The Superhero Mega-thread

I'm going by the comic book version, which may be somewhat different from the movie. In fact, here's the comic if anyone wants to check it out:

• Wolverine: Origin Issue #1 @ readcomiconline.net

That's the first of six issues. To see the rest there's a little box at the top of the page where you can choose which issue and whether to show only one page at a time or all pages. Oh, there's also a Next box at the bottom of each issue. The art looks strangely cartoonish, and Logan (under his real name James Howlett) and his brother look a lot like Little Lord Fauntleroy and Huckleberry Finn.

And here's the story of how he got the adamantium bonded to his bones and his claws—written, penciled, inked and colored by Barry Windsor-Smith, one of my favorite comic book artists:

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• Weapon X Gallery Edition @ readcomiconline.net

One of the high water marks in comic book history. I'll come back in with the relevant info in a bit, about Logan's childhood trauma.

Ok, here's the dope on Logan's childhood:

The setting is the 1880's in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, on the large estate of the wealthy Howlett family:

• John Howlett—father of little James
• James Howlett—(Logan, to become Wolverine)
• Elizabeth Howlett—his mother
• Thomas Logan—the groundskeeper—a cruel, abusive degenerate
• Dog—Thomas' son, to become Sabertooth

John Howlett is a kind and compassionate father, while his wife Elizabeth is withdrawn and morose. James himself is friendly and outgoing despite some health problems. The family was devastated by the death of their first son John jr in a miscarriage. Mother Elizabeth was institutionalized for some time and returned a somber, haunted ghost of her former self. Dog is a tormented, passive whipping-boy for his cruel father's problems.

It's hinted that James and Dog are actually half-brothers, and that James is actually the illegitimate son of Thomas Logan. Dog is frequently abused and beaten by his father, and grows to become much like him—nasty and mean, and to blame his problems on his nice friend James, rather than on its true source. The mother, Elizabeth, is shown to have the scars of a claw attack on her back, that she always tries to keep hidden.

After some bad shenannigans, groundskeeper Thomas Logan and his son Dog are expelled from the property, but they return with shotguns, and Thomas shoots John (the father). This is the point when little James' bone-claws first emerge in his rage, and he howls like a wild creature and attacks Dog and his father Thomas. He tries to punch Thomas, but the claws were extended and he ended up stabbing him fatally in the gut.

The mother, Elizabeth, screams "Not again!" slaps James, and calls him a monster. Then she picks up the shotgun and kills herself.

I got this from a synopsis in the Wolverine book, and it isn't explained how she got the incriminating claws marks on her back, but I suspect they were caused by Dog, who, as Sabertooth, can extend his fingernails into viscious long claws similar to Wolverine's.

So already, in 2001, we have the idea that the mutant powers can be activated by abuse. This is very close to the concept of the Netflix Marvel shows, where trauma caused the superpowers, in the form of experimentation done by some secret agency. So the trauma and the powers are inextricably linked, and the powers respesent the trauma. In fact, even in Weapon X, from 1991, Logan is subjected to intense torture designed to turn him into a living weapon that can be controlled, and though he already had manifested the mutant abilities, they were greatly strengthened and focused through the abuse. It's what awakened the berserker rage in him, what turned him into a wild feral beast.

And, to fit this in with the idea of superheroes having dual personalities, it's very clear in Weapon X that he develops a frightening shadow-self during the torture, that he tries to run from and hide from, but it always seems to be just behind him, and he fears at any moment it will possess him and be inside of him, where he can never escape from it. That's his beast nature, or rather the beast-self that was born thanks to the torture. Afterwards his humanity returns, but when he gets angry the beast emerges and takes total control, to the extent that the rational human being is totally subsumed. He flies into a red fury where he loses control completely and will kill and destroy almost indiscriminately. I believe the idea is that when this happens he struggles to stay as human as possible, but the angrier he gets (like the Hulk) the more he loses control.

