A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
– Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
One can only wonder if Campbell ventured around superhero comic books and compared some of their psychological traits with his rich research. Because like the heroes of old mythologies, some of the superheroes conceived in the twentieth century follow a similar pattern: they come across the path of the supernatural – if not having their own origins established by it, already.
In the following excerpt from The Power of Myth, he pushes the concept further:
When man confronts any kind of mystery, his mind and soul are called to cross a door that mandates the very acknowledgment of such concepts within himself, because he’ll need them as tools to challenge and undercover the mystery. (…) People live in the recognition of something there that is much greater than the human dimension. Man’s tendency, however, is to personify such experiences, to anthropomorphize natural forces.
As a means to elaborate on the matter, an analysis of a specific period of the character’s history is required: precisely, in Amazing Spider-Man #256 (May, 1984), written by Tom DeFalco, drawn by Ron Frenz, and inked by Joe Rubinstein.
At this stage in his life, Peter is in a relationship with the Black Cat, who is taking (better) pictures of him in action for the Daily Bugle (but she’s more interested in the Spider than Peter), while befriending back Mary Jane who got back into his life, provoking the anger of crime lords, still unbeknownst that his uniform is a living creature bounded to him by symbiosis. Not the happiest of times for our friendly neighborhood.
For this issue, DeFalco and Frenz conceived The Puma – a superpowered assassin for hire whose powers proportionally emulates his own namesake. Thomas Fireheart is the embodiment of his own totemic power: the result of ten generations worth of genetic engineering performed by his Native American tribe. The crimelord Rose hires him to hunt Spider-Man down and eliminate him. As any natural hunter would, Puma gauges his prey from a distance before moving for the kill. They eventually clash in the following issue (ASM #257), and Puma’s participation in these two sole issues triggers off important life-changing issues for the Web-Slinging hero: 1) it is Puma who tells him that the web his uniform creates is organic – leading him to investigate his doubts with Reed Richards and finally find out that it is alive – this is the origin of Venom; 2) due to their confrontation, Puma and Spider-Man crash into Peter’s pad while Mary Jane is trying to get in. The fight takes Spidey to the limit. Puma decides not to kill him and leaves. Back to his apartment, Mary Jane is waiting for him – she then reveals knowing his secret – that he’s Spider-Man.
In subsequent stories, legendary spider-scribe Gerry Conway was the one who masterminded two different Spider-Man titles at once (Web of Spider-Man with great Romita-legacy-style art by Alex Saviuk and Spectacular Spider-Man, penciled by the master of kinetic sequence Sal Buscema), weaved a plot through these titles that would later take Peter to Puma’s natural habitat in New Mexico.
It all starts in WSM #50 when Puma misjudged Spider-Man as a criminal, an error he later admitted; but to his own eyes, Fireheart dishonored himself. He follows the Amerind code of personal honor (mentioned in SSM #154) – to him, it is a balance that needs to be rectified. So he buys the majority of shares of the Daily Bugle from J. Jonah Jameson to restore Spider-Man’s reputation in NY (SSM #156), tarnished for so long by JJJ through the Bugle. Under new management, the Bugle launches a pro-Spider-Man campaign with not only editorials praising the hero, but with billboards all over the city depicting him as the friendly neighborhood and guardian of the city. Good publicity. In SSM #157, a discontented Spider-Man goes to Fireheart’s office and asks him to stop with it all, but to a mercenary with a fierce code of honor, it is not enough. He then proposes a solution: that they both should go to his reservation in New Mexico and resolve the bad blood between them – once and for all. But not before selling the 51% stock of the Daily Bugle controlling shares back to JJJ for one dollar – with one condition: Jameson must print an obituary, either his or Spider-Man’s.
When Peter and Fireheart arrive in New Mexico, Thomas tries to justify the situation to his uncle, Joseph Threetrees, and how his life has fallen off balance for misjudging and dishonoring Peter Parker, and how that brought shame to himself and his stark sense of honor. And no matter how much he tries to restore this debt, it only grows further. What he lacks in altruism, he makes for pride. His alternative: that the debt could only be restored through blood. Threetrees acknowledges his nephew’s proud dilemma but states to both men that they must undergo a purifying ritual before engaging in combat.
Each man has their totemic source of power painted on their faces, sitting across from one another with fire between them; the ceremony takes place inside a cave. Threetrees is a shaman, therefore he conducts it. Whatever the cleansing is, it must be sweated out.
