Abishai100
Member
What is it about fantastic beings with superhuman powers that stirs society's imagination? Comic book superheroes and supervillains such as Aquaman (DC Comics), Iron Man (Marvel Comics), Red Skull (Marvel Comics), and Batman (DC Comics) are odd, super, strange, and other-worldly.
These fantastic characters are almost like 'aliens' and have tapped into our curiosity about extra-human experience and a human yearning to make imaginative contact with beings with unusual powers and abilities.
This trend in 'pedestrian folk storytelling' has almost created a kind of 'alternative non-human (or alien) mysticism.'
Superhumans found in comic books are not always from other planets but are always 'more human than human' in some way or another and therefore reveal our metaphysical interest in mysterious forms of intelligence (and spirituality!).
Even Satan (or Lucifer), the Christian Devil, has been translated into comic book art and is embodied in the DC Comics superhuman character Lucifer Morningstar, revealing modern pulp fiction interests in bizarre urban intrigue and Earth deformity.
Here's a representative comics-stylized 'invasion' short-story.
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The forces of Medusa were unleashed upon the world at the behest of Hades, king of the underworld. Medusa herself disguised herself as a beautiful blonde woman in New York City and drew the psychic attention of the aquatic demon Black Manta who realized the she-devil was wandering around Earth trying to make trouble. There was further intrigue in Mexico as border-vulnerability related narcotics traffic had created a super crime dominion ruled by princes of profit who sat on thrones of power and prestige. The world was coming apart at the seams.
The only one standing in the way of this 'New Reich' was a ski-masked vigilante named Pistol who kept as his counsel the beautiful Cassandra, a psychic in her own right. Pistol was claustrophobic about the social distortions in New York City and the rising tides of pure anarchy in Tijuana (Mexico), Los Angeles (California), and Toronto (Canada). Pistol took Cassandra to New York with him, because he suspected the gods were angry and had sent an 'evil woman' as a messenger to deform humanity itself. Cassandra suggested to Pistol that the hypothetical evil woman was Medusa wandering around making men obsessed with a narcotics-centric governance.
Pistol poured over his notes and could not help revising his conclusions, but he was optimistic about his insights gained from Cassandra's counsel. Pistol took his special adrenaline shots and put on his ski-mask and hit the streets of New York City on a Saturday night as America's premier vigilante. He went to a number of night-clubs in search of Medusa and believed he found her --- a sultry leather-clad blonde dancing at a acid-techno dance club. Pistol (wearing a fancy Turkish balaclava instead of a ski-mask) walked up to her and asked her if she wanted to take a look at his parked Lamborghini sports car parked outside the club. She happily agreed.
The woman introduced herself to Pistol as Madeline, and she was very impressed with Pistol's sports car (which was stolen incidentally). Pistol asked her point-blank if she was Medusa, and when she realized Pistol was serious, she became enraged and replied, "Yes, I came to Earth at the behest of Hades, because America is on the verge of a social apocalypse of unimaginable proportions, and I want to wield my sabres of magic and perhaps have a little philosophical fun in the process." Pistol was horrified and told Madeline/Medusa that he planned to counter this new 'alien invasion' with a precise regimen of vigilante actions.
Meanwhile, an alien spacecraft was hovering around Earth's moon and using its advanced radar and communication detection equipment to monitor all kinds of urban activity in America. The aliens in the spacecraft concluded that humanity was being taken on an apocalyptic cultural apocalypse led by Medusa and other forces of nihilism and the only one resisting the movement was the mysterious ski-mask wearing vigilante Pistol (and his psychic confidante Cassandra) who had already infiltrated and taken apart a mighty rogue faction of the Yakuza (the Japanese mafia) in New York City and a steroids-pumped super-brute maniac named Bane in Chicago.
Pistol wrote the following entry in his diary:
"It is with great joy that I record the successes of my vigilante work in Tijuana, New York, Chicago, and Toronto. I plan now to visit Hong Kong where new dominions of this new tide of 'nihilistic extra-human darkness' are rising. I owe so much to Cassandra (my psychic aide) who has kept me sane. With a little fortune, we can reach the aliens that Cassandra has guessed are hiding on Earth's moon and planning an invasion."
