THE FOUR COLOR GRIMOIRE 01

No Gods But My Own was the name of my Substack newsletter. I’m in the process of shutting it down and wanted to have a more permanent home for these essays here at We the Hallowed. The Four Color Grimoire was the second volume in the series. Originally posted on on February 8th, 2022 and published in the book The Four Color Grimoire on March 31st, 2023.

01. THE FLAWED PARAGONS

People had no idea what they were looking at back in 1938 when the first issue of Action Comics hit the newsstand. The cover showed a brutish man in blue and red tights, strong enough to lift an automobile over his head and smash it into a million pieces on a boulder. Men flee from the terrifying events transpiring in front of them with looks of shear terror on their faces. One of them looks directly toward the potential reader with an expression of awe and fear washing across his face.

Maybe this is justice and the men are criminals?

Maybe this man is really a monster to be feared?

It had to be hard to tell what you were in for back then. Now, after years and years of seeing the costume everywhere, we know exactly who that man on the cover was.

It was Superman but not the version we’re used to these days. Back then he was still the orphan of a destroyed planet, raised by a pair of childless farmers in Smallville, Kansas but he wasn’t the being of pure strength he became after years upon years of retcons and re-imaginings. In the beginning he was strong and bulletproof. He could leap great distances and move fast enough to outrun trains. It wasn’t until much later that he would learn how to fly.

Now it’s easy to see a straight line between Superman and one of the various sun gods out there but way back then he was basically just a human, barely stronger and more intelligent than average.

When Joe Simon and Joe Schuster created Superman all they wanted to make was a pulp hero that fought for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. His enemies were corrupt politicians, union breakers , and even abusive husbands. Superman was more aggressive, sometimes even killing those he fought against. I don’t know if Simon and Schuster knew it but they had created a golem, made of ink and paper instead of stone.

Joe Simon would do the same thing again with the artist Jack Kirby when they created Captain America. Their golem had a much bigger enemy this time. Their new golem would be facing off with the leader of Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler.

Dubbed too weak to serve, scrawny orphan and cartoonist Steve Rogers gets a special medical treatment that transforms him into the perfect soldier, with his mind and body altered to near perfection. Shortly after the procedure has concluded, the scientist responsible for the super soldier serum now coursing through Steve Roger’s altered body is murdered by a Nazi spy. Roger’s takes on the mantle of Captain America and devotes his life to serving his country on the front lines of World War 2.

Their Captain America was a killer. He was a soldier so it kind of came with the job. With his teenage partner Bucky in tow, Captain America would run face first into battle against giant super weapons and hundreds upon hundreds of Nazi soldiers, sometimes armed with nothing more than his trademark sheild. The series took an unexpected turn when Captain America plunged into the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean after surviving the bomb blast that took the life of his young partner, putting him into suspended animation for the next fifteen years.

I highlight these characters for a very particular reason. Without Superman or Captain America superheroes as we know them wouldn’t exist. Both created a sort of cultural panspermia, spreading their seeds everywhere and filling newsstands with copycats and mythic mutations like Captain Marvel, Atlas, Marvelman, Super-American, Captain Canuck, and The Fighting American.

They became icons for generations and their myths changed and evolved over time, absorbing the best and worst of all the stories that had spread from their examples. They may have been the mold-makers but only to a point. The rough edges got more rounded over the years and they both became icons of ethical purity and good manners. Once American exceptionalism needed a facelift they were made more saccharine and inhumanly kind, beacons of all that was good and right, but focusing only on that throws shade on the more valuable lessons beneath the patriotic populism.

Superman, Captain America, Shazam, and their myriad copycats all stand for a certain utopian code of ethics where it’s all fair play and protecting those that can’t protect themselves. They are the most perfect, pure, and innocent of the superhero myths.

The potential uses for The Flawed Paragons in your practice depends entirely on how you choose to view them. You don’t invoke Superman because you want power. You do it for courage. You do it for honesty. You do it for a level of heart and fortitude beyond what you can do as a real world human being. The same goes for Captain America. You don’t focus on his fighting skills or the fact that he was a soldier You focus on his ability to adapt to new and frightening times. You look at his prowess as a leader and inspiration during difficult conflict.

Raw power from characters like these would be a total betrayal of their mythology and essence. It goes against the most basic tenets at the center of them. These beings aren’t worth revering because they have super power.

At their cores, these are all beings of service. They put the needs of others over their own needs, sometimes sacrificing their desires and even their lives to protect the weak and serve the less fortunate. They are the antithesis of power as a tool for self gain.

Above all you have to remember that these are not gods and they don’t call out to be treated as such. Superman may be able to move mountains but the wrong kind of rock could leave him powerless, drive him mad, or even kill him. Captain America isn’t even bulletproof and has to wear body armor and use a shield to protect himself. Shazam has the mind of a child behind his adult sized body that is literally powered by a menagerie of gods. As they are written these characters are all very human and have very human emotions and very human weaknesses.

The reason The Flawed Paragons are useful is because, much like the saints, they perform miracles and do so selflessly. These miracles may be fictional but the potency of that is only a matter of faith. When you petition Superman you can’t look at the version you see on the tv screen or a regrettable tattoo on your second cousin’s arm. You have to find that mythical essence at the core of the character and aim your focus at that.

The Flawed Paragons are meant to be aspirational, telling us that being true of heart and pursuing justice can move mountains.