Our Gods Wear Spandex Read online

  68 Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars (New York: Modern Library, 2003 edition), chapter 2.

  69 In an article entitled “John Carter: Sword of Theosophy,” which ran in the fanzine Amra in 1959. Leiber noted that a pamphlet on Theosophy's alternative history “sounded to me very much like good old Barsoom with its green men, white priests, levitating battleships, egg-laying princesses, and all the rest.”

  70 Excerpted in Dale R. Broadhurst, “John Carter Beginnings?” ERB Zine, vol. 1107, no pagination.

  71 John Talieaferro, “Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan,” The New York Times, April 4, 1999.

  72 In 1924, Burroughs wrote a similar novel, The Land That Time Forgot, a story about a hidden Antarctic island called Caprona. The island is heated by thermal waters and is also inhabited by dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.

  73 Sax Rohmer, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (New York: Dover, 1997 reprint), chapter 13.

  74 Peter Haining, ed., The Magicians: The Occult in Fact and Fiction (New York: Taplinger, 1972), p. 149.

  75 According to one biographer, Rohmer's wife “was psychic and Rohmer himself seemed to attract metaphysical phenomena — according to a story, he consulted with his wife on a ouija board as to how he could best make a living. The answer was ‘C-H-I-N-A-M-A-N’.” Rohmer also spent a great deal of time with Harry Houdini, trying like Doyle to ascertain whether the magician possessed superhuman powers. The two became friends, but Houdini apparently found Rohmer's studies to be intrusive. See “Sax Rohmer, Classic Reader Biography,” classicreader.com.

  76 Haining, The Magicians, p. 150.

  77 Hulk director Ang Lee is reportedly developing a Shang Chi film as of this writing.

  78 Several Necronomicon forgeries have, in fact, surfaced over the years. See Alan Cabal, “The Doom that Came to Chelsea” New York Press, vol. 16, issue 23.

  79 See Kenneth Grant, Hecate's Fountain (London: Skoob Books, 1995).

  80 Tracy Twyman, “Dead But Dreaming: The Great Old Ones of Lovecraftian Legend Reinterpreted as Atlantean Kings” from The Arcadian Mystique: The Best Of Dagobert's Revenge Magazine (Portland, OR: Dragon Key Press, 2005).

  81 John Carter, Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2004), p. 60.

  82 Quotes excerpted from Rusty Burke, “A Short Biography of Robert E. Howard,” The Official Robert E. Howard Site, p. 11, rehoward.com.

  83 See Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight, ed., The Magical Battle of Britain (Oceanside, CA: Sun Chalice, 1993).

  84 Telephone interview with Catherine Yronwode by this author, October 26, 2006.

  85 The two went into the desert and muttered chants based on Crowley's writings. Not long after, a redhead named Marjorie Cameron showed up at the Agape Lodge, which Parsons saw as proof that the ritual had worked. Parsons and his Scarlet Woman never had any children, however—never mind moonchildren.

  86 Lawrence Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley (New York: St. Martin's, 2000), p. 414.

  87 For the definitive story on Parsons and Hubbard, see Pendle, Strange Angel pp. 252-279. See also Miller Russell, Bare-Faced Messiah (New York: Henry Holt, 1988), p. 132.

  CHAPTER 12

  FAMOUS FUNNIES

  Like so many “uniquely American inventions,” the modern comic strip was actually born in England. As early as 1731, cartoonist-turned-fine-artist William Hogarth was using sequential pictures to tell stories, first in his cautionary tale on easy virtue, A Harlot's Progress, and then with an eight-panel sequel called A Rake's Progress, which warns of the dangers of drinking and whoring. In fact, cartoon features, modern political cartooning, and word balloons all first surfaced in 18th-century England. Cartoons were originally used for political propaganda in newspapers, but many cartoons and strips were printed onto single sheets that were sold on the street.88

  Cartoons migrated to America and got their start in The New York World in 1893. Two years later, Richard Outcault's pioneering strip Hogan's Alley appeared in the Sunday World, inaugurating the modern Sunday comics.89 Outcault, considered the father of modern comic strips, was the first to use panels and speech-balloons together, and introduced color to the strips.90

