vulnerable as children when confronting the fear of war or economic hardship.
Young children have a magical worldview. Because they don't understand the physical processes of the everyday world, they tend to perceive their environmentas supernatural. This is true even in older children, though many may deny it if pressed. Because superheroes were originally aimed at an audience of children, they are all essentially magical , with no basis in science or ordinary reality. Even if heroes like Spider-Man or Green Lantern draw their powers from technology, the actual scientific explanation for those powers is simply window dressing. If you are bitten by a radioactive spider, chances are good you'll get a horrible rash, go into toxic shock, and then die—not wake up the next morning and start climbing up walls. Themes of mutants, androids, and cyborgs speak to social and spiritual impulses, not science.
As America struggled to emerge from the Great Depression, the symbols and stories of the old gods reentered American culture. In the comic books, these gods and heroes of antiquity truly came alive and helped inspire America to regain its strength. This return of the old gods collided head-on with huge leaps forward in science and technology. At the same time, genetics prompted scientists to ponder the possibility of improving the race through genetic manipulation. Credible ideas about space travel were propounded to a public many of whom still believed there was intelligent life on Mars and Venus. Science, philosophy, religion, and the occult all merged in a general yearning to overcome intractable human problems and improve mankind's future.
This yearning also had a dark side, however, that manifested in ethnocentric politics, racial hatred, and fascism. These dark impulses turned the occult striving toward the “New Man” into murderous political movements that, unfortunately, claimed justification from the same texts that gave rise to the modern superhero. The parallels have not gone unnoticed and some social critics today feel that the superhero myth is irredeemably fascist.
It was this yearning that inspired the young writers who created the superheroes from antecedents in the pulps, mythology, religion, and folktales. In fact, most superhero figures fall into a handful of archetypal categories drawn from origins in the ancient mysteries.
MAGIC MEN
Wizard archetypes are as old as fiction itself. Thoth, Egyptian lunar god and patron of magic and science, was perhaps the first Wizard archetype. Thothwas also the patron deity of Aleister Crowley's magnum opus on the Tarot, which he called The Book of Thoth . The melding of Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes gave the world Hermes Trismegistus, Thrice-Great Hermes, the patron of all magical arts and sciences in the pagan world. This tradition, known simply as Hermeticism, was powerful and influential enough to survive centuries of brutal and bloody suppression by the Catholic Church and enjoy a revival among the alchemists of the Middle Ages, who saw themselves as heirs to the Hermetic tradition.
Few people realize, however, that explicitly magical characters are actually the earliest examples of modern superheroes. In fact, it can be argued that all superheroes are essentially magical, since most of their powers have no basis in real science. Early superheroes like Captain Marvel, Phantasmo, and Green Lantern were unambiguously magical in origin, drawing on themes taken directly from the pulps.
Wizards functioned as shamans and medicine men, teachers and priests, and often as chieftains in ancient tribal societies. Three of the most famous sorcerers in Western culture are the Three Wise Men, from the Gospel of Matthew. These magi were Zoroastrian astrologers said to have prophesied the coming of Christ, whom they found in the manger at Bethlehem. The most famous sorcerer of all time, however, is Merlin, the mage from the King Arthur myths.
Merlin is usually portrayed
Young children have a magical worldview. Because they don't understand the physical processes of the everyday world, they tend to perceive their environmentas supernatural. This is true even in older children, though many may deny it if pressed. Because superheroes were originally aimed at an audience of children, they are all essentially magical , with no basis in science or ordinary reality. Even if heroes like Spider-Man or Green Lantern draw their powers from technology, the actual scientific explanation for those powers is simply window dressing. If you are bitten by a radioactive spider, chances are good you'll get a horrible rash, go into toxic shock, and then die—not wake up the next morning and start climbing up walls. Themes of mutants, androids, and cyborgs speak to social and spiritual impulses, not science.
As America struggled to emerge from the Great Depression, the symbols and stories of the old gods reentered American culture. In the comic books, these gods and heroes of antiquity truly came alive and helped inspire America to regain its strength. This return of the old gods collided head-on with huge leaps forward in science and technology. At the same time, genetics prompted scientists to ponder the possibility of improving the race through genetic manipulation. Credible ideas about space travel were propounded to a public many of whom still believed there was intelligent life on Mars and Venus. Science, philosophy, religion, and the occult all merged in a general yearning to overcome intractable human problems and improve mankind's future.
This yearning also had a dark side, however, that manifested in ethnocentric politics, racial hatred, and fascism. These dark impulses turned the occult striving toward the “New Man” into murderous political movements that, unfortunately, claimed justification from the same texts that gave rise to the modern superhero. The parallels have not gone unnoticed and some social critics today feel that the superhero myth is irredeemably fascist.
It was this yearning that inspired the young writers who created the superheroes from antecedents in the pulps, mythology, religion, and folktales. In fact, most superhero figures fall into a handful of archetypal categories drawn from origins in the ancient mysteries.
MAGIC MEN
Wizard archetypes are as old as fiction itself. Thoth, Egyptian lunar god and patron of magic and science, was perhaps the first Wizard archetype. Thothwas also the patron deity of Aleister Crowley's magnum opus on the Tarot, which he called The Book of Thoth . The melding of Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes gave the world Hermes Trismegistus, Thrice-Great Hermes, the patron of all magical arts and sciences in the pagan world. This tradition, known simply as Hermeticism, was powerful and influential enough to survive centuries of brutal and bloody suppression by the Catholic Church and enjoy a revival among the alchemists of the Middle Ages, who saw themselves as heirs to the Hermetic tradition.
Few people realize, however, that explicitly magical characters are actually the earliest examples of modern superheroes. In fact, it can be argued that all superheroes are essentially magical, since most of their powers have no basis in real science. Early superheroes like Captain Marvel, Phantasmo, and Green Lantern were unambiguously magical in origin, drawing on themes taken directly from the pulps.
Wizards functioned as shamans and medicine men, teachers and priests, and often as chieftains in ancient tribal societies. Three of the most famous sorcerers in Western culture are the Three Wise Men, from the Gospel of Matthew. These magi were Zoroastrian astrologers said to have prophesied the coming of Christ, whom they found in the manger at Bethlehem. The most famous sorcerer of all time, however, is Merlin, the mage from the King Arthur myths.
Merlin is usually portrayed
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