Peter is asked to drink a liquid from a bowl; he hallucinates and sees himself as a giant spider in the center of a web with everyone he knows and loves trapped in it. He questions himself, as Fireheart. The ritual reaches its apogee, the shaman states that if every man is to live with honor, he must confront the monster inside himself; he then tosses a handful of magic dust into the fire. Shadowy forms of a puma and a spider arise in the smoke taking over the cave – the “beasts within”, it’s how Peter interprets the vision. Though in a sense, it’s when Peter sees his totem as a mystical symbol for the first time. The shaman chants louder. The shady animal figures lock in a deadly embrace. Inside the sweat lodge, two men imbued with totemic powers look into each other’s souls. When it’s over, both men are purified. Regardless, Thomas Fireheart insists that honor demands blood. The savage showdown in the desert is inevitable.
And fight they do; violently. To the point when asked by Puma if he agrees to fight to the death, Spider-Man just answers ‘yes’. Possibly a result of the mystical ritual, when facing his own totem in the form of a shadow (the same question would be asked by Shathra when having to fight for survival and the same predatory nature would be shown against the Digger in different tales written by J. Michael Straczynski) The combat takes them to a cave – Puma is in full hunting mode, but little does he know how a spider hunts. His neck is snared from above by a web, then swung over a chasm where he has no footing; Spider-Man tights the noose by pulling his web upwards with the intention of strangling him to death. But in the last second, Peter holds himself from doing it. The Puma demands to know why. The wall-crawler shifts from hunter to Ben & May Parker’s nephew and uses reason: even though they might be matched, Peter explains that the visions showed him that they can settle their divergences without killing each other; that honor also means responsibility with the ones most dear in their lives, and either death would bring a real disgrace to those they sworn to protect; most of all, that he is not the Puma’s enemy. Thomas Fireheart understands and both men, overcoming the primal (and killer) nature of their totems finally make peace.
This two-part tale was published in Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 1), #171 -172 (1990).
When J.M. DeMatteis took over the monthly writing duties from issue #178, he inserted a deeper psychological examination of the web-weaver, his cast, and enemies – in the same style in which he successfully delivered Kraven’s Last Hunt. Thanks to another Puma’s inclusion as an antagonist in the three-parter “Eye of The Puma”, featured in SSM #191-193 (1992), DeMatteis could explore Spider-Man’s connection to the supernatural, with a mere glimpse into the beyond.
The fable centers on Thomas Fireheart’s struggle with controlling the instinctive side of the Puma, changing back and forth from human to feline when hired to kill his next human target; Peter Parker is undergoing an unstoppable wave of challenges in his life that is affecting his consciousness, sleep, and his relationship with Mary Jane. The only way he can rest is upside down – like a spider would – letting go of the human side and allowing the spider take over. Both men are not in peace with their own lives. Sensing their strong totemic connection and immense restlessness even from a wheelchair in his secret identity, the Black Crow – is the gateway to the supernatural and the door between man and the Great Spirit, uses his mystic powers through a mist to transport them to the Land of the Anasazi, where they must determine the path of their lives from that moment onwards. It’s a spiritual ordeal; the Black Crow takes many forms for each man to fight, testing their mental balance and resolution, so they can learn the difference between their senses and meanings; how the past is dead and the future is waiting; but most of all, how to deal with their own totemic natures not allowing themselves to become predatory beasts. All of that while unaware of the fact they are merely facing visions and illusions: in the heat of their battles, Puma surrenders to the assassin side, forsaking his human identity. Peter, when facing the same choice, gazes upon a vision – if not a revelation: a massive web stretching out through creation, carefully woven, showing how everyone shares the same elements of the human condition; an epiphany broadening beyond his visual perception. Peter understands, feeling whole and free. The mist returns and both men are transported back to the city. The Puma reaffirms his prerogative and leaves to kill his prey; the Black Crow tells the web-weaver a life must be saved and the Puma must be stopped, leading to their ultimate battle. Fireheart failed his test and will fulfill his contract. Spider-Man intervenes; he even tries to reason again about their second mystical ordeal with Puma, but he just gives in. Being a beast of burden, according to his eyes, is not part of his nature. He wants to be free. And disappears.