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Stan Lee's Superhumans
These fantastic characters are almost like 'aliens' and have tapped into our curiosity about extra-human experience and a human yearning to make imaginative contact with beings with unusual powers and abilities.
This trend in 'pedestrian folk storytelling' has almost created a kind of 'alternative non-human (or alien) mysticism.'
Superhumans found in comic books are not always from other planets but are always 'more human than human' in some way or another and therefore reveal our metaphysical interest in mysterious forms of intelligence (and spirituality!).
Even Satan (or Lucifer), the Christian Devil, has been translated into comic book art and is embodied in the DC Comics superhuman character Lucifer Morningstar, revealing modern pulp fiction interests in bizarre urban intrigue and Earth deformity.
Here's a representative comics-stylized 'invasion' short-story.
====
The forces of Medusa were unleashed upon the world at the behest of Hades, king of the underworld. Medusa herself disguised herself as a beautiful blonde woman in New York City and drew the psychic attention of the aquatic demon Black Manta who realized the she-devil was wandering around Earth trying to make trouble. There was further intrigue in Mexico as border-vulnerability related narcotics traffic had created a super crime dominion ruled by princes of profit who sat on thrones of power and prestige. The world was coming apart at the seams.
The only one standing in the way of this 'New Reich' was a ski-masked vigilante named Pistol who kept as his counsel the beautiful Cassandra, a psychic in her own right. Pistol was claustrophobic about the social distortions in New York City and the rising tides of pure anarchy in Tijuana (Mexico), Los Angeles (California), and Toronto (Canada). Pistol took Cassandra to New York with him, because he suspected the gods were angry and had sent an 'evil woman' as a messenger to deform humanity itself. Cassandra suggested to Pistol that the hypothetical evil woman was Medusa wandering around making men obsessed with a narcotics-centric governance.
Pistol poured over his notes and could not help revising his conclusions, but he was optimistic about his insights gained from Cassandra's counsel. Pistol took his special adrenaline shots and put on his ski-mask and hit the streets of New York City on a Saturday night as America's premier vigilante. He went to a number of night-clubs in search of Medusa and believed he found her --- a sultry leather-clad blonde dancing at a acid-techno dance club. Pistol (wearing a fancy Turkish balaclava instead of a ski-mask) walked up to her and asked her if she wanted to take a look at his parked Lamborghini sports car parked outside the club. She happily agreed.
The woman introduced herself to Pistol as Madeline, and she was very impressed with Pistol's sports car (which was stolen incidentally). Pistol asked her point-blank if she was Medusa, and when she realized Pistol was serious, she became enraged and replied, "Yes, I came to Earth at the behest of Hades, because America is on the verge of a social apocalypse of unimaginable proportions, and I want to wield my sabres of magic and perhaps have a little philosophical fun in the process." Pistol was horrified and told Madeline/Medusa that he planned to counter this new 'alien invasion' with a precise regimen of vigilante actions.
Meanwhile, an alien spacecraft was hovering around Earth's moon and using its advanced radar and communication detection equipment to monitor all kinds of urban activity in America. The aliens in the spacecraft concluded that humanity was being taken on an apocalyptic cultural apocalypse led by Medusa and other forces of nihilism and the only one resisting the movement was the mysterious ski-mask wearing vigilante Pistol (and his psychic confidante Cassandra) who had already infiltrated and taken apart a mighty rogue faction of the Yakuza (the Japanese mafia) in New York City and a steroids-pumped super-brute maniac named Bane in Chicago.
Pistol wrote the following entry in his diary:
"It is with great joy that I record the successes of my vigilante work in Tijuana, New York, Chicago, and Toronto. I plan now to visit Hong Kong where new dominions of this new tide of 'nihilistic extra-human darkness' are rising. I owe so much to Cassandra (my psychic aide) who has kept me sane. With a little fortune, we can reach the aliens that Cassandra has guessed are hiding on Earth's moon and planning an invasion."
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Stan Lee's Superhumans
