The Gospel According to Superheroes: Religion and Popular Culture

religious propaganda:superheroes each represent some aspect of divinity or

biblical legend Holy Superheroes: Exploring Faith and Spirituality in

Comic BooksGreg Garrett

Who Needs a Superhero?: Finding Virtue, Vice and What's Holy in the Comics

H. Michael Brewer

comparative study of superhero myths and theology

• the collection "instructs the inquirer on how biblical message . . . has been revised and retold through the superhero genre”

• comics are a "multilayered medium" in which "many religious and secular voices may be heard"

• “their stories make implicit and sometimes explicit, points about theology"

at the center of every human spiritual or intellectual journey is a quest for ever-lasting

paradise, for, as a whole, "humanity has lost its original paradise and wants to be restored to

it"

coming apocalypse

C.K. Robertson, "The True Ubermensch: Batman as Humanistic Myth"

prime example of Nietzsche's ubermensch: healthy, independent and strong individual who operates in the "real world" and "affirms life precisely because he understands suffering and 'the eternal recurrence' of events"

variety of ideologies

• intellectual relevance and significance of superhero comics beyond the realm of the spiritual

• provide critiques of society and grant readers a variety of intellectual and emotional experiences