEM are ridiculously underrepresented. Now that’s something not many have considered or contemplated, even moreso considering that there are Native American women who do know their way around high-tech devices. It’s something that does deserve more creativity and thought put into it, because these characters are practically absent in superhero media (well, as far as I know about it).

Mashing up Rogue with Tim Drake to get something like Carrion Crow or even Magpie is another combination that not many considered, even if some birds have a habit of stealing things from others (aka kleptoparasitism). Combining Rogue’s ability to absorb others’ abilities with Tim Drake’s high intelligence would lead to interesting ways of undermining opponents, something like Hunter x Hunter’s Chrollo Lucilfer who kind of does the same thing really. An interesting combination that wasn’t considered or done in the original version of the Amalgam stories, even if this would be interesting to portray really.

I don’t read comics that often, and even then a good number of them leave much to be desired. Especially the Marvel and DC Comics wherein if they make a lot of comics, they’ll also make a lot of stuff that’s kind of mediocre or bland. But amalgamating characters seem to be an interesting exercise and one that’s even accomplished in the real world, especially when it came to both DC and Marvel back in the 1990s. More recently both DC and Marvel have done some crossovers this year, though it remains to be seen if there’ll ever be another batch of Amalgam Comics but modernised for 2020s sensibilities.

Cyril Rabeholm and the shadows

Yup, I renamed him from Cyril Darkholme as the former sounds too cartoony and this was inspired by a thread about writer Chris Claremont giving foreign characters names that sound ridiculous for their own ethnicities/cultures, so Cyril’s given the more plausible sounding Rabeholm by now. It’s not that there aren’t any characters who make shadow constructs, but that they also get to teleport or move through shadows. As if they’re rather ghostly themselves in some way, in the same way that characters who create light also fly for no reason. What if making shadow constructs is all that Cyril Rabeholm does, but one that he makes good with it when it comes to both offence and defence?

Like he’s largely restricted to both force fields and shadow items, with the latter often being weaponry, that he puts these to good effect like undermining police activity and to attack victims with. Not only that but he often transduces electromagnetic energy into darkness, often like the force fields in one of Larry Niven’s stories. It’s pretty weird why DC Comics has a character that transduces heat into cold with Killer Frost, but not something similar with say Nightshade, which is odd as anything dark absorbs a lot of light*. So it should be logical that a character who manipulates darkness should be able to create brownouts as to disable electronic activity, should somebody else want to use electronic devices and equipment at all.

But there’s more to him than meets the eye is that he’s actually blond-haired, though he usually conceals it with a black beanie. Then again if you know something about the Japanese indie game series Touhou Project, there’s a character pretty similar to him called Rumia in that they’re both blond-haired and manipulate darkness themselves. Cyril also looks like Nick Carter, oddly enough, as if the latter habitually dresses in industrial rivethead clothing when he’s doing criminal activity and outside of it. This could change since this is just a draft of what he is and what he could turn into, as influences change over time in game development. He’s also very short-tempered, moody and brutal towards his victims, though he does show moments of calculating brilliance.

He did have something of a sidekick who merely just moves through shadows, though he committed suicide upon hearing that somebody like Jemima Szara is catching up on him. Kind of like what Pesci did to himself, since he has the same ability as he does. I kind of forgot his name but gameplay wise, he’s his miniboss so it sort of makes sense for him to be his sidekick/henchman/whatever. It’s weird how characters who manipulate darkness also have to emerge from the shadows, but characters who manipulate light needn’t to make themselves invisible. To the point where in here moving through shadows is separate from darkness manipulation, which makes sense as Scott is Cyril’s miniboss henchman. Something that not many considered.

*He’s very useless and powerless either at night or in the dark.

Cartoon character iconography

When it comes to cartoon character iconography and especially those of superheroes, once an outfit is designed for the character comes expectations for what they should look like, should they ever wear new outfits at all. In the case with Supergirl, she’s a female counterpart to her cousin Superman and the expected iconography for her involves blonde hair, blue blouse, red cape, red boots and a red skirt though the belt varies from circular to v-shaped. But certain aberrations do happen such as red shorts, a proper catsuit, blue skirts and the like, though the expected iconography is supposed to be a feminised version of Superman’s own outfit, barring the hair itself. Or for another matter, the expected iconography for Rogue’s that of a woman who dresses in a brown jacket and a green and yellow catsuit with yellow boots.