What DeFalco and Frenz initially designed so well with the Puma, Conway & DeMatteis (with astounding art provided by Buscema), refined with grace. Despite Fireheart’s bizarre sense of honor and the debt he believed he had with Peter, it was the puma totem, his predator side embedded in his very DNA mixed with unbreakable pride that probably drove him to the edge by meeting a match in another living totem: the Spider. That led to a final test in which he yielded to his animalistic source of power, losing a chunk of his own humanity. This can be a mere stipulation due to the nature of the theme here examined, but it somehow fits the context that Peter was drawn into through those tales – the very mystical connection to his powers, of totemic nature. From the initial brawl with Puma, throughout the cleansing mystic ritual, to the contemplation of the supernatural Web of life. Those storylines altogether might as well represent the first suggestion of Spider-Man’s supernatural connection to his totemic source of power. Nevertheless, they’re milestones in his chronology that cannot be ignored because it enriches Spider-Man’s mythos.
THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL – ASM #506-508 (vol.1 – June-Aug. 2004):
(Covers by John Romita Jr.)
Somewhere in Peru, there’s a guarded temple; the remnant of a great empire, of a time when kings were worshippers of everything that was above and around them. Miguel, a direct descendant of those kings is the one responsible for watching over it. A man with spider-like powers is there to see him his name is Ezekiel. What he asks of Miguel is simple: to cut him across his torso, and bleed the essence of a spider that is consuming him from inside – his own body is unable to bear the power within. This is not the first time he’s cut in such fashion (seen in Amazing Spider-Man #30, vol.2, June 2001 – explored in the first post of this series), and what he says to Miguel is intriguing: others before him tried to endure the same ritual, for purposes unknown.
In New York City, the ol’ friendly neighborhood is chasing down some criminals in rush hour; one of them takes a hostage, holding her at point-blank gunpoint. Out of the blue, barefoot and wearing a suit, Ezekiel renders the assailant from behind and threatens to end his life. Spider-Man takes the scared criminal out of his hands. On a higher wall of a building, both arachnids talk. Peter asks him about the scare tactics; Ezekiel tells him they’re both hunters and the thrill of the hunt carried him away. He has business with Peter and they need to talk over dinner.
Meanwhile, the most important people in Peter’s life share a couch, but barely a conversation; Aunt May talks, but Mary Jane doesn’t seem to listen. All that hovers in her mind is what happened to her when she unsuccessfully went to Los Angeles in the hopes of reigniting her acting career. The rejection from a producer, which she lied to Peter about, put her at crossroads regarding her career. Though being an experienced model, whose job is to pose in silence, she doubts if she can ever possess the skills to act and be dramatic. J. Michael Straczynski, due to his vast experience in the scriptwriting business and the Hollywood survival of the fittest arena (detailed in three of his books: The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, Becoming Superman and Becoming A Writer, Staying A Writer), speaks through Aunt May where MJ’s perspective about herself and how she wants to achieve her objective is wrong: because of her looks, all the other parts in films she portrayed were given to fulfill a purpose in the story: the beautiful damsel in distress, the beautiful girl who tempts people to their demise, the beautiful woman who inspires the hero – not a full, complex human character in itself. MJ speaks her mind, and how she might not be good enough for it. Aunt May again counter attacks with wisdom, stating that it is possible she hasn’t tried enough, leaving the newspaper open in the theater directory for to check it out. MJ wants to act – but does she actually know how? With that simple move, her motivation is pushed forward.
Not much later, she is having dinner with Peter and Ezekiel – she finds it nice, on account of her husband’s main occupation; she then asks Ezekiel about the “Spider Fairy” that granted Peter his powers. In simple terms, Ezekiel explains that there’s a supernatural component to them – and the spider that bit him may have done so with intent and was acting according to a specific destiny; he knows the source, but he cannot tell why. Peter inquiries back that it might have been just sheer science; he has the abilities of a spider. Ezekiel brings the Spider-sense into the table: can it be more than a natural ability, or something clairvoyantly-like? Precognition? How to define it? Some speculation has been presented in this post. Ezekiel then offers himself to take care of the dishes; he looks in the trash bin and sees the same newspaper May had handled to MJ before. One of the ads is circled with a written note to herself: “Don’t be stupid!” And almost imperceptibly, a spider stands next to it. It’s time for Ezekiel to bluff, even with good intent: he tells Mary Jane he’s got sort of a Spider-prescience of his own and it granted him the vision of her on a stage before an audience. She is left wondering.