  Comics got off to a rocky start in America. Christian busybodies attacked them for promoting hilarity on the Sabbath.91 Hogan's Alley was also criticized for its portrayal of immigrant squalor, leading Outcault to create Buster Brown, a more socially acceptable, middle-class sprite who was later appropriated by the Brown Shoe Company for its logo. Despite these early setbacks, however, comic strips survived and thrived. Mutt and Jeff, the first major daily strip, created by Bud Fisher in 1907, ran uninterrupted for an astonishing seventy-five years. Mutt and Jeff were the cover stars for Famous Funnies #1, the series often inaccurately cited as the first American comic book. The duo also became major stars for the All-American Comics Co., the firm that later would bring pagan gods out of the history books and into the funny books.

  Other classic strips include George McManus' Bringing Up Father, Chic Young's Blondie, Frank King's Gasoline Alley, George Herriman's Krazy Kat, and The Katzenjammer Kids, created by Rudolph Dirks. These strips became wildly popular and have since become American icons. They were immediately tapped for licensed merchandising, a process that eventually led to the creation of the modern comic book. Cartoonists were major celebrities in those days, and many made personal appearances on the Vaudeville circuit. Winsor McKay, creator of Little Nemo in Slumberland and one of the very first motion-picture animators, was so talented that he could reportedly draw detailed images and simple animations while addressing an audience. He was also, incidentally, a dedicated Freemason.92

  Like the first comic strips, what we call “comic books” were originally developed in England by collecting reprinted comic panels and strips. Caricature magazines like McLean's Monthly Sheet of Caricatures appeared early in the 19th century. The Comic News appeared in the 1860s and Funny Folks premiered in 1874, followed by Comic Cuts (1890) and Illustrated Chips (1891). Ally Sloper's Half Holiday became the first true comic book, published in May 1884.93

  In America, comic-strip characters became vehicles for licensing almost as soon as they appeared, and comic books were initially a part of that phenomenon. Most of the earliest comic books were collections of reprints from the funny pages, used as lucrative promotional items for gas stations, toy stores, and soap companies. When the Depression hit, the publishing industry took it hard. A struggling salesman named Max Gaines made a deal with the Eastern Color Printing Co. to produce a comic book called Famous Funnies, which he presented as a promotional item to stores and manufacturers. The first issue sold out, inspiring other publishers to snap up every available newspaper strip for reprinting.

  Comic books were gravy for almost everyone involved. They were cheap to print and gave printing companies a lucrative way to keep newspaper presses running in hard times. They gave the industry a new revenue stream and advertisers a new way to attract customers. Kids loved the content and parents appreciated them keeping the kiddies occupied on Sunday afternoon.

  HIGH ADVENTURE

  Although most of the early comic strips were humorous, adventure strips were not long in coming. One of the first, Harold Grey's Little Orphan Annie, appeared in 1924. Popeye, the marble-mouthed sailor man, was a superhero prototype who premiered in E. C. Segar's Thimble Theatre strip in 1929. Roy Crane's Wash Tubbs began as a humor strip in 1924, but evolved into a globetrotting high-adventure strip with the addition of Cap'n Easy in 1929. Chester Gould's hard-boiled Dick Tracy made its debut in 1931, complete with sci-fi elements and outlandish villains that inspired later comic-book supervillains.

  More recognizable superheroes found their way into the funnies. Buck Rogers drifted in from the pulps and became the star of the first sci-fi strip in 1929. Flash Gordon, created by Alex Raymond, appeared five years later. Both had a huge impact on superheroes, particularly in the late 1950s, and were
frequently adapted into other media. Mandrake the Magician—often called the first true superhero—was conjured into the physical plane by Lee Falk in 1934. Two years later, Falk summoned the Phantom, who created the visual model of the superhero in his form-fitting bodysuit, nifty skull logo, and eyemask. The Phantom, called “The Ghost Who Walks,” was essentially a circus-costumed version of Tarzan— the nearly dead son of a British sea captain who is restored to health by a tribe of pygmies. A harbinger of things to come, the Phantom establishes a hereditary secret society whose members are sworn to “fight all forms of piracy, greed, and cruelty.”