I guess if Rogue existed in the real world that even if she retained her love of dressing in yellows and greens, and sometimes wore her old clothing from time to time she would’ve also changed with the times in some way. This is what she ended up doing in the comics from time to time, but her most iconic outfit’s from the 1990s and this is the same outfit a number of cartoonists return to from time to time. To put it this way, Siouxsie Sioux is a real life musician whose most iconic get-up consists of teased black hair and black clothing, though this is the same look that she graduated from as time passed. She now has straight greying hair and doesn’t dress in the same way she did when she was younger, but you should get the point I’m making regarding iconography.

It’s easier to draw cartoon characters in the same outfits as it’s easier to draw from memory, especially over time that’s become an accepted part of their respective iconographies. It also makes it easier to lend itself to merchandising, given the character’s expected iconography. Back to Supergirl, her expected presentation’s that of a blonde woman who wears a feminised Superman outfit. Cassandra Cain’s expected presentation’s that of a young Asian American woman who dresses in a black coloured Bat outfit that comes with a mask that fully obscures her face, though ironically given her knack for reading body language this would’ve impeded her ability to carry out such a task. But sometimes impractical outfits become part of the character’s expected iconography like the latter one.

Vampirella’s own outfit would be hard to comfortably wear without risking indecent exposure, though some cartoonists take this too far, sometimes without regarding the character’s own dignity in certain situations. But it’s become an accepted part of her associated iconography, despite how inconvenient it would be in some situations as to warrant more modest redesigns. So if this outfit was designed for the character in mind from the get go, or gets popularised in a more accessible format as it is with Rogue, it would be hard departing from the expected iconography without risking backlash of some sort. There have been attempts to get Black Canary from not wearing fishnets, most notably in the late 1980s and also in the 1990s, though the fishnet thing’s so deeply entrenched that it’s easier to return to those.

Than to risk the unknown, though the animated productions have shown that this is possible without changing the character’s overall look that much, all you have to do is to substitute fishnets for an opaque pair of tights. But even then there’s often the expectation for what the character should look like, if such a look was either part of the character or is popularised in other media, that giving them an entirely different outfit would be a very drastic departure. Sort of like what happened to Street Fighter’s Cammy White upon her latest appearance, for a long time she wore a thong leotard with a beret and two braids. Then comes the latest Street Fighter game with her sporting shorter hair and a more modest ensemble, that inevitably a degree of backlash would’ve occurred anyways.

When it comes to real life musicians, fans would inevitably have a favourite look, even if the musicians themselves have moved on from it as fashions change. Let’s say your favourite David Bowie hairstyle is the iconic red mullet, even though he moved on from that haircut as the mid-1970s marched on. Then one could on go saying that they liked Liam Howlett* best when he was younger and had undyed hair to boot, this is one example but not the only one that I can hypothetically come up with. But the thing with cartoon characters is that they’re designed with certain looks in mind, not so much something they chose at their own volition, since they’re not even real. In Rogue’s case, her most iconic look is the one that got popularised on television.

But it still often reinforces people’s expectations of them, that doing a radical redesign would make them practically unrecognisable. So there’s much care to make them recognisable whilst redesigning them in some way, given how such portrayals reinforce people’s expectations of them.

*He’s a member of the group called The Prodigy and he’s its resident keyboardist.

Idle worship

I feel DC and Marvel don’t get much flack from Christians for enabling idolatry in people, even though that’s what they’ve been doing for years. It’s obvious when Marvel calls its devoted readers and viewers true believers, where they take so much time and energy on cartoon characters like Spider-Man and Wolverine when they could’ve have more time for God is practically idolatry. There’s spiritually no getting around it because that’s what it is, if you’ve replaced God with Superman in your heart and mind it’s no different. But I suspect that both DC and Marvel don’t get much flack compared to tired suspects like Catholicism and Harry Potter, since they seem more harmless to most Evangelicals even though the problem of idolatry remains the same with them.

It could even be said that both of them constitute socially acceptable forms of idolatry, given they don’t have the same baggage as the latter two do. So it’s less common for Evangelicals to criticise the two, even though they do the same things really. Somebody on Reddit wrote that it has a lot to do with Christians being really worldly people, who appear to have far lower standards of what’s edifying and sanctifying to the soul than they realise. Perhaps this might really explain why Evangelicals barely give a toss about DC and Marvel encouraging idolatry of their characters and brands, even if that’s what they do often and it has to be called out for what it really is.