A subplot for Mary Jane is then inserted. The reader once again is left caring about her as much as Spidey’s adventures. With the subtle use of metalanguage, Straczynski defined MJ’s intention and course of action through her conversation with Aunt May. A scene where female characters talk about the portrayal of female characters. He knows the difference between a character and a crutch that moves the story ahead. A lesson to be learned about permanent supporting characters in storytelling.
Peter and Ezekiel make their way up to the city’s skyline for a night-crawling chat. Ezekiel once more becomes the harbinger of bad news and reminds him that, the way he’s been noticed by supernatural forces is not a coincidence – since his powers do possess the same aspect to it. The warning is followed by an elucidation (similar to the ones regarding the three steps of knowledge in ASM #30 and three key ingredients in science in ASM#52) about the three components of power itself: there are those who want it, those that can give it, and those who control it – being them the Gatekeepers. If the spider is Peter’s totem, its powers can only be bestowed; the means by which he obtained his circumvented the original process. And since he has been perceived by the very supernatural forces (that are supposed to concede these powers) by interacting with the supernatural elements, scenarios, and enemies, the gatekeepers are coming to collect the debt. It’s not an unwarranted threat. Ezekiel then offers Peter an option: stay in the city and confront the Gatekeeper, or go with him to South America. Though the why and how he knows all of these things are still unclear. But Peter still believes and trusts him.
(JMS reestated that all the powerful symbologies in the Universe come in threes – with the Parker luck, the law works quite the opposite: he nearly died battling Morlun and Shathra for his own life; now, the Gatekeeper, it doesn’t feel different.)
What follows in ASM #507 (and the second part of this storyline) ranks among the key tales in the character’s history.
First off, with a different manifestation of his Spider-sense: instead of the usual buzz on his head warning him of imminent danger, it uses another language: dreams. The kind Dr. Stephen Strange would normally swim by. In it, Peter recollects a recent conversation with MJ and her decision to audition for an Off-Broadway play, thus enhancing her acting skills. Suddenly, spiders flow out of her eyes, ears, and mouth; she tells him to be aware of the pretender and a price must be paid. The phone rings and Peter awakes – it’s Ezekiel, telling him that the millions of spiders are swarming all over the city. Clairvoyance? Theoretically, it’s what the Spider-sense is and functions.
NOTE: in 2016 and 2017, two entomological studies garnered some serious attention in the scientific community and in mass media with a real estimation that, if all the arachnids on the planet decided to work together, they could eat all human life in one year. These studies can be read here, and here. It makes one wonder about their numbers all over the globe, quiet nature, and their diet.
Back to the story: J. Jonah Jameson makes a quick cameo stating on TV that Spider-Man is responsible for the arachnid invasion in the city; this time, he’s right. With his uniform on, he swings into action heading to MJ’s location where she’s auditioning for the play. Due to her professional modeling experience and portrayal of a hot damsel in distress in movies, she’s mocked by the director. With the ruckus caused by the spiders, a car crashes through on the theater’s wall. Spider-man removes her from danger placing her on a building above the invasion. He meets Ezekiel on another, who says that the Gatekeeper is coming for him. Ezekiel insists that by staying in the city, he would only make things worse; Peter chooses to save the people amid the spider-chaos below. The Gatekeeper takes form in front of him, but he’s made purely of spiders; punching him is useless, and from that single mistake, Spider-Man is covered by the spiders. Bites by the thousand at once – through them, Peter is rendered unconscious and is taught (in a more profound level than a sweat lodge) about the life hierarchy and connection on earth, the nature of spiders and their hunting nature, and more importantly, why he was chosen to be the bearer of the Spider-Totem in this time.
Peter sees himself from above in the same perspective the spider that bit him was. The spider was irradiated and thus mortally wounded in the scientific experiment; in its last moments, it had to choose. Straczynski’s words couldn’t define better and deliver the question that Peter had been asking himself since that fatidical moment:
Why you?
Given the power, what would they have done with it? They would have sought renown, perhaps. Sought riches. They were soft, especially the ones who thought themselves so hard. They would have crumbled under the weight of the gift. They would not have known what to do with it. Because they were not hunters.Why you?