I want to point out the fact that one abusive man—Thomas Logan—destroyed his own family and the pleasant wealthy family he worked for. It seems John Howlett believed James was his own son, but really he was the son of the groundskeeper Thomas Logan. That's a really nasty betrayal—and how complicit was Elizabeth? She either had sex with Thomas and lied to her husband about whose baby it was, or Thomas raped her, in which case she still lied to her husband and her son. Or she and her husband (and everybody else involved) lied to their son.

I hope I'm not messing this all up—doubtless I'd get more details from watching the movie or reading the comic books. I'm just conjecturing based on a synopsis. But it's hard to see any innocent way these events went down where John Howlett and little James weren't lied to and betrayed by people they trusted and relied on. And as a result of it, they're all dead now except for the two boys.

But there's something else revealed here—the two boys are both offspring of Thomas Logan, and they have very different personalities. James is decent and friendly and trusting, whereas Dog starts off morose and withdrawn and becomes nasty and abusive, just like his father. It shows that upbringing makes a big difference. They both had the same tainted DNA in them, but grew up different. So different that one is a superhero (who struggles with anger issues, admittedly) and the other a really nasty supervillain who hates him and has dedicated his life to destroying him.

I believe mythology is filled with tales of pairs of brothers, one good and one evil. Rather like Abel and Caine of Biblical fame.

I've now watched the beginning of X Men Origins: Wolverine and read two and a half issues of the comic book version. They breeze through the origin so fast in the movie—it's only like three or four minutes, with no detail at all. A lot more detail in the comic, plus several characters not in the movie. I think the comic version gets across the devastation of the various abuses (almost not shown at all in the movie) and James' horror at discovering he's a strange creature with claws. They also let you know in no uncertain terms that he's lost his memory after the event. And I couldn't help but notice, for no real reason, there's a big hedge maze in the comic version. Well, actually there's a perfectly good reason—to link it with The Shining, a movie with a severely violent and abusive father/husband going on a rampage in a huge, ritzy hotel (not too different from the Howlett mansion).

I haven't found any reason as to how Elizabeth ended up being James's mother, if it was rape or cheating on her husband. Guess that one goes down as another of Logan's mysteries. But yeah, the comic version reads like a gothic horror story much of the time, and really digs in to the abuse and trauma.

In the comic version John jr's death wasn't by miscarriage. They showed his tombstone, and he died at age 12. So it was probably he who raked his mother's back with his claws. She also never said "Not again," as the synopsis claimed. I'm not sure where the author got her info from, I thought it was from the comic book. Or maybe I messed that up (hey, it happens).

EDIT—Yep, it was all on me. Nowhere in the synopsis does it say miscarriage. My bad!

And now I'm struck by how little of Wolverine's origin is actually shown in the movie. My only guess is that they wanted to keep it rated PG, and didn't want to touch any of that intense trauma. I like a lot of the movie, but the beginning should have been a lot longer, maybe like twenty minutes, and it should have been made outside of the actual MCU so they could go dark and intense (like they did for Logan). But it is what it is.

Oh shit!! These are a couple of screengrabs from the war montage.

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Is it just me, or does this look a lot like the scene from Apocalypse Now where the helicopter gunner is shooting out the side door (same side) at unarmed civilians as they run away? And the gunner is laughing his ass off.

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In this shot, seconds later, Logan tells Victor "That's enough!" and tries to physically stop him from shooting. It went by so fast, but it looks like the people he's shooting at are running away on a road. Yes, I do believe they were going for that comparison, especially considering the comic book very deliberately connected with The Shining via the hedge maze.

I also noticed in the shot right before that one (in the WWII segment) Victor is seen gleefully firing a machine gun into a bunker from very close up at soldiers who are not shooting back, but trying to get away or hide. I don't think we ever see Logan shooting at anybody.