When one thinks about it, given how DC and Marvel make people do anything and everything to buy their products that things like statuettes constitute graven images and idols. They may even be idols in the historical sense of the word, given they’re made out of something instead of being mystically experiential as it is with the biblical God. As what this Redditor pointed out, many Christians have shockingly poor discernment that they openly indulge in filth for as long as it’s socially acceptable filth. It’s not a matter of apples and oranges, but comparing green apples to red apples. It’s like thinking green apples are less sinful than red apples, because they don’t appear to be used by the Devil. Just as a spade remains a spade, a green apple is still an apple.

An idol will always be an idol, regardless if it’s Harry Potter, Virgin Mary or Supergirl. It would be practically calling evil good if you don’t call out Superman idolatry for what it is, not helped by that many Christians are kind of spiritually illiterate. I also have this nagging suspicion that within Christian circles certain things are practically socially acceptable idols, it could be something that doesn’t irritate them as much so they fly under the radar. Even if the problem and the sin remain the same, regardless if it’s Batman or Saint Michael.

The curse of comics accuracy

I feel like that costume designers are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to making superhero costumes, perhaps there’s a demand for both comics accuracy and making it look grounded. But sometimes this comes at the expense of the actors’ comfort and how some of them get destroyed real easily, to the point where if you were to design such outfits for comfort and durability that they’d have to be made almost unrecognisable from their comics counterpart.

Something like in Smallville, where the tradeoff’s that perhaps until the last episodes, the outfits look comfortable and durable enough to take multiple beatings. Which is what superhero costumes should be made of, since superheroes tend to get into fights and do incredible stunts a lot that they need something durable to wear. In fairness, they do change their outfits. Either that or take a cue from popstars, which some costume designers likely already do on some level. But that would mean making them actually wearable.

Something somebody would actually wear while dancing and prancing around onstage and comfortably so, that popstar outfits already hit the sweet spot between flamboyance and practical comfort without even trying. The more I think about Wolverine, the more I realise that he’s a very rowdy character who really needs outfits made out of durable fabric to take every beating that even if he has a healing factor, he has to wear something that doesn’t show his weak spots and injuries. Something like canvas and duck.

Or perhaps something like ramie, but that involves realising what looks cool isn’t real what the character actually want in a outfit for themself. Somebody like Cassandra Cain needs something comfortable to wear, so a gimp mask wouldn’t be right for her though a ski mask kind of evokes it without being too uncomfortable to wear. But this is me working with fabrics from my experience as a self-employed seamstress, so this colours the way I feel what the characters should be wearing.

There’s no point for them to wear something that gets destroyed easily, or is uncomfortable in some way that they might as well ditch the tight tactical outfits altogether in favour of wearing what actual people wear and in earnest. Besides people have worn more flamboyant and ridiculous outfits than that, the late Prince Nelson has worn an outfit that showed his bare buttocks. Madonna has worn an outfit that shows off her bare chest, you could see very comic booky looks in events like Wave Gotik Treffen and the like.

People in the real world have worn racier outfits than that, if I’m not mistaken David Bowie wore a sheer shirt and Daniel Ash from Bauhaus and Love and Rockets has worn a fishnet shirt with tight trousers. There are always women who have the audacity to wear rather racy outfits in public, so it seems truth really is much stranger than fiction. A kind of weird irony to think that costume designers strive to make superhero outfits look grounded in some way.

When real life musicians have worn gaudier outfits than that, but they could also serve to inspire superhero costumes. In the sense that an actual person wore this, though this is something superhero costume designers have realised on some level. Even then, what real people wear is sometimes more flamboyant than what you see in fiction.

And sometimes what a person would want to wear for themself is really different from superhero designers’ conception of the same, especially when one does a lot of physical activity in some way.

Superhero stories and female fans

I remember somebody pointing out one problem with superhero stories and why they don’t resonate much with a female audience: superheroines often come off as male writers’ idea of a female power fantasy, that it’s going to be difficult making them actually interesting and relatable to female readers if only writers weren’t hampered by their desire to meet fanboy demands as well. If this is true, then it does explain a lot of things. I could go on saying that certain female characters come off as some male writers’ idea of a strong or relatable female character, but they themselves rarely come off as something a woman could’ve and would’ve come up with.

