vanished in a puff of smoke in 1950, replaced by his sexy, scantily-clad daughter, Zatanna. Perhaps seeking favor with some dark god, writer Alan Moore ritually sacrificed Zatara in the pages of Swamp Thing #50 in 1986.
Possibly the first female superhero to pop up in the funny pages is Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle. Created by Barclay Flagg, Fantomah first appeared in Fiction House's Jungle Comics #2 in 1940. Like so many other characters, Fantomah acquired her magical powers through a previous incarnation in ancient Egypt. She was a shape-shifter whose favorite trick was to transform herself into a blonde-haired, skull-headed freak when danger threatened. Apparently, Fantomah's readers felt threatened by this disconcerting and ugly metamorphosis, because she later morphed into a more sexy, kittenish character. Nonetheless, she is true to the type in that magic and the occult are crucial to her status as superhero.
DOCTOR OCCULT
Perhaps the clearest progenitor of the modern superhero is Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's mystic hero, Doctor Occult, who first premiered in New Fun #6 in 1935. Doctor Occult started out as a traditional ghost detective, but underwent a startling transformation in 1936. As historian Les Daniels notes, the Doctor “developed immense strength and began flying around in a red and blue outfit.He thus served as a prototype for the unpublished Superman.” 100 For some reason, Siegel and Shuster later changed his name to the less-objectionable “Doctor Mystic.”
Here, then, is our missing link in the evolution from Theosophy and the Golden Dawn to Spider-Man and the Flash. In The Comic Book Book , Dick O'Donnell unequivocally declares that “students of the history of comics must regard the Occult-Mystic figure as a definite prototype of Superman, performing many of the feats Superman later performed, but doing so by supernatural rather than superscientific means.” 101 It is highly significant that the character who becomes the definitive archetype of the modern superhero is brought into the world by the same men who created the obscure “Doctor Occult,” and that Superman bears such a strong, if unacknowledged, resemblance to his mystical progenitor. In point of fact, the name of Superman's home planet, “Krypton,” stems from the Greek word kryptos meaning ‘hidden’ or ‘secret.’ The Latin translation of kryptos is “occult.”
98 Dick O'Donnell, “It's Magic,” in The Comic Book Book (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973), p. 146.
99 (talking backward)
100 Les Daniels, DC Comics: A Celebration of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes (New York: Billboard Books, 2003), p. 44.
101 O'Donnell, “It's Magic,” p. 157.
CHAPTER 16
THE GOLEMS
The second major superhero archetype, the Golem, comes to us from Jewish mysticism. The myth of the Golem harkens back to the ghettoes of Eastern Europe, where Jews periodically found themselves terrorized by hostile Gentiles. Legend has it that rabbis fashioned Golems out of clay and animated them using the magic of the Kabbalah. The Golems protected the Jews and punished their enemies. Implicit in the Golem folktales, however, is a certain danger for those the Golem is meant to protect.
But the most famous Golem story deals with Rabbi Loew, a Jewish leader in late 16th-century Prague, a thriving center for alchemy, Kabbalah, and other occult pursuits. Following a series of anti-Semitic attacks by hostile burghers, Loew formed a Golem taking mud from the Vltava river and breathing life into it using Kabbalistic gematria. He carved the Hebrew epithet emet (truth) into his forehead.
But the Golem, meant to protect the Jews, soon became too powerful for Loew to control and came to pose a threat to Jews and Gentiles alike. The burghers promised to stop the pogroms if Loew destroyed the Golem. Loew rubbed out the first letter of emet from the Golem's forehead, leaving the word met , meaning death.
The Golem was a favorite
Possibly the first female superhero to pop up in the funny pages is Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle. Created by Barclay Flagg, Fantomah first appeared in Fiction House's Jungle Comics #2 in 1940. Like so many other characters, Fantomah acquired her magical powers through a previous incarnation in ancient Egypt. She was a shape-shifter whose favorite trick was to transform herself into a blonde-haired, skull-headed freak when danger threatened. Apparently, Fantomah's readers felt threatened by this disconcerting and ugly metamorphosis, because she later morphed into a more sexy, kittenish character. Nonetheless, she is true to the type in that magic and the occult are crucial to her status as superhero.
DOCTOR OCCULT
Perhaps the clearest progenitor of the modern superhero is Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's mystic hero, Doctor Occult, who first premiered in New Fun #6 in 1935. Doctor Occult started out as a traditional ghost detective, but underwent a startling transformation in 1936. As historian Les Daniels notes, the Doctor “developed immense strength and began flying around in a red and blue outfit.He thus served as a prototype for the unpublished Superman.” 100 For some reason, Siegel and Shuster later changed his name to the less-objectionable “Doctor Mystic.”
Here, then, is our missing link in the evolution from Theosophy and the Golden Dawn to Spider-Man and the Flash. In The Comic Book Book , Dick O'Donnell unequivocally declares that “students of the history of comics must regard the Occult-Mystic figure as a definite prototype of Superman, performing many of the feats Superman later performed, but doing so by supernatural rather than superscientific means.” 101 It is highly significant that the character who becomes the definitive archetype of the modern superhero is brought into the world by the same men who created the obscure “Doctor Occult,” and that Superman bears such a strong, if unacknowledged, resemblance to his mystical progenitor. In point of fact, the name of Superman's home planet, “Krypton,” stems from the Greek word kryptos meaning ‘hidden’ or ‘secret.’ The Latin translation of kryptos is “occult.”
98 Dick O'Donnell, “It's Magic,” in The Comic Book Book (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973), p. 146.
99 (talking backward)
100 Les Daniels, DC Comics: A Celebration of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes (New York: Billboard Books, 2003), p. 44.
101 O'Donnell, “It's Magic,” p. 157.
CHAPTER 16
THE GOLEMS
The second major superhero archetype, the Golem, comes to us from Jewish mysticism. The myth of the Golem harkens back to the ghettoes of Eastern Europe, where Jews periodically found themselves terrorized by hostile Gentiles. Legend has it that rabbis fashioned Golems out of clay and animated them using the magic of the Kabbalah. The Golems protected the Jews and punished their enemies. Implicit in the Golem folktales, however, is a certain danger for those the Golem is meant to protect.
But the most famous Golem story deals with Rabbi Loew, a Jewish leader in late 16th-century Prague, a thriving center for alchemy, Kabbalah, and other occult pursuits. Following a series of anti-Semitic attacks by hostile burghers, Loew formed a Golem taking mud from the Vltava river and breathing life into it using Kabbalistic gematria. He carved the Hebrew epithet emet (truth) into his forehead.
But the Golem, meant to protect the Jews, soon became too powerful for Loew to control and came to pose a threat to Jews and Gentiles alike. The burghers promised to stop the pogroms if Loew destroyed the Golem. Loew rubbed out the first letter of emet from the Golem's forehead, leaving the word met , meaning death.
The Golem was a favorite
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