I once got into a conversation with someone who claimed superheroes are the modern equivalents of ancient gods. I was extremely skeptical, though they do share certain traits (very few). The functions are very different. But then I realized they share a lot more in common with demigods (half god, half human, usually with one parent being a god and one a mortal) or mythological heroes, which are descendants of the gods, two or three steps removed from divinity, but still containing some of its power and nobility. I thought that conversation might have happened here, but I can't find it. It may have been another forum I used to frequent. Part of what I'll be doing in this thread is exploring those ideas, especially as I read through the book on the subject that I've ordered. But before I dig into that I have some ideas of my own I want to explicate and develop a bit.

For my blog posts about Loki (the god, not the Marvel character) I read a couple of books about Norse mythology that I downloaded form Archive.org. One of them revealed that the gods represented the forces of nature combined with the appropriate human traits—for instance Loki represents fire in both its life-saving/comforting aspect and its destructive aspect, as well as betrayal and narcissism. That's why he can be so charming and seem to be a good friend or ally, and then can suddenly betray viciously. Living in the frozen Northlands like the Norse did, fire was a life-saver and a necessity, but could also consume everything if left unchecked for a little too long. His half-brother Thor represented the power of the storm combined with courage in battle and great strength. There's one of the good and bad brother pairings. So far the comic book versions and movie versions check out, all of this seems to be there, except maybe for the connection between Loki and fire.

But here's one major difference. The comics present an ongoing and ostensibly endless series of episodes where they fight each other or sometimes team up to fight monsters or other threats, whereas there are only a handful of such episodes in the original mythology, and those serve very specific purposes. They detail vitally important aspects of human nature, to provide wisdom for the readers. I need to develop this more in future posts, the ideas are pretty vague right now. But in the comics they seem to serve no more important purpose than to show children what good and bad morality are. That is a part of what was being done through the myths, But they made their point and then ended, whereas the ccmic book versions just keep making the same points over and over, since they're an ongoing serialized storyline. The reason for this is their very different purposes. Comic books are commodified commercial products that need to entertain and make money, and there needs to be another story each month. The myths were stories that presented some of the profound truths about nature and human nature, and they did that with brevity and concision and then dropped it.

The myths were pared down and tested over many centuries. Originally there were probably many such stories, but most of them faded over the ages as being not of vital importance. This in the days when there was no written language, the only way to remember things was through song and poetry and tales. A people could only have so many of these, and bards had to be trained to memorize the most important ones. It was their life's work, and vitally important to the society, since these stories and songs and poems were the heart of the society. They got across the morals, the values that formed the living heart of the society itself. Today it's the important historical events in a nation's past that formed it that are our new myths, as well as certain stories and songs that help keep our values and morals alive. If a society loses those, it dwindles to its sad end.

Comic books do demonstrate certain important morals and values, but in a more generic way, and they're more p
reachy or aimed only at teaching children how to be good. This is a greatly reduced aim, and also they've been Disney-fied. In general the superheroes don't kill for instance (though there are a handful who do). I suppose this is because it's a part of our modern liberal values that didn't exist in ancient times. But still, if you teach only these modern liberal values, then the raw savagery and uncaring nature of the world is lost, and when the shit really hits the fan nobody knows how to live. Liberal values can only work in a strong well-protected society like our modern countries (and only the Western ones that have managed to adopt the liberal values). As soon as the bulwarks protecting us from the savagery of nature and of raw human nature break down, a people schooled only in fair liberal values is doomed to utter destruction. Nature and raw human nature are red in tooth and claw, and any people who forgets that has become over-civilized to a fatal degree. Yes, the liberal values need to be taught, but so do the values of absolute survival in a fierce world where nobody cares about fairness or your rights. Those civilized niceties can only be maintained as long as your country remains strong enough to fend off attackers and to police itself internally, or the whole system will collapse and we'll find ourselves in a wilderness state of savagery where the strong take the weak. It's these kinds of raw ideas that were preserved in the ancient mythologies, and that have been lost in modern Western societies. We've become pampered, domesticated lap dogs, no longer capable of surviving in the wilderness or of fighting for our lives. It's very much a case of

Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.​

I seem to have shifted to a somewhat different topic now, but it's a closely related one, and inherent in the differences between ancient mythology and modern ideas including comic book superheroes.