Not to mention this person goes on saying that there’s a difference between the way your usual superhero is written, as opposed to the way prose fiction characters are written. With the possible exception of some speculative writers, prose writers are expected to make their characters realistic as to be relatable, lest they lose readers along the way if they don’t. The same can’t be said of the way your average superhero is written, which would explain why the way they’re written is so outlandish as to give the impression of them being created by people out of touch with the real world. Maybe not all, but still when it comes to some.

When I think about it this way, it seems some superheroes are written by people who’re out of touch with the real world that they might as well be a true figment of their imagination. Even if it didn’t start out this way, it’s this easy to venture into utter unreality when your points of references aren’t just narrow, but also progressively out of touch with the real world. Sort of like what happened to Marvel Comics’ Kate Pryde, at any point where she was a more grounded character she became less grounded over time. It’s not enough for her to be unusually smart and athletic, but also have a pet dragon and stuff.

Compare her to Nancy Drew, who tends to have more ordinary tastes in pets. She has a dog named Togo and a cat named Snowball, that’s actually more relatable to many more people this way as well. It’s not hard to see how out of touch some superhero writers are when it comes to creating relatable characters, especially relatable female characters at that, since they all come off as their idea of what women are like and ought to be, not so much women as they really are. I even think the way they write certain characters is kind of tangential, in the sense that they’re kind of detached from the real world in some way.

Escapism is one thing, unreal characters are another. This extends to the way disabled characters and nonwhite characters are written, especially if they risk coming off as offensive stereotypes at any point. One Cassandra Cain fan intelligently pointed out the way Cassandra Cain has been written by non-Asian writers does and did risk verging on offensive racist stereotypes at various points, especially with regards to her being generally both expressionless and in a subordinate position as to be seen as submissive.

It’s not hard to see how Storm comes off as basically a white person’s idea of an exotic black person, not so much as an actual African, let alone an actual Kenyan. They’re not characters that organically come from Kenyans, if you want comics characters as created by actual Kenyans look no further than the Shujaaz characters to see something done right. The way a good number of superheroines are written over the years sometimes veers on misogynistic stereotypes and ideals as to put off female readers, it’s not surprising they’re course correcting it at this point but who knows if many more women will be drawn to superhero stories without suspicion and apprehension.

It’s not hard to see the way these stories are written don’t appeal to female readers that much, for whatever reason but the way female characters are written are off-putting for others.

Time for a new take on superheroes

I feel if there’s ever a way to make the superhero genre actually relevant to a new generation, especially one involving entirely new characters at that, would be to accept and assimilate any new influence into such a work and then bring this story over to a video game. More and more people are playing video games these days, so it should make sense to create a new and different superhero universe but one made for a video game in mind. The habit of creating a shared universe full of superheroes has been done to death in comic books, with publishers like Wildstorm trying to recreate the magic their founders did over at Marvel.

The superhero concept can certainly work for a video game, especially one with original characters, but it has to work in a way that’s relevant to not only gamers but also any newcomer to this kind of story. It can’t be about building a superhero shared universe in comic books anymore, there are people who come up with original characters and stories in video games involving plagues (Resident Evil), birds (Angry Birds) and world mythology (Age of Mythology, God of War). Why not do the same with superheroes when working on a video game? No doubt this would be a little trickier to pull off and harder to make it stand out more from the well-established likes of DC and Marvel.

No wonder why Wildstorm didn’t last too long on its own, while it did have its own identity enough to easily be its own world but at other times some of the characters are riffs on more familiar faces. Voodoo looks like a black Jean Grey, Planetary has characters who are analogues to the Fantastic Four, both Midnighter and Apollo are based on Batman and Superman and Swift could be seen as an Asian female version of X-Men’s Angel. At some point they all got assimilated into the wider DC world, even if they risk becoming redundant by their DC counterparts at any point.

But this goes to show you how tricky it is to come up with a superhero universe without having a distinctive hook to last longer, admittedly this video game I’m proposing has characters who are analogues to their DC counterparts. But the hook here is that all the superheroes are actual police officers and detectives (truly part of law enforcement themselves), while there is also room for superpowered civilians especially as some like Mary Stilfox and Patricia Kyenge work in healthcare. None of the characters have codenames, since many crime fiction characters don’t have those either.

It’s familiar enough for others to call it home but novel enough to stand out very well from DC and Marvel, the two superhero powerhouses and the bar for what many superhero universes strive to be and do. Like I said before that this story does take inspiration from DC and Marvel, but does so in a very novel way due to additional influences and approaches. Just because a character has superpowers doesn’t mean they automatically become either villains or heroes, some prefer to keep a very low profile and be useful in some other way. Mary Stilfox has the ability to generate implants to replace organs with, she works as a surgeon.