Because you were a hunter without teeth. You were chosen for your rage. You were chosen because of every casual wound you suffered. Chosen for every time you were tripped, trapped, struck, beaten and humiliated before others. Chosen for the fury you were forced to hold in check, for the words you could not speak. Chosen for the blind rage that gripped your heart like a vise at every fist and foot and rock that hit and kicked and cut you. And for the greatest rage of all, the one you reserved for yourself, for being unable to fight back, because there were always more of them, and they were always bigger, and they were always stronger.But what if that changed?
Someone who would be driven to fight back against the dark forces sent by the world, who would never stop even though they were bigger and more and perhaps even stronger than he was. Because having once been prey, he would never allow himself to become such again. Would never surrender. Would take death before submission.
Why you?
Because of all those who were there that day, there was only one hunter. And as the science you worship tells you… like attracts like, and the presence of the observer affects the observed, and at the end of the mathematical day, there are no accidents, no coincidences. There is only… professional courtesy.(…)
See with the eyes of the spider.
Flashback to the moment when Miguel talks to a younger Ezekiel when he was first imbued with the totemic force of the Spider inside an Inca temple. A spider hangs on its web from above; Miguel explains the dangerous truth to Ezekiel: if he takes the power of the spider that it’s not his to take, a price will be asked in return. And that in this generation, another one has been chosen for it (just like Kwaku Anansi for his). Ezekiel, by leveraging a bargain, insists that he can be the one if Miguel makes it so – after all, he saved the local village near the temple from the government. Miguel agrees, for the sake of his people.
Ezekiel is cut on his torso and his blood spilled; the spider is summoned – the same spider which told Peter during his unconscious state that those who sought renown and riches would not know what to do with such a gift. Exactly what Ezekiel did with it as opposed to Peter. The pretender. All he wants is to keep surviving with the power. When he found out that Peter was the Spider-totem-bearer, chosen for his innate nature, he designed ways from the very beginning to divert all the supernatural powers that would chase him down to attack Peter, making him fight on his behalf, thus eliminating the competition. For a brief moment in his life, Peter thought of him not only as a “spider-mentor” of sorts but a father figure as well – something that he’s always been in need of. Ezekiel reminded him of Uncle Ben, and that depicts a very important psychological trait of his. Peter didn’t mind the guidance and gave him his trust. Only in the end to be betrayed anew. He wakes up by the Inca temple in Peru; Miguel is nowhere near it. Ezekiel reveals himself as the pretender and apologizes for everything he’s done.
The third and final part (ASM #508), begins with a full splash page of a close-up on Peter’s face: beaten, bloodied, and restrained to a column. Forced down on his knees, he fears for his life and remembers the fight with Ezekiel and how he lost it: an experienced superhero could not lose a battle even against someone who is also the child of the Spider (hence the silence from the spider-sense); so Ezekiel cheats by drugging him with a neural toxin to bring him down. Still, Peter fights on with all his rage. The words of the spider echo on his mind; the toxin hits its full effect and he falls.
Back to his senses but unable to move, Peter listens to Ezekiel trying to expound why he doesn’t have any choice in the matter – in order to be free from the debt, blood must be spilled and a life a given to satisfy the ones who conceded the power. Ezekiel cuts Peter across his chest; blood falls on the totemic rune of a spider carved on the floor. Ezekiel cuts his arm and bleeds on the carved symbol. He leaves the temple; Peter tries to escape achieving only great pain on his wrists. When their blood finally comes into contact with one another in the rune, another extrapolation of the Spider-sense happens, hitting both men:
Minds are bonded. What instantly follows is an exchange of insights into each other’s souls. They see personal remembrances in their totality.
But the experience doesn’t last long – the enormous Spider takes full form in front of Peter and starts to devour him. Outside the temple, Ezekiel comes to his senses, after weighing his own life against Peter’s – driven by sheer moral altruism and nobility, as opposed to his: wasted in nothing but amassing wealth. Until this moment, he couldn’t understand the other side of the equation of power and responsibility; by glancing into Peter’s quintessence, now he does. With this hard (and late) realization, Ezekiel scurries back to the temple and saves Peter’s life, but in doing so, he sacrifices his own. The Spider consumes him, fulfilling its design and collecting the debt of power. Peter falls unconscious.
