MARVEL MAY: WHAT MAKES A HERO GOOD?
“Whatever happens tomorrow you must promise me one thing: that you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier but a good man.”
~ Dr. Abraham Erskine in “Captain America: The First Avenger”
It’s May, and if you’re a story-loving, movie-going geek (like me) that usually brings two thoughts to mind:
“May the 4th be with you” and “where’s my Captain America t-shirt?!”
The former is due to May 4th being designated as Star Wars Day (the reason for which is far too complicated to explain on this blog post 😉); the latter because for—give or take—a decade, superhero lovers everywhere have had a Marvel Comic movie to flock to in theaters throughout the month of May…and, consequently, the whole summer, since basically all Marvel movies play for three times the length of anything else running. I could not be called a Star Wars fan anymore (the reasons for which are also too complicated to explain on this blog post) but Marvel, well…that all depends on who you’re talking about. They call it the “Marvel Comic Universe” for a reason: the plethora of heroes available to choose from is staggering. From the old-fashioned sterling honor of Steve Rogers/Captain America, the increasing insecurity of once overly confident Thor, the self-centered selflessness of Tony Stark/Iron Man, the plucky feminist persistence of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, the clumsy but lovably courageous Peter Parker/Spiderman, right on down to the tortured fate and twisted humor of Wade Wilson/Deadpool, there seems to be no end to the variety of heroes, antiheroes, or straight out villains (for you Loki fans out there) to love, idolize, and identify ourselves with. And, whether or not you’re a Marvel fan, I’d say it’s safe to guess you have some heroes of your own, be they the Lone Ranger and Tonto or Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Which begs the question…
What actually makes a hero “good”?
I don’t mean why do we like them: why they make us laugh or smile or cry. I don’t even mean what defines them: their powers or personalities.
I mean what actually makes them good?
We all seem to have our own definition of “good”, based largely on our individual worldview, which comes mostly from what we allow into our minds…such as stories. The heroes we watch as children, the games we play as teenagers, the books we read as adults all combine to influence our perception of what is right or what is wrong: what makes a hero good or a villain bad. Get those stories from the hands of the wrong people and you have generations of humans growing up thinking left is right, right is left, up is down, and down is up (or that 2 + 2 = 5, homosexual marriage is “normal”, and there are 112 genders out there, according to Tumblr). But God’s definition of what is good and heroic has not changed for thousands of years. The Bible says in Psalm 15:
“LORD, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell on Your holy hill? He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart; He who does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he honors those who fear the LORD; he who swears [gives his word] to his own hurt and does not change; he who does not put out his money at usury [demanding interest], nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.”
A hero—real or fictional—is only good if they fit God’s standard, and, since a story is only as good as its hero, I’ll let you figure out from Scripture whether or not the stories you love and heroes you emulate are truly worthy of the title. That question, though exceedingly important, is not the main one of this post.
The main question is, “What makes a hero good?”
And can we be that way, too?
Because why do we watch (or read about) a hero if not because we hope somehow—some impossible somehow—we can be like them? C’mon now, be honest: no matter how old you are, isn’t there something inside of you still wishing to fly like Superman? And, even more than just their superpowers, we want to be like them in character: brave, selfless, witty, compassionate, crazy smart, persistent, beloved, and ultimately victorious over our enemy (and, hopefully, looking fabulous while doing it! 😊). I’ve read all the blog posts talking about the reason we love superhero movies is because they connect with a deep desire in our hearts to be rescued by a superhuman being—pointing us to Jesus—which I do agree with in some measure…and yet, boys and girls on playgrounds don’t pretend they’re the helpless citizen screaming for their lives when the alien army attacks New York City. They pretend they’re the Hulk “smashing” away, Black Widow knocking heads together, or Hawkeye taking deadly aim. Something inside of us longs to both be rescued and be the hero. We yearn for it. We spend for it. We even sweat for it. Gym memberships don’t skyrocket every year just because people want to be healthy and Endgame didn’t become the biggest Global Box Office phenomenon in the history of cinema because we couldn’t find a better way to spend three hours on a Saturday afternoon.
We love heroes because we want to be heroes. And we want to be good ones.
But how?
What can actually make a hero—or a human being—good? A young man once came to Jesus asking essentially the same question. He wanted to do know what good works he could do to gain eternal life. This guy was the epitome of what his culture defined as “good”: respectful, law-abiding, incredibly wealthy. He would have been the one all the parents told their kids to be like when they grow up. Yet, when this young “good” guy showed up asking about good works and calling Jesus a “Good Teacher”, Jesus responded with a rather jarring statement:
“Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.”
~ Luke 18:19
Jesus wasn’t saying He Himself wasn’t good. What I think He was trying to help the young man realize is that we human beings can’t be good. Not on our own. We need God inside of us being good through us. And here is where my love/hate relationship with Marvel Comics and most stories heats up the most. All of these heroes and heroines we love so much are exciting, some of them may even act in ways that are truly “good” as defined by Scripture, but almost none of them tell us how we can be that way, too—which leaves us feeling pumped up from a movie but disillusioned with real life because we don’t think we can live out anything as epic as what we see on screen (believe me, I’ve been there—lots of times!). The great news is, though, we can! If you read the stories of heroes in the Bible and throughout the rest of history, those who trusted in Christ, what they did, what they accomplished, what they experienced, and who they were was far more awesome than any superhero blockbuster has ever dreamt of portraying (Hebrews 11 is a fantastic place to find some of them)…and God is calling us to live out that same epic reality in our day!
We just can’t do it on our own.
So what actually makes a hero good? I think one of my favorite verses (Colossians 1:27) sums it up pretty well…
“Christ in you, [is] the hope of glory.”
And that’s a Source of goodness I think the real Steve Rogers would gladly admit he needed! 😊
CHOOSE HEROIC,
CHRISTIS JOY
