I am a big fan of the character Sinestro. He is one of the most interesting villains in the entire DC Universe. So, naturally I picked up the solo issue released last week. The plot was simple enough: Sinestro is tasked to fight a race of immortal space conquers who heal themselves. What he discovers is that they heal themselves because there are microscopic humanoids living in their cells in tiny civilization that make it their lives' work to repair their hosts.
Sinestro sends projections of himself into these tiny civilizations to try and talk them out of aiding their hosts. What follows is some truly terrible religious satire.
The story begins with Sinestro confronting the aliens on a theocratic planet. The god-ruler is a fraud and his people are portrayed as dumb sheep. The same holds for the microscopic civilizations. When Sinestro tries to convince them that their hosts are evil, these tiny people respond with the worst straw man arguments for God. Sinestro sneers at them, inviting the reader to do so as well. Eventually his solution is to increase the life-span of the microscopic creatures. Once they have free time, the begin to question their religious beliefs. I suppose this is meant to be analogous to how the more technologically advanced and leisurely a society becomes, the less religious they also become. This could be an interesting commentary about religion and society, if it was not so directly pointed against people of religious faith.
This is not an isolated incident. Writer Mark Russell also wrote the controversial Second Coming, which satirized Jesus Himself. I don't know why Russell has a chip on his shoulder about religion, but he is not alone. Comic books tend to be incredibly hostile towards religious faith. I will never forget the first page of the 25 cent X-Men special which began with "More people have died in the name of religion than have ever died of cancer. And we try to cure cancer."
I don't recall much outrage over that. It seems par for the course in comic books.
To be fair, there are some writers who do a good job telling stories even from the perspective of the believer. One of those is Alan Moore. This might be surprising considering his pagan tendencies and penchant for violence and pornography. But in his superhero cop series Top Ten, Moore wrote a born again Christian hero named Peregrine. While he allowed others to criticize her faith, she was presented with respect and dignity. In one scene, she shared her faith with a dying man to help give him hope and was shown praying after he passed. When someone else took over the book, she was an intolerant zealot who would do shout things at her coworkers like, "Heretic! Blasphemer!" You know, things normal Christians say to their friends.
Geoff Johns also did an excellent job with the origin of the Blue Lantern Saint Walker. His story was harsh and challenging, but ultimately respectful of the faith that Saint Walker placed in his Higher Power.
As a man of faith I don't expect or demand that comic books cater to my religion or promote any kind of devotion to God. All I ask is that I don't get punched in the face every time I read a story on religion.
Look, writers and publishers can make whatever kinds of comics they want. But I don't fancy myself as someone who pays to get punched in the face by a simple super hero story. All this comic book has done is make me aware of the name Mark Russell and to be on the lookout for books of his so I don't accidentally buy another one.
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