I was recently asked by a high school student at the Christian school I work at if I thought Spiderman was a good representation of a ‘type of Christ’. He then proceeded to outline the parallels and draw comparisons between Jesus and Peter Parker. I was rather taken back by the question because I have personally logged countless hours of research in the area of super heroes and their origins while putting together the documentary The Replacement gods. I’ve read the biographies and seen the video clips of many anti-Christian creators of the popular comic heroes spilling the beans about their dislike of Christianity. I wanted to quickly answer the question with a sarcastic rebuke but then it dawned on me that he genuinely was seeking an explanation and that this might be a great opportunity to open this young pupil’s eyes to the spiritual warfare that is subtly raging all around him. You see, this high school student has grown up in a church school, sat through many Bible classes, and has attended church on a regular basis. All these things are designed to teach him about who Jesus really is. Here he was trying to gain a better understanding of the spotless character of Jesus Christ by looking at Spiderman as a representation of our Savior? I didn’t have a quick answer and I told him I would look into it for him. I sat down at one of the greatest research tools (ironically called the WORLD WIDE WEB) and began my research. Here is what I found:
I didn’t know where to start because generally speaking, Spiderman has a kind of ‘squeaky clean’ kid friendly image (that is if you are okay with fighting, killing, sexual innuendoes and such). Nevertheless when googling ‘Is Spiderman evil?’ the only thing that would pop up was he uses the Devil sign when shooting his web. I thought this was a rather weak argument for my high school friend to accept my point of view that all super heroes are basically gnostic (the idea that God is evil and Satan is good and that we must realize that we all have god inside of us). It didn’t take long by typing in a few key words to confirm my suspicion. I ran across an article that was discussing the gnostic teaching in the Spiderman series. It specifically analyzed a scene in Spiderman 2 where Spiderman saves a train. It stated that ‘the message of the scene is that Peter Parker is the eidelon for Spider-Man – his true self’. The definition of a eidelon comes from the Greek word εἴδωλον: “image, idol, double, apparition, phantom, ghost”- is a spirit-image of a living or dead person; a shade or phantom look-alike of the human form. What’s interesting about this website using this word to describe the ‘image’ of Spiderman, is that God has promised to ‘remake’ us in His image. Another way of saying that is God want’s us to have His character.
It’s only when he dies to Peter Parker that he finds, as his Aunt May says, “there’s a hero inside all of us.” The imagery is displayed with Peter Parker sprawled out on the front of the train in a crucifix (just like Jesus on the cross) as he rejects his Peter Parker eidelon and accepts his role as Spiderman. The article ends with this statement:? “It would seem trivial but I get the feeling that a lot more people (Americans certainly) get their myth from comics and comic-inspired movies than they do from the original source material these days. That makes Spiderman the modern teaching myth for gnostics to which people will be able to relate.”
This brought me to question “Well, what does the creator of Spiderman believe”?? His name is Stan Lee. He worked along side another comic book pioneer named Jack Kirby. These two were responsible for huge titles such as Captain America, Thor, Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Spiderman, and X-Men just to name a few. Most of their creations have been made into major blockbuster movies and their influence has infiltrated many scripts. Transformers 3 was Kirby-derived. Though he didn’t write it you can see his influence in it.
People don’t realize that these fictitious stories are written by people who have a desire to teach their audiences about their belief systems. Stan Lee, founder of superhero conglomerate Marvel Comics (from Latin ‘mirari‘ , ‘to wonder at’), even calls his readers ‘true believers’! On the Web, graphic novel Examines What It Takes to Be a God? by wunderkind Neil Gaiman just like it says in The Apocryphon of John: Man came forth because of the shadow of the light which is in him. This is of course is a very gnostic view.
So in order to make a reasonable conclusion that Stan Lee is weaving gnostic themes into the stories then we have to find other examples of gnosticism in his work. So I came across this book called Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal by Jeffrey J. Kripal, on Page 117:
‘one of the most famous story arcs of the Fantastic Four series appeared in issues #48-50 [1966]. A three-part series that has come to be known as the Galactus Triliogy. The Plot originated with four words from writer Stan Lee to artist Jack Kirby: ‘Have them fight God’. “As has often been noted, the Galactus Trilogy is a profoundly gnostic tale (having them fight God) even Stan Lee, who usually wanted to emphasize the brighter and more positive aspects of his mythologies, wrote the Silver Surfer as a kind of semidivine being ‘trapped’ on the planet as a punishment for nobly refusing to do Galactus’s will, much as the soul is trapped in matter in the ancient Jewish and Christian gnostic systems. In any case, ‘fighting God’ and ‘being a Gnostic’ are more or less the same thing. What the Gnostic is really fighting, of course, is a lower god pretending to be a real God.”
So if Stan Lee promotes a very gnostic view in the Fantastic Four then I would bet my bottom dollar that this twisted view of God is riddled throughout much of his work. He would not clearly depict the pure wholesome character of Jesus even if he was intending Spiderman to be a gross representation. It would almost be like a preacher who believed in Jesus? love writing a book stating that Jesus actually hates the world. You would expect there to be consistency amongst the messages.
It took all about 15 minutes to google a few things and find enough evidence to convince me that Spiderman is not a good representation for Jesus Christ. The problem these days is that we don’t put any effort into researching behind the scenes. We are content with taking the surface value of the entertainment and we try to mold our religion to fit the media instead of comparing the media to the ruler of the Bible. We are also not spending time getting to know just exactly WHO Jesus is and building a relationship with Him by reading the Bible, praying, and witnessing. If we spent diligent time in these areas we would be able to more quickly spot the counterfeits. Instead of using man made stories to illustrate the divine characteristics of God perhaps we should use the Spirit led Word of God to build an understanding unfathomable Savior. I don’t believe that you can use the unholy to explain the holy. And besides does a guy who wears a mask, shoots ‘webs’ at you, and fights with his evil inner self seem like something Jesus would do?
Here are the links for the articles that I was quoting from (just incase you would like to look them up yourself).
http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2012/09/astrognostic-hymn-of-pearl-revisited.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GnosticThought/message/24637
http://books.google.com/books?id=J1t8g_yX1wcC&pg=PA129&dq=stan+lee+%22have+them+fight+God&hl=en&sa=X&ei=K_eRUODbMYnUiwLFwYDYAQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=stan%20lee%20%22have%20them%20fight%20God&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=8kNjcn8KsuUC&pg=PA117&dq=stan+lee+gnostic&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vf-0UIzJNoTVigKQu4D4Cw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=stan%20lee%20gnostic&f=false