  DIRTY DEALINGS

  The idealistic fantasy of the early comic heroes came face-to-face with real vice during Prohibition. Mobsters were looking for new sources of revenue. Because of their high volume and low cost, comics became an ideal tool for organized crime to launder money through the strictly cash-and-carry news-stand business. The Mob quickly extended their hold on distributors as well. As Jones writes: “The volume of product and cash opened up new opportunities for many of the standby residual benefits—money laundering, cash skimming, smuggling.”94 Indeed, politicians like Thomas Dewey and Fiorello La Guardia went after the pulps, not just for their moral transgressions, but because of their financial relationship to the rackets. Many publishers did have cozy relationships with the Mob, both in business and social settings. Many others ran their businesses with ethical standards hardly better than those of gangsters. The irony is that, while comics and pulps helped criminal gangs financially, they also popularized the vigilante heroes bent on bringing them down.95 This paradox created a strange symbiotic relationship between the mobsters and the new gods.

  FOUNDING FATHERS

  The pulps not only provided the comics with most of their heroes and themes, they also provided the industry with most of its key personnel, most notably Harry Donenfeld, godfather of DC Comics, and Martin Goodman, founder of Marvel Comics.

  Donenfeld started his career as a salesman for a printing company, but soon moved into publishing. He formed an alliance with the distributor Eastern News, which had connections to both legitimate business interests and the mob. Eastern handled feminist and Spiritualist magazines, as well as purported health journals like Sex Monthly, catering to the forbidden tastes of a hypocritical American popular culture that couldn't acknowledge its appetite for booze, porn, radical politics, and alternative spirituality. Donenfeld used his extensive business, government, and Mafia connections to keep the business growing, to the point, Gerard Jones writes that, “Margaret Sanger's condoms, Hugo Gernsback's science fiction, and Frank Costello's whiskey could ride together on trucks and on trains and through post offices where the inspectors were on the take.”96

  Donenfeld built an empire that included Paris Nights and Pep! and earned him a reputation as a pornographer in a time when any hint of nudity could cause a magazine to be taken off the stands and its publisher yanked into court. When publishers began to test these social boundaries, Donenfeld was, predictably, on the cutting edge. He paid his artists well and they delivered what discerning gentlemen wanted.

  The government crackdown on the Mob in 1936 encouraged publishers with shady connections to legitimize their businesses. Donenfeld was in a particularly vulnerable position because of his relationship with organized crime and the high visibility of his sexy Spicy pulps. Convinced that he needed to find a safer line of work, Donenfeld turned to comic books as a safe and profitable alternative.

  If Harry Donenfeld was a rakish opportunist, Martin Goodman, founder of Marvel Comics, was a true believer—a pulp fan turned pulp salesman turned pulp publisher. He formed his first company, Western Fiction Publishing Co., with future Archie Comics publisher Louis Silberkleit. His business strategy was to capitalize on popular titles by publishing knock-offs of them. In 1936, he put out a series starring a blond Tarzan called Ka-Zar. In 1938, he played off of Amazing Stories with a series Marvel Science Stories. The success of Unknown and Weird Tales inspired him to launch two “shudder pulps”—Mystery Tales and Uncanny Tales that featured endless retellings of the old girl-tortured-by-fiend yarn.

  When the pulps began to flounder, Goodman, convinced that “comic magazines” were the wave of the future, began to run strips in his pulps to test the waters. In 1939, he founded Marvel Comics #1. whose success would launch an empire.97 Alarmed by the rise of fascism in Europe, Goodman prompted his young editor Joe Simon and his partner Jack Kirby to come up with a patriotic spin on the popular hero Captain Marvel. They called him Captain America. After a brief legal skirmish over similarities between this hero and a previous character named the Shield, the Captain became a major hit. The world was ready for new gods—and the new gods were ready for the world.

  88 For the definitive history of early English comics, see Denis Gifford, International Book of Comics (London: Crescent Books, 1984).

  89 In a strange synchronicity, Outcault's name (originally Altgelt) bears an uncanny etymological similarity to “occult.”

