Daily Gyaan

Comicbooks and their characters draw a lot from mythology. A lot of comicbook stories have been taken from folklore or mythology. Sometimes the character is a classic mythological being, e.g. Thor, the god of lightning and thunder is a central character in Norse mythology. An equally good example is Morpheus (Sandman), the Greek god of dreams. Sometimes the connection isn't so conspicuous, so in this post we're going to try to identify comicbook superheroes with their mythological counterparts.

I'm starting off with a few that come to mind immediately:


1. Forge (X-Men) has a startling parallel in Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and metal-working. Equivalent to the Roman god, Vulcan.

2. Storm (X-Men) has control over the elements, particularly lightning, thunder, wind... so she's basically a female Thor. Or closer to home, a female Indra.

3. Pyro (X-Men) can manipulate fire. Too easy. Agni.

4. Iceman (X-Men) needs water do his stuff, kinda like the Indian god of water, Varuna. However, Varuna isn't exactly the "ice-god."

5. Flash (finally a DC character!) is easily identified with Hermes (Greek) or Mercury(Roman), the god of speed. Hermes is depicted as having winged boots, while Flash has a winged helmet, to make the connection a little less obvious. However, Hermes is also characterized with abilities of invention, cunning, theft and healing.

6. Superman/Hulk/Mr. Incredible/ - there's always a generic super-macho in every mythology as well as every comicbook universe. The original Superman couldn't fly, but could 'leap over the tallest bulidings in a single bound' which is pretty much what Hanuman was capable of (he crossed the oceanic divide between India and Lanka in a single leap). Epithets like 'faster than a speeding bullet' and 'stronger than a locomotive' also apply, more or less.

7. Hawkeye(Avengers)/Green Arrow(DC - JSA?) - Arjuna. Any super-archer has to be an Arjuna. In fact there's even an anime called 'Arjuna' in which the protagonist is an archer chick with other abilities.


There are lots of mythologies that I'm completely unacquainted with (e.g. Babylonian, Sumerian, Incan, Celtic, Mayan), and I don't know much about Egyptian, Arthurian, Neopagan, Red Indian, Wiccan legends or folklore. Most of them share some common features like elemental deities, a holy trinity etc.

The point is, not many of our comicbook heroes are based on truly original ideas, indeed most of the Marvel ones I can think of are obvious rip-offs. In contrast, I can't think of an equivalent for Batman (perhaps there's some kind of 'Bat-god' who hunts down vermin at night in some African folklore) or Spiderman(another theriomorphic theological equivalent perhaps). Green-Lantern seems to be an especially original creation. I could be wrong because my knowledge is rather limited, but that's what this post is for - to provide suitable motivation to explore some of the remote but intriguing mythologies out there.

I think that Batman, G.L., Spiderman, Magneto, Swamp Thing (which only Abhijeet has read enough of), Aquaman, Prof Xavier should provoke challenging and interesting research. There must be an equivalent for the generic shape-shifter in every comicverse (e.g. Mystique) but I can't think of one right now.

So get googling or whatever and find some parallels of your own!