Now that I've delved so deeply into certain superhero properties like Jessica Jones and Daredevil and Logan, I can see that they indeed do show us nature (and human nature) red in tooth and claw, because they're made outside of the Disney-fied structure of the main MCU, where they can deal with some darkness and some real raw power. The darkness for instance that exists within traumatized individuals. It's always been hinted at in the superhero tales, but usually only in very minor ways. These newer R-rated shows and movies go where all others have feared to tread in the past (most others anyway, I'm sure a few powerful treatments have slipped through now and then). And of course some of them deal with it much better than others.

One big factor that allows them to feel so much more mythical to me is the symbolism, with the split personae, usually with one representing the socially acceptable self, and the other the Shadow-self, filled with rage or fear or—well, I guess that's generally it. Probably both rage and fear for most of them. These are the raw parts, the savage parts, that are socially unacceptable in the modern Western world, at least at the level of family-friendly PG-rated movies. It has to be done at the fringes, where things get more raw and dark, and by people who have a deep understanding of the nature of these conditions.

"These conditions" (from end of last entry) are psychological, but as Jung taught us, the psychological is also the mythical. Or rather myth and religion were early ways of depicting the inner turmoil that today we call psychology. They were depicted symbolically then, which is the language of the unconscious. In fact we thought a lot more unconsciously then than we do today. We've massively developed the conscious mind and put it completely in the lead role, whereas it was fairly underdeveloped in ancient times, and the unconscious (the part that creates dreams and houses the imagination) was very much in the lead role. The conscious mind is very clinical and rational, while the unconscious is more symbolic. It's responsible for feelings and emotions and intuition and symbol and the more artistic things as opposed to the conscious mind's tendencies toward science and logic and reason. Myth and religion and dream are all very closely related, all springing from the unconscious and working through the inner language of symbolism.

In dreams, as in myths and religions, problems are often symbolized by monsters or strange deformed creatures. Or something like demons. Hence why a saying like "He spent a decade wrestling with his inner demons" makes perfect sense to us. It's symbolic. We understand those demons are things like depression, or alcoholism for instance. And this is basically what's always been meant by the language of mythology and religion, though our early ancestors didn't have our clinical understanding of the issues they were symbolizing. They understood that men can be extremely vulnerable to certain kinds of women who seemed to exert some kind of magical influence over them, but they didn't have the study of psychology or anything even close to it. They simply said the women could cast spells and hexes, and that was understandable enough. As we developed the conscious mind to higher levels we also developed the sciences and psychology, which gave us a new language for understanding these ideas, though today the realities still hold just as much power as they ever did. In fact someone who has been traumatized by a person capable of dominating them often will describe it using magical or mythical terms, because they're a much better fit for the experience than detached clinical terms. Hence why it makes sense to refer to Matt Murdock's Shadow personality as his Devil, and his socially acceptable lawyer persona as his Angel.

Certain comic book lines were willing to dig into the inner darkness long before the superhero movies were. But they had the same problem—the major stream of superhero comics was confined by the Comics Code, a sub-current of the Hayes Code, which severely limited what could be shown or done across mass media in general. This began with a book called Seduction of the Innocent, which maintained that the morals of children were being severely disturbed by the EC horror and war comics and certain other kinds. So the comics industry adopted self-censorship, in the form of the Comics Code Authority. All comics needed to be submitted to them for approval before getting stamped for publication. There were no legal ramifications for transgressing the code, if that happened the issues simply wouldn't get the stamp of approval and supposedly would be rejected by the stores where they were sold on racks. I don't know if that ever happened, because all the big publishers held themselves pretty strictly to the code and always got approved (or possibly made modifications when requested). Until one day when Stan Lee was working on I think a Spiderman story dealing with some powerful social issues of the day, in the 60's. He could tell the book was too intense and probably would get rejected, so if I remember right he simply didn't submit it to the Comics Code Authority, and it got printed and shipped to stores without the familiar symbol in the corner of the cover, and nothing bad happened as a result. Of course this was a part of the loosening of morality that happened in the Sixties. Movies and other things had been severely censored by the Hayes Code beginning I think in the thirties, when sound movies were a thing. There are pre-code movies, which feature toplessness and occasionally nudity as well as some words you wouldn't hear during the censorship decades, and darker and more sexual themes as well as more violence. Movies and shows made during the censorship era for instance couldn't show even a married couple sharing a bed together, even if they were both fully dressed and lying on top of the covers, they had to have separate beds and maybe with a screen or curtain in between so they couldn't even see each other (I might have embellished that a bit, I'm not sure).