  90 Outcault's star, The Yellow Kid, was the source of the term yellow press, which was coined to describe the type of unethical journalistic practices in The World.

  91 Around the same time, those same busybodies worked to ban the sale of ice cream sodas on the Sabbath, leading to the invention of the Sundae.

  92 John Canemaker, Winsor McCay: His Life and Art (New York: Abbeville, 1987), p. 32.

  93 Gifford, Book of Comics, pp. 14–15.

  94 Gerard Jones, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book (New York: Basic, 2004), p. 163.

  95 The same was true for pornography. Tijuana Bibles, pornographic comic books featuring characters from famous cartoons and comic strips, were produced and printed by comic book artists and publishers, then distributed by the crime syndicates.

  96 Jones, Men of Tomorrow, p. 163.

  97 Many historians refer to Goodman's company in the 40s as Timely. However, Timely was merely one of the many shell companies that Goodman operated. For simplicity's sake, Goodman's firm will be referred to as Marvel, whether in its 40s, 50s, or 60s incarnation.

  CHAPTER 13

  WHO WILL SAVE US?

  All superheroes are essentially savior figures. Unlike religious saviors, however, superheroes offer salvation as a tangible, unambiguous event. They exist, quite simply, to save others from physical danger—which explains their enduring appeal. Tales of their exploits address real anxiety and satisfy a deep need. The childhood need for a father or big brother to shield us from harm and solve our problems is an impulse we all feel. That is why superheroes traditionally enjoy greater popularity—with children and adults—in times of national stress. Children are remarkably sensitive to existential threats and they often internalize their parent's anxieties. And adults often feel as vulnerable as children when confronting the fear of war or economic hardship.

  Young children have a magical worldview. Because they don't understand the physical processes of the everyday world, they tend to perceive their environment as supernatural. This is true even in older children, though many may deny it if pressed. Because superheroes were originally aimed at an audience of children, they are all essentially magical, with no basis in science or ordinary reality. Even if heroes like Spider-Man or Green Lantern draw their powers from technology, the actual scientific explanation for those powers is simply window dressing. If you are bitten by a radioactive spider, chances are good you'll get a horrible rash, go into toxic shock, and then die—not wake up the next morning and start climbing up walls. Themes of mutants, androids, and cyborgs speak to social and spiritual impulses, not science.

  As America struggled to emerge from the Great Depression, the symbols and stories of the old gods reentered American culture. In the comic books, these gods and heroes of antiquity truly came alive and helped inspire America to regain its strength. This return of the old gods collided head-on with huge leaps forward in science and technology. At the same time, genetics prompted
scientists to ponder the possibility of improving the race through genetic manipulation. Credible ideas about space travel were propounded to a public many of whom still believed there was intelligent life on Mars and Venus. Science, philosophy, religion, and the occult all merged in a general yearning to overcome intractable human problems and improve mankind's future.

  This yearning also had a dark side, however, that manifested in ethnocentric politics, racial hatred, and fascism. These dark impulses turned the occult striving toward the “New Man” into murderous political movements that, unfortunately, claimed justification from the same texts that gave rise to the modern superhero. The parallels have not gone unnoticed and some social critics today feel that the superhero myth is irredeemably fascist.

  It was this yearning that inspired the young writers who created the superheroes from antecedents in the pulps, mythology, religion, and folktales. In fact, most superhero figures fall into a handful of archetypal categories drawn from origins in the ancient mysteries.

  MAGIC MEN

  Wizard archetypes are as old as fiction itself. Thoth, Egyptian lunar god and patron of magic and science, was perhaps the first Wizard archetype. Thoth was also the patron deity of Aleister Crowley's magnum opus on the Tarot, which he called The Book of Thoth. The melding of Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes gave the world Hermes Trismegistus, Thrice-Great Hermes, the patron of all magical arts and sciences in the pagan world. This tradition, known simply as Hermeticism, was powerful and influential enough to survive centuries of brutal and bloody suppression by the Catholic Church and enjoy a revival among the alchemists of the Middle Ages, who saw themselves as heirs to the Hermetic tradition.