Patricia Kyenge has the ability to restore anything and everything to their original states, get this she works as a hospital nurse and sometimes under Stilfox’s guidance. Alice Buquid has the ability to create folded creations that unsettle people in some way, but she’s a seamstress who works for a weaver with the ability to generate silk herself. No need to kill silkworms to get silk when she does the same thing, which’s something not a lot of Spider-Man writers have ever brought up in any way that I know of. Mamadou Mbodj is a pyrokinetic who works as a cook, which’s what many people historically did with fire.

Jemima Szary is an investigative journalist with an uncannily good sense of direction. You really need to have different experiences and interests to make these characters work, otherwise it would become another Wildstorm: interesting enough to gauge readers’ interests, but not distinctive enough to stand out from DC and Marvel in any way. In this game you have a variety of superpowered characters who either work in law enforcement themselves (such as Jean-Louis Lumiere), remain civilians (Patricia Kyenge, Alice Buquid, Jemima Szary and Mamadou Mbodj) or get involved in criminality.

Just like non-superpowered people, which’s something I noticed late in life. Just because a character has superpowers doesn’t mean they’ll either become villains or heroes, some would rather lead everyday lives as usual and some would pool their abilities into something that’s both different and useful. There are some superhero stories such as the Wild Cards cycle that have attempted this before, but doing it in a video game is something else altogether. Most superhero video games are adaptations of either DC or Marvel, which means they have the brand recognition to back up those stories.

But an original superhero universe made for video games would have to have its own hook and personality to stand out a lot from these two, sort of like how Mortal Kombat stood out from the other fighting games by being ridiculously gory. It’s not the best hook but one that worked to its advantage because it was one of the first games to indulge in this and granted it enough staying power to still have an edge and charm to some people, whether if you like it or not. For this game, a stronger mystery theme is needed. It might have been done before, but it’s also something that’s unprecedented in its own right.

A world where all the superheroes are actually involved in law enforcement and not vigilantism would necessitate it to be a puzzle game of sorts, where one has to solve a problem to the best of their abilities and sometimes where they come up with novel solutions to resolve things. I know this from experience, playing a certain game on PBS Kids. It might have been done before in superhero video games, but I feel that’s only ever done with familiar faces like Batman. Not so much new and different faces like Jean-Louis Lumiere, though he doesn’t have to be the only one as it could also be Jemima Szary.

I feel when it comes to coming up with a video game full of original superheroes, it has to be novel enough to stand out a lot from DC and Marvel. This is one of the pitfalls in creating the Wildstorm Universe, it didn’t have much of an distinctive enough hook to stand out from the crowd. This isn’t helped by that some characters are reminiscent of familiar characters, not that there’s anything wrong in taking inspiration from something you like. But it didn’t have its own personality to avoid being drowned out by these two giants, this is probably why Dark Horse gave up on having its own superhero universe.

The superhero universes that actually stood out the longest are those that have their own hooks and personalities, something like Astro City where the world of superheroes is seen through ordinary people’s eyes. Meanwhile the Wildstorm characters find themselves going to the DC universe back and forth, even if writers manage to tell good stories in that world it’s not enough to give them a major edge. So consolidation is their fate, it might be my opinion and a bit harsh but that’s how they come off to me.

Stan

Celestial has said many times over that America is Mystery Babylon, and in here it’s Mystery Babylon for enabling the sin or vice of idolatry. As God is a jealous God, it would be hard to not make him jealous when we turn to something else. I personally think some charges about idolatry should be best applied to secular fandoms, which makes much more sense since I see fandom as concentrated idolatry. It’s not necessarily wrong to like something, for as long as it doesn’t overshadow your faith in and love for God. It’s not wrong to like cats, dogs, football, rugby, foreign countries and so on. Though the hardest part is not make them into idols.

I feel what America has done is to enable so much idolatry of almost everything and anything that it’s going to be punished by the Lord for doing this, despite proclaiming itself to be a Christian nation and it gets worse when you have otherwise self-proclaimed Christians like Brian Littrell enabling this in some way. It would be super horrifying if he and his bandmates have the audacity to dress up as demons in a concert in Mexico, one would only wonder who Brian Littrell is more loyal to. He may sing about praising God, but at times he doesn’t do as he should’ve been told to. Perhaps this is the natural outcome of him enabling idolatry of his band a lot.