Wow, long side-scroll! To get back on point, some publishers in the 80s (possibly starting in the 70s?) created new titles designed to showcase some stronger stuff, without all the censorship. Titles Like Epic Illustrated, and then Epic Comics, Valiant, and a few more (I don't know a lot about this topic. I'm not even sure if Valiant was one of them). These were the comics equivalent of R rated.

But over time even the more general comic publications started to allow more freedom, since the darker comics tended to sell a lot of issues. Of course movies did the same thing, starting in the 60s, or even in some ways in the 50s, but not for the superhero material, which was thought to be aimed at children. They didn't start to deal with any darkness until the Tim Burton Batman movies of the 80's, which opened the floodgates.

Gods were to protect a mortal society from the raw savage power of the elements and to establish a protected area where civilization could begin to flourish. This became clear to me in reading the Norse mythology. Demigods are one level down from the gods, somewhat closer to humanity, but they still live in the realm of the gods (and can travel to the mortal sphere when they want to, same as the gods can). Then the mythic heroes are largely mortal but still have some DNA from their divine ancestors. They live entirely in the mortal realm and perform feats of great strength and courage. They tended to fight monsters that plagued a village or a kingdom or a city. Well, this actually sounds a lot like what superheroes do. Wilson Fisk could be called a monster that holds terrible sway over the city of New York, in much the same way a Minotaur or a Dragon or a Gorgon might threaten some ancient society. In both cases the heroes are dealing with big problems that the mortal populace is incapable of dealing with themselves.

I think some of the more Southern gods (Greek, Roman) served different purposes. In the land of the Vikings, the greatest danger was nature itself, so their Frost Giants were personified figures of nature's savagery, which made the land far too dangerous for mortals to live in. But then came the gods, made of the same stuff, but more human-like, and there to serve as a protective barrier beteween those elements and human civilization. So the frost giants symbolized many of the same things as the gods did, for instance many of them were about the power of cold and ice and severe storms. Well, this covers some of the same territory as Thor, being a storm god. The difference is the frost giants are totally inhuman and don't care at all about us, they just like to flex and bash about the landscape destroying everything. They're the power of nature untamed and wild, dangerous in the extreme. The gods are like smaller versions of them (but containing the same powers, to the same level I believe) who are much closer to the human. In Loki's case he was half god and half frost giant, or in some accounts a full frost giant who looked more like a god and was adopted and raised by Odin. I suppose this accounts for why he's less cool than the rest of the gods, and so willing to sell out his 'friends' and fellows.

My thought is that in the Mediterranian region nature was far less hostile to mankind, so many of their gods dealt with other issues. This is a pretty new idea to me though, and that's as far as I've gone with it yet. But I mean, Aphrodite for instance is the goddess of Love, and doesn't seem to correpsond to any force of nature. Maybe that's specifically a Norse thing? I don't know. But Zeus is a thunder and lightning god, same as Odin and Thor. Maybe those are the older ones, from more primitive times when nature was still the major threat? And then the newer ones were created in times when nature was no longer the main issue, when civilization was thriving fairly well. Or it just wasn't that dangerous of a place to begin with. Though there is Poseidon and several other sea deities.