I don’t like demigods cavorting with superheroes.
Yes, Chris Hemsworth plays a hunky Thor, and Hercules had a perfectly respectable stint as an Avenger in the 60s. I didn’t even object when he went on to anchor the now forgotten Bronze Age team The Champions. But the argument that superheroes are just the latest issue of ancient mythology doesn’t do it for me.
Not that it’s a bad argument. Etymologically, “superhero” comes from Shaw’s “superman” which comes from Nietzsche’s “ubermensch” which comes from Goethe’s “unbermenschen” which is translated “superhuman” or “demigod” (though only in a mathematical sense can “greater-than-human” mean “less-then-god”). Semantics aside, comic book mythology, despite all those earthbound gods, is a lot more than antiquity in spandex.
Which is one in a long list of reasons to admire Eric Shanower’s The Age of Bronze. The meticulously researched, multi-book interpretation of the Trojan War is a trove of source materials, from archaeological to Shakespearean, all compiled, sifted, rewoven and painstakingly etched into a literal epic of graphic storytelling. But from the dozens and dozens of Trojan tales, Shanower omits only one detail.
The gods.
“No supernatural intervention,” he told an auditorium of Washington and Lee college students last spring. (My Superhero class attended, but would you believe it was our Classics department that invited a comic book artist to campus?) When one of my fellow professors asked why “suppressing the supernatural” was the impetus behind the project, Shanower said he wanted to “bring the story down to human level.” He was tired of blaming the gods for bad behavior.
For Cassandra’s “origin story” that means replacing Apollo (the source of both her prophetic visions and her inability to convince anyone they’re true) with a priestly pedophile. The curse “no one will believe you” takes on a horribly human meaning.
Shanower’s take on Herakles (yes, same guy as Hercules) is far less disturbing. While the mass of Age of Bronze is rendered in near photo-realism (down to the rounded crenellations in Troy’s walls and the embroidered hems of King Priam’s robes), Shanower reduces that most famous demigod to a “cartoony buffoon.” He’s basically Popeye’s nemesis Bluto. The visual effect, explained Shanower, suggests that the king’s memory (Priam is retelling a story from his childhood) is unreliably exaggerated, the lines literally warped.
Which is another reason to dispense with the demigods. Comic books’ childhood was spent in superhero tights, the medium and the character type coming-of-age hand-in-glove. If you want to create a work of literary and artistic force and erudition (and, wow, does that describe Age of Bronze), it helps to give the kid stuff the boot.
Not that Shanower has anything against superheroes. He admitted at dinner (Classics let me tag along) that he was a big X-Men fan as a kid, was there for the Claremont-Byrne Dark Phoenix Saga, a Greek Tragedy if there ever was one, and arguably the highpoint of Marvel’s Bronze Age.
But how can you draw a naturalistic Herakles without also drawing a line pointing back to Jack Kirby’s 1965 Hercules? Any comic book demigod, even in an authoritative rendering of the Trojan War, might as well have “Sha-zam!”or “It’s clobberin’ time!” penned in his talk bubble.
Look at Robert Sullivan and Chris Slane’s graphic novel Maui: Legends of the Outcast. It was published in 1996, two years before Image Comics started Age of Bronze, but it originates at least a thousand years earlier—about the time the first Maori landed in Aotearoa, AKA New Zealand. They carried tales of Maui, one of the most ubiquitous heroes of Polynesian mythology, with them. Sullivan visited my Superheroes class last year (a side trip between my wife’s poetry course and his evening reading) and said he didn’t intend any superhero allusions when adapting the Maui legends—and yet my students were ready to list them.
They’d identified “outcast” as a superhero trait on the first day of class, and there it is on the cover. An origin story follows, with the hero suffering a character-defining wrong that both motivates him and imbues him with special abilities. After Maui’s mother tosses him stillborn into the ocean, a prayer to the gods transforms him: “Revive the child. Let destiny take him to great deeds. Grant him unnatural powers.” Those include shapeshifting. Soon Maui is fluttering around as a bird, or buzzing in people’s ears, or flapping his fins. He even appears in a half-human state once, his body covered in green scales. He gets a costume too, a special battle suit able to withstand the fire of the sun. There’s no cape or symbol on the chest, but Slane colors his eyes blue and red—an iconic image that separates him from his fellow Maori. He’s also as egotistical as Tony Stark, but all his adventures benefit his people, securing them food, fire, and land.