Moments later, Miguel reappears, tends to Peter’s wounds and Ezekiel’s dead body, elucidating a simple truth: though Ezekiel sought the power to change the world and be a hero, but never understood its true nature, neither his own. Upon the burial ground, Peter asks Miguel the same question that Ezekiel once asked him: “What is the truth? The magic or the science?” For Miguel, there’s no contradiction, for he understands what the Spider mentioned to an unconscious Peter: professional courtesy.
And so it ends (for now) one of the most fascinating sagas in Spider-Man’s history.
Character-wise, Ezekiel served a purpose. Peter could finally reconcile with this part of himself he never knew too much about. That came with a price, though: for as long as he has worn the mask, the hero persona had his share of arch-enemies. With the coming of Morlun, Shathra, the Gatekeeper, and Ezekiel, he had to fight for his life, confronting nemeses – real counterparts and not only contrasts of good (hero) and evil (villain). Because if heroes can better be defined by their enemies, and if they are the ones who unlock their true strength and motivation, all those totemic nemeses expanded Peter Parker’s self-awareness, his essence. He learned the truth about himself by the forthcoming of supernatural forces; naturally designed to destroy him.
The entire storyline offers a second opinion beyond the science factor that established his origin: the irradiated spider. But what if there’s a supernatural component in it? What if there is a hidden truth in Spider-Man’s creation within his own mythology? Why not a fusion between magic and science? After all, these are powerful cornerstones among the foundations of the Marvel Universe and all its characters have more than once ventured into arenas different from their natural ones. The concept hasn’t changed Spider-Man in any shape or form, it just strengthened his mythos. Instead of the usual crime and super-villainy dramas, Straczynski just looked at the origins of the spider in the man; another side of the character, but still focused on him nonetheless. On the basis of a perspective that Peter is connected to something bigger – exactly like the vision of the Web of Life he had in “Eye of The Puma”. Within the character’s chronology, it’s an unavoidable precedent.
In fact, such connection to the supernatural can be traced all the way back to the first page of Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962): Peter Parker is casting a larger and ominous shadow he’s going to become, surrounded by a web with his head in the center and a spider above. Just a dramatic visual effect? For all intents and purposes at the time, yes – but it does suggest supernatural elements into it as well – the kind that can’t be implied through science. The last panel of the second page shows an angry Peter vowing retaliation for being cast out and rejected by girls and never-to-be friends (a detail that Straczynski magnified and translated into the Spider monologue). After he is bitten and experiences his powers for the first time, the young man is overwhelmed and tries to understand what just happened to him. What he says afterward speaks volumes (side panel).
Notice the presence of another spider in the foreground and the mention of fate – a concept that mankind to this day and age tries to come to terms with through religions and examines it ad infinitum in books, movies, and comics.
Let it not be forgotten the Amazing Fantasy comic featured many stories by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko about the unexplainable, which delved deep into the themes of the supernatural concept, and weird science – that was the essence of the comic, if not its theme; Spider-Man’s very first appearance just so happened to be featured in that title; these elements are in the character’s DNA. Moreover, its co-creator also conceived the Master of Mystic Arts. It’s only fair to assume that JMS searched the core elements of Spider-Man from his first comic and connected the dots, examined his nature, friends, foes, feelings – unveiled and reinterpreted them using a higher perspective. After all, if some of the most important adventures of other Marvel heroes contained supernatural elements like Captain America and the Cosmic Cube, The X-Men with the M´Krann Crystal, and the Phoenix Force, why not Spider-Man?
What JMS does through the spider monologue is a meaningful reexamination of Spider-Man’s origin, narrowing down in its core; the how has been established since the beginning, but not the why. The question of the nature of the Spider first presented in ASM #30 and #48 is finally answered here. This is the truth about the Spider within the Man – the reason why Peter has been chosen to be the totemic harbinger of the Spider.
It’s what Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman tried to achieve with Batman across 2009 and 2010 with his death, passing, and resurrection, paving the road that Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle initially built in Detective Comics #617 (Jul. 1990). The story titled “A Clash of Symbols”, depicts Batman – for the first time in his chronology – evoking the strength of his symbol to muster the strength, and sheer determination to pursue and capture the Joker. With his thoughts captioned in the first person, the Dark Knight mentions the mystical and psychological meanings behind the symbol of the bat in different parts of the world; invoking them to defeat his enemies in his holy war. The story even begins with him consulting a fortune teller. Then in Batman #462-#464 (vol.1, 1991) with the three-part story “Spirit of The Beast”, an old Native American Shaman summons the spirit of the Bat to his aid; none than Bruce Wayne answers the call. Why did he? Because like Spider-Man, he embodies his symbol of power. The same elements are there: evoked mystical and totemic mythology of power animals – “spirits of the earth” taken in high regard by ancient peoples’ traditions all over the world.