There are other musicians who’ve done the same, but I think it would be more shameful if it was a Christian doing this. Gerard Way may not be a Christian, at least not yet, but for most of the part he doesn’t know any better. Brian Littrell should know better as he’s a Christian, he should know that idolatry is a sin and that pride is also a sin. But I don’t think it’s something he’ll be comfortable realising, if because he actually likes the attention his fans give to his band a lot.

Burk Parsons dodged a bullet by refusing to join the Backstreet Boys and became a pastor instead, he himself has his own demons from time to time. The only real difference is that he strives to do better by God, while he never became a famous musician he’s done better by actually introducing people to something spiritually substantial as a pastor. We may not be called to ministry but it’s best to introduce people to God, than to wallow in being worshipped as an idol ourselves no matter how tempting it is.

I admit being prone to time from time to time, though it’s something Littrell fell into and he got really deep into it. I said before that he never seems to make fans read the Bible and devotionals, never makes them listen to sermons in whatever medium they appear in and take them to church. He’d rather invite them over to Backstreet Boys sponsored cruises and concerts, than to actually take them to church to worship the Creator. Perhaps him turning to the Devil is an inevitable consequence of his own pride and enabling his fans’ idolatry of himself and the band, if because the Devil himself is very proud and resides in the world.

It’s easier to talk about Donald Trump, Taylor Swift and Beyonce enabling idolatry of themselves as they’re relevant to more people these days, but I think the Backstreet Boys deserve more mention if because what they’re doing is more shameful because they have a Christian member. That shows if you have somebody who should know better, but don’t do anything about it then it’s on them for turning themselves into a stumbling block for others. Christians shouldn’t cause others to sin, however hard it may be at times, it seems Brian Littrell took the path of least resistance. Perhaps the world is too strong for him to resist in any way, which proves my point about him.

It should also be noted that Disney and Warner Bros are pretty guilty of enabling idolatry in people, not just with the usual suspects but also something more unexpected like superheroes. Sort of like how Stan Lee co-opted the whole ‘true believers’ thing from Christians when he applied this label to diehard Marvel readers, though at some point he actually considered doing a line of Christian superhero comics and stories. That could work to some extent, especially with something like Power Mark. But I suspect a superhero who bothers to forgive their enemies, believes in God and is rarely ever violent in any way is a harder sell than a superhero who acts vindictively and gets into a fight because they can.

So it seems despite Lee’s good intentions, Marvel has more staying power than his proposed Christian superhero imprint. Easier to enable somebody’s idolatry and satiating it perpetually than to lead them to God, no matter how uncomfortable or preachy it would be and get. DC’s no different in some, though similar regards with one editor rejecting one writer’s proposal to turn one superheroine into a Christian, I personally feel Gail Simone is somebody who does respect and understand Christianity well despite being secular. She can be considered an ally, one who’s an ally to Christians which is increasingly rare in the realm of storytelling as time passes.

If Narnia is any indication, it’s possible to have a religious story and still have any renown outside of religious circles though Narnia’s biggest fans are always Christians. So DC and Marvel go for the easy way out by pandering to somebody’s idolatry, satiating them a lot and enabling them in ways where and when it shouldn’t be, than to make them actively seek out God in hard times like these and those. The path to least resistance is what they undertook, this is what they ended up with and why they do anything to reward people’s idolatry of their products. It’s not wrong to like DC and Marvel, or even Disney and Looney Tunes.

The real problem lies with turning them into idols, but this is something they ended up enabling a lot. Instead of stories where a character like Cassandra Cain does become a Christian and quit a life of violence for good, it’s easier to keep people hooked on their favourite characters a lot without making them read the Bible in some way or another. Perhaps telling them about sin is a particularly heavy pill to swallow, one that’s too bitter to be easily digested by many secular people.

While Christians shouldn’t preach to the choir that much, in fact they’re called to preach to many unbelievers and help them on their path to worshipping God. But then again they’re also pressured to not rock the boat, that’s to hammer the nail that stands out too much, to cut the tall poppy because it’s getting too preachy. Enabling somebody else’s idolatry is one example of the path of least resistance, spiritually speaking.

