LibriumArcana.Games

Well, I remember reading the first issue of Identity Crisis. It was mentioned somewhere that Ray Palmer (the Atom) refers himself as an atheist, "even an atheist physicist like myself...." or something like that.

Interesting. An openly atheistic superhero is not something I found during Silver Age (my childhood comic literature), but now it seems such concept has been accepted among the readers. Is there any other DC or Marvel characters refer themselves as atheist? Can we make a list of atheist superhero characters? Alright, I'll start:

The Atom (DC)

http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/com ... igion.html

I"m not sure if I was linked to this from someone here, but I was linked to it from -somwhere-. So it's a good start...well someobyd has done alot of your work for you.

I believe there's a Lex Lutheran Joke in there somewhere, also.

The list is quite big indeed. Thanks!

By the way, Superman is a methodist?

EDIT: alright, I never thought there's such a superhero character named Battle Pope and his sidekick Jesus.

Considering that gods and the personifications of cosmic forces do intervene in people's lives in most comic universes, one would expect the number of atheist super heroes to be low.

"So we were fighting this dude who wanted Death's love . . ."

"Are you kidding? What a fruit bar. Death isn't a person."

"Actually, she kinda is."

"Are you fucking with me?"

"No. Anyway this dude wanted Death to love so he was going to kill everyone in the entire universe so we kinda had to stop him. So what we did. . ."

Battlepope FTW!
I needs to get me one of those, just so I can frame it. Maybe hang it at work.

though not a "super"hero, Spider Jerusalem of Transmetropolitian is a confirmed athiest as is his filthy assistant Channon.

Well, I think any hero in the same universe as Thor, the hero/deity, would sorta have to be either religious, or very, very quick on his or her feet.

Given that one of my co-workers used to be God's right-hand man atheists haven't got it easy in the DCU, either (to say nothing about the entire Valendamned greek pantheon)...

Course Superman seems to be hovering on the edge of becoming the center of his own religion. I remember reading a comic where Lois got shot while covering a war and Supes shows up at the field hospital.

Solders were saying if Superman would just touch them, they knew they would be healed. That's gotta make a Kansas farmboy a mite uncomfortable.

It does bring up a question, when you're practically a demi-god, how do you deal with the ethical implications of that power? Who can you turn to for guidence?

frigidmagi wrote:It does bring up a question, when you're practically a demi-god, how do you deal with the ethical implications of that power? Who can you turn to for guidence?

I'd always thought you'd look to the same people. Just because you're powerful doesn't mean the old advice is useless. If anything, it's more important, because you live bigger.

Though it does have a nasty tendency to reveal those who are, well, sociopaths, those who obey ethical rules just because they could get in trouble.