About This Blog

KALLISTI was created several years ago. Since then, the blogopshere has gotten richer, but this devotee to Apollon (and now the Erinyes) is still here providing anecdotes of personal practice, communicating about various theological/moral/philosophical beliefs of myself and others, linking to valuable and/or interesting media sources, and sharing resources about Hellenic polytheisms with the general community.

08 September 2011

Greco-Roman Superheroes!

Today, I made an amazing discovery via On Being.

There are a lot of superheroes who describe themselves as wholly or partially members of “Greco-Roman classical religion.” Whatever that actually is, as Greek and Roman religious traditions are actually quite different — just compare anything we do over in the Hellenic Polytheism blogosphere to everything expressed at M. Horatius Piscinus’s Religio et Pietas.

However, as we probably all know and realize, the general public doesn’t care about these distinctions.

Here are our 100% Greco-Roman superheroes:
  • Wonder Woman
  • Wonder Girl/Troia/Darkstar/Wonder Woman IV
  • Wonder Woman (WWII-era)
  • Magma
  • Hercules*
  • Hercules/Champion*
  • Venus*
  • Ares*
  • Power Princess
  • Aphrodite
  • Aegis
  • Sun Woman
  • Tenth Muse
  • Eve
  • Anysia
  • Phalanx
  • Olympian
  • Caduceus
  • Fury
  • Fury (#2)
  • Glory
  • Mega-Mann
  • The 10th Muse
  • Diana the Huntress*
  • Kapitan Kidlat
  • Helios*
  • Hermes*
  • Poseidon*
  • Hades*
  • Apollo*
  • Dr. Zeus
  • Comet the Super-Horse
  • Lilith/Omen
  • Winged Victory
* As far as I can tell, these are also actually deities

And then we have the people who mix and match:
  • Captain Marvel
  • Sub-Mariner
  • Aquaman
  • Namorita
  • Namora
  • Namora (#2)
  • Andromeda
  • Orka
  • Aquagirl
  • Mera
  • Shark
  • Subbie
  • Aqualad/Tempest
  • Mary Marvel
And the bad guys:
  • Tyrannus (and I mean, you can’t really get any more explicitly evil than having a name like this) 
  • The Black Queen
I don’t read very many comic books, but rather appreciate that we have some non-covert presence in American popular culture — and when I say non-covert, I mean in comparison with stuff like Rick Riordan’s books in which piety and religion are downplayed so Christian readers are not made uncomfortable:
The Lightning Thief explores Greek mythology in a modern setting, but it does so as a humorous work of fantasy, and makes no attempt to subvert or contradict Judeo-Christian teachings. Early in the book, the character Chiron draws a clear distinction between God, capital-G, the creator of the universe, and the Greek gods (lower-case g). Chiron says he does not wish to delve into the metaphysical issue of God, but he has no qualms about discussing the Olympians because they are a “much smaller matter.”
But it’s nice that comic books seem much less frustrating and much more religiously tolerant than the current book industry.

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