Disney pretty much developed a habit of enabling somebody’s idolatry for years, to the point of creating the Disney adult and from a business perspective, this is an excellent example of brand loyalty implanted since childhood. But from a spiritual perspective, with Walt Disney being bent on destroying anything Christian, that the well is poisoned even if it’s possible to love Disney products from afar. That’s by not turning Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Carl Barks into idols, but Disney would rather encourage people’s idolatry of its products and characters. It will do anything to enable it, no matter how spiritually unhealthy it is.

Disney is one of those companies that perfected the art of brand loyalty with a lot of people, that people will try out anything Disney-related because it encourages this a lot. Not just with Disney merchandise, divisions, brands and the like but also other things like Radio Disney, which is still a thing in many Latin American countries to this day oddly enough. Disney will find ways of keeping people interested in it in some fashion, which if done carelessly would enable somebody’s idolatry of Disney or a certain Disney product. Unfortunately, it would be that easy to swing into that direction, no wonder why it’s perilous for Christians.

It’s not necessarily wrong to like Disney products, the best a Christian can do is to love them from a distance. That’s by not making it into an idol, even if it’s not always easy sometimes. Anything else really, because God gets jealous real easily. But it’s much easier to lead somebody to sin, sometimes deliberately not just with porn and gluttony. But also idolatry especially when it comes to the very nature of every secular fandom around, it’s not wrong to like sports and it’s not necessarily wrong to love athletes for as long as you pray for their salvation then God will take care of the rest. It’s also not wrong to like comics, video games and film though not all of them edify somebody spiritually.

There are too many things that Americans make an idol out of, sometimes it’s the innocuous stuff like cats and dogs as well as sports and science. Sometimes it’s the more dubious stuff we should steer away from like certain celebrities and stories, especially if they don’t glorify God in any way. It’s not necessarily wrong to like cats and dogs, but the trick here is to not be too obsessive over them. So you have grounded dog owners who do see their dogs as mere animals, rather than substitute humans where they know this is where it gets worrying when they’re treated as proxies for people. The problem is Americans have glorified these things, worshipping the creature instead of the Creator.

No sooner or later we’ll get a series of Jezebel like situations where dogs turn against their owners by eating them, a comeuppance for what these people have done and arguably a case of God using the wicked to punish the wicked since dogs don’t seem to be esteemed that highly in the Bible. If he has done this to Jezebel before, then he will do it to women similar to her when he needs to. It’s not necessarily wrong to like dogs, the Bible does have some instances of dogs being used for good though depending on the Bible verse and also edition of the Bible. But this is tempered by a recurring suspicion, so the precipice of turning them into idols is something writers knew too well.

Known Babylon, as I’d like to call it, was a major hotbed of idolatry that would’ve easily tempted God’s people at any point. It made idols out of dogs, anything and everything which sounds like what a supposedly Christian country like America ended up doing, except that other people don’t recognise many secular fandoms for what they really are: concentrated idolatry where one would do anything to attend to fandom activities and meetings where one would do with churchgoing and worshipping God.

Things like comic books, fantasy novels and video games have been treated as a sort of religious text with fans co-opting religious terminology like canon. Canon as in it meant whatever that is officially part of the Bible, biblical canon would vary depending on the denomination where some editions of the Bible would officially include texts like the Book of Tobit and the Maccabees, others like the Book of Enoch and some just have them as apocrypha.

They have their place, but it’s not the main place. There are people who argue that Christianity is a fandom but whenever fandom tries to bring Christianity to its level, if God is like a king then fandom’s like a pretender to the throne. It claims pretensions to the king but has no official relation to him whatsoever, this is why God is referred to as a father, his church is like a bride and family, why nuns and monks are referred to as brothers and sisters. Fandom is really a commoner wanting to be recognised as part of a royal family, but it’s never noble and it’s never going to be royal if you get the pun. So it’s better to recognise fandom for what it is, that’s being concentrated idolatry.

It’s calling the spade for what it really is to the Lord, so we shouldn’t pussyfoot around its true nature. When you have people who spend a lot of their time not just watching Good Omens, but also making a lot of fanworks around it with virtually no time for the Lord then it is idolatrous. Many geek fandoms are practically idolatrous, though it takes a brave soul to call them out for what they actually are. It’s not necessarily wrong to love characters like Catwoman, Batman and Superman but one would have to draw the line at worshipping them like one would with the Lord, so this is something one would have to tread carefully as Christians.

God is jealous, so we shouldn’t make him jealous even though sometimes we do anyways. It’s not going to be easy, given human nature being sinful, but the best we can do is to ask for repentance from God and learn from our mistakes, however hard and shameful it may be.