I’m not trying to draft Maui for the Justice League (though, actually, yeah, that’d be pretty cool), but like it or not, when you draw a superhuman inside a comic book panel, it’s going to flip the switch marked “superhero” in your reader’s brain. I think Shanower recognized that. He spent his early, 80s career inking Silver Age legend Curt Swan’s Superman. When John Byrne took over the character, Swan’s drawings looked about as sophisticated as Popeye. Sullivan looks back at his Maui with some embarrassment too. He wishes he’d made the goddess of death (she chews up Maui in her rocky vagina) less monstrous and a little more, well, human.
Gods just aren’t that interesting. Even Hercules knew that. He made his dad send him to earth even though it meant turning mortal. That’s The Mighty Hercules version, a second rate cartoon in production as Marvel started casting The Mighty Thor down to earthly newsstands in the early 60s. Even the crown princes of Olympus and Asgard would rather hang with us humans. My favorite demigod, that mightily dorky Hercules, died the year I was born. Those were reruns I was watching Sunday mornings before church on Pittsburgh’s old UHF channel 53. Like Priam’s memory, mine is a bit staticy, but I think Zeus molds Hercules’ godly powers into a magic ring to slip on while battling injustice and whatnot. Odin pulls the same trick with a walking stick. I understand the impulse. It’s hard watching your kids grow up and leave their childhood myths behind.
From what I recall of Age of Bronze, it’s not really true that there’s ““No supernatural intervention,” it’s just that the supernatural intervention is implied, rather than depicted outright.
There’s textual evidence that the priests really do communicate with the gods- from what I recall. (I’m not sure that I care what Shanower claims about his comic) I don’t think there’s evidence everyone is living in an atheist world and crazy or delusional.
I also never interpreted the flashback “Bluto” sequence to suggests that the king’s memory is “unreliably exaggerated”
Why would the king have memories that anachronistically look like twentieth century cartooning? That doesn’t even make sense.
Shanower’s omission is arbitrary and curious — especially from a historical point of view. Whether he believes in the supernatural or not is irrelevant, because the people who are the basis for his source material certainly did. It influenced almost everything they did in peace and war. Pretending that wasn’t the case to make some political statement is actually pretty bizarre, and it undermines the authenticity of his stories.
But hey, whatever floats his boat. He’s the one who has to do all of the work.
I think Shanower is just unreliable when talking about his comic, I found this quote online by him:
“The only fantastic details I’ve retained are dreams and visions. And when you think about it, these aren’t necessarily as supernatural as they might first appear. Everyone dreams. Many people have hallucinations. Others are convinced they’ve had visions. People the world over believe they communicate with gods—it’s called prayer. So I’ve let dreams and visions remain—they’re pretty human after all.”
The thing is he’s explicitly adapting a story where in the source material the supernatural elements are real, and the plot plays in line with the source material’s views of the supernatural.
So there’s all sorts of structural plot evidence to suggest the dreams and prophecy in Age of Bronze are legitimately supernatural. He would have to deviate in significant ways from the classic plot in order to imply otherwise… and I don’t think he’s do this because it would ruin the book.
http://ageofbronzeseen.com/2011/11/issue-1-page-15/
that link above is where the quote was from… I probably should have put it under the quote.
Chris, have you read my own take on the difference between mythical heroes and superheroes?
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/08/prehistory-of-the-superhero-part-1-waltzing-with-frankenstein/
I too love that old Hercules cartoon, and like a lot of middle-aged men will belt out its theme song when drunk:
” Hercules, hero of song and story!
Hercules, winner of ancient glory!