The symbologies don’t stop there: when Peter battles Ezekiel in front of the temple, they are not only fighting for survival but confronting an inverted mirror image of themselves – Peter fights the living embodiment of the person he could have been had it not for the demise of his uncle; a man who yet embedded with great power refused to take any responsibility and used it for personal gain. Whereas Ezekiel, the man who chose that path, fights the hero he never dared himself to be. It’s a philosophical metaphor. Then, the contextualization of power and choices: one does not need to look further than Plato’s axiom: “The measure of a man is what he does with power”. Still, irrespective of his choices and being the “pretender” for so long, Ezekiel achieved soul redemption during the last seconds of his life. The same character pattern is shown in “The Eye of The Puma” storyline: it was Peter’s indomitable sense of responsibility and the ability to teach by example, that Thomas Fireheart’s surrendered to the weight of his own consciousness, admitting the failure of his ways, just as Ezekiel did. In both accounts, he rose to the challenge, overcoming the predatory nature of the Spider with a sense of altruism that only a handful of known superheroes possess.
Furthermore, one (from a reader’s vantage point) can only assume if Straczynski, Conway, and DeFalco read Joseph Campbell’s work to insert his concepts into Spider-Man mythos, but it’s undeniable that the very concept of a man imbued with the powers of a Spider – a creature so unique in its notion in nature and the animal kingdom – would not instigate a further exploration of its origin and the story possibilities that come along with the supernatural elements. The spider-totem saga is not a redefinition of his origin, neither implies a discrepancy in the original story, but a well-placed element. It hasn’t changed Spider-Man’s position in the cultural landscape and the modern mythology erected by North-American comics.
The voice of a superhero in comics format is not something easy to establish; few writers can achieve such a level of characterization through colloquialism and mannerisms that make it unique. In Spider-Man’s case, Peter’s voice as an adult can actually be heard if written by Straczynski, just like his younger version from the Lee & Ditko years by Kurt Busiek in Untold Tales of Spider-Man – a magnificent superhero comic in its own merit.
However, the composition wouldn’t be complete without the artist: John Romita Jr. has reached the status of a modern visual storytelling master that reconstituted Spider-Man’s iconography through decades. Just like his father before him for the web-head, in the same way that Curt Swam redefined Superman’s visual mold, and Neal Adams with Jim Aparo after him for Batman. “The Book of Ezekiel” is his last work with Straczynski; the collaboration was so consistent that JMS bid his farewell on the last page of the story. JRJr’s art never looked so strong and clean – also due to the fine and subtle embellishment provided by Scott Hanna. Besides being the perfect sequential art storyteller, he doesn’t falter to convey real emotional expressions and to position his camera at the best angle, thus creating a sense of space, depth, density, and even scenario geography. And it was here in this last chapter that Romita Jr. designed a memorable cover: spidey swinging above New York’s 9/11 Ground Zero. An emblematic sendoff from the artist to the friendly neighborhood and web-slinger hero and their home city.
Kudos to Matt Milla’s colors made the entire flashback sequence of the spider talking to Peter, and to Scott Koblish‘s inks on the last four pages.
As for the biblical allegory, why not insert some in superhero fiction? After all, an excerpt was immortalized in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
The book of Ezekiel is Narrative History, Prophetic and Apocalyptic in genre and even contains Parables. The prophet Ezekiel wrote it approximately 571 B.C. (this date is accurately precise because this book contains more defined dates than any other book in the Bible.) Key personalities include Ezekiel, Israel’s leaders, Ezekiel’s wife, King Nebuchadnezzar, and “the prince”.
It was written to announce judgment upon Judah, to allow them one last chance to repent. It also foretells the coming deliverance of God’s nation from captivity in Babylon. It mainly discusses the events during the Babylonian captivity. Ezekiel is a priest who is called by God to deliver his messages.
– Source: https://www.bible-history.com
“This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
– Chief Seattle.
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And thank you so much for reading them, Hornacek.
I don’t have anything to add, just wanted to say that I love this series of articles.