Fighting for the right,
Fighting with his might;
With the strength of ten
Ordinary men!
Hercules, people are safe when near him!
Hercules, only the evil fear him!
Softness in his eyes,
Iron in his thighs,
Virtue in his heart,
Fire in every part of
The Mighty Hercules! ”
Hear it for yourselves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUBgk41vKZA
To clarify, Shanower isn’t suggesting that his characters don’t believe in the supernatural. “Gods” still exist to the extent that characters talk about them. But he doesn’t depict them directly, and, like any historian, he doesn’t view events as the result of divine behavior. But, unlike a historian, he’s looking at overtly mythical texts and adapting them as if they contain historically accurate events. I’d say that’s an odd but overall fun angle.
““Gods” still exist to the extent that characters talk about them. ”
And to the extent that prophecies inspired by the gods all come true.
And to the extent the weather cleared up when a sacrifice is made as the Priest requires.
Etc.
There’s a nice discussion about the fact that Shanower’s work is not completely “rational” here:
“In other words, it’s possible to have dreams, visions and prophecies without necessarily making gods or goddesses responsible for them.
The tricky part, though, is what happens when those visions actually come to pass, as is the case with Oenone’s dream, as well as most of the prophecies to come in the comic. How are we to understand the uncanny accuracy with which characters predict the future, if not as a supernatural phenomenon?
My thinking is that the visions and prophecies are, first of all, an indispensible part of the story. You’d lose a lot if you got rid of them, not only because they’re an integral element in our sources, but also because they’re such an effective narrative strategy. Prophecies can be used to foreshadow, obviously, but also to build tension, deepen characterization, and to open up some ironic space between intention and outcome. I think all of these things are at work in Oenone’s vision.
But to point out that visions can be useful from a narrative perspective still doesn’t quite answer the issue of how we’re supposed to understand it when they come true in the story… We’re ultimately left with an ambiguity that we, the readers, have to interpret”.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yRHIczDCc_AJ:ageofbronzeseen.com/2011/11/issue-1-page-15/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
AB, I didn’t know anyone else even knew that song! (And, yes, I quite like your analysis of mythic heroes vs. the uber-individualism of superhereos.)
And now, Pallas, I have to acknowledge that you know Age of Bronze way better than I do, and you certainly seem to have found a major contradiction at the heart of Shanower’s stated intentions.
That movie Troy with Brad Pitt as Achilles — that one didn’t have the gods either, I don’t think (never saw it, myself).
“unlike a historian, he’s looking at overtly mythical texts and adapting them as if they contain historically accurate events. I’d say that’s an odd but overall fun angle.”
But this is is not such an uncommon thing, right? Or at least historians/classicists used to do that a lot with various mythical texts (including the Judaeo-Christian ones). Seems like the sort of thing that serious scholars might tend to look down on nowadays, tho. I just wish he’d adapted the Iliad as per Julian Jaynes…
(Also, I didn’t know Shanower inked Swan. That must have been a good pairing, super-duper-clean.)
Apparently Swan thought Shanower was a bit insane. Shanower would correct all of Swan’s perspective errors in the background buildings, etc. He’s equally thorough with Age of Bronze. He’s read and in some way incorporated everything out there related to the Trojan War (which was his working title until that Brad Pitt movie came out).
Chris writes:
I’m pretty sure that Eric Shanower did not ink any Curt Swan Superman stories; he did ink Swan on an Aquaman one-shot however. Furthermore, the claim that Swan’s “drawings looked about as sophisticated as Popeye” compared to Byrne’s strikes me as kind of a peculiar statement on multiple levels. Your mileage may vary.
I first encountered Shanower inking Steve Rude on NEXUS.
Russ writes:
Agreed. Gene Wolfe (yeah, him again) made the same point in interviews regarding his ancient Greece-based Soldier of the Mist series. Indeed, the series’ protagonist Latro can see and interact with the gods as a consequence of a head injury. (As it happens, the same injury also causes him to forget everything he knows every day, which is a nice little plot device because he’s often as lost as we the readers are!)