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Ultra Boy, Biblical Hero

In a previous Recycling Bin column (here), I discussed the trite five-fingered discount Marvel Comics took with portions of the Passion. The superhero Warlock stepped in as a messianic four-colored understudy in a way that could potentially offend both the faithful (who might not care to have a disposable superhero appropriate the key story cycle of their religion) and the skeptical (who might suspect Marvel, somehow, of trying to make an unwanted religious tale palatable by disguising it as a superhero story).

Perhaps the temptation to borrow Biblical material and reuse it as superhero stories comes from some combination of exhausted imagination, irony, laziness, and a onetime universal familiarity with the material appropriated. Warlock, however, did not represent a unique case; in the sixties, DC Comics burgled a Sunday-school tale and reworked it as a superhero origin.

Recurring Themes in Superboy Stories

Given that Superboy could do everything but comb the curl off his forehead, Suberboy story authors often explored the theme of the hero who could do something Superboy couldn't. Sometimes these heroes involved a trivial reworking of Superboy himself, plus some change; for instance, Mon-El originally had Superboy's powers, but not his weakness to Kryptonite (although a plot twist substituted a lethal weakness to lead). Again, in his first incarnation, Star Boy essentially had Superboy's powers, with the slight change that his X-ray vision could see through all substances except copper (rather than lead, as with Superboy).

Frequently these heroes would appear with much fanfare in their ability to do something Superboy couldn't; and the premise held for superheroes who didn't necessarily share all of Superboy's abilities. Ultra Boy, for instance, began his career, like the early Legionnaires, as the holder of a single power; in his case, he had "penetra-vision," which could see through - or melt - lead. Let us disregard the dubious benefit of the latter application and assume some situation would present itself where melting lead would save someone's life.

So, therefore, we have the gimmick: Some new hero on the block shows up and makes Superboy look bad by doing something he can't.

The Pre-Owned Origin

Early Legion of Super-Heroes stories, and Superboy stories in general, sometimes dabbled in a kind of silliness that seemed well-crafted to blister the sensibilities of those who pretended to adult tastes or some contrived kind of sophistication. One could suspect that they shamelessly sought the groans of grownups.

The origin of Ultra Boy stands as a model example of this tendency.

Young "Jo Nah" (groan #1), in this tale, encountered a giant energy beast. Then, as if energy beasts had little else to occupy their time or their bellies, said beast swallowed our valiant traveler (groan #3). However, gumption disinclined young Jo Nah to give up; instead, he manfully blasted his way out the side of the creature.

If it occurs to you that DC should have gone whole hog here and called the energy beast a "space whale" and not attempted the possible obfuscation inherent in steering clear of giving said beast features like space-flukes, space-vents, space-baleen, and space-blubber, add to footnotes here that the beast from which the energy-beast derived didn't necessarily translate "whale" in the original Hebrew.

Later, having made his improbable escape (from a more improbable danger), Jo Nah discovered that exposure to some force, radiation, ray, or similar plot device inside the energy beast's gullet had given him his power of penetra-vision. Scientific analysis of this suggest that, perhaps, energy-beasts digest by bombarding the contents of their stomachs in give-natives-of-the-planet-Rimbor-penetra-vision-rays.

Superboy, lacking the kind of wisdom that inhered in his fellow-traveler Captain Marvel, could not resist the opportunity to grind in the dribbling silliness of the tale, and thus inflicted upon the reader exactly that point which said reader must have hoped to escape considering; and, having suffered through Jo Nah's tale, the reader found himself stripped of plausible deniability by Superboy's analysis. Forget, for a moment, that some readers might prefer to pretend they had skipped the detail of this page altogether.

The Original

Many folks know the basic Bible stories. The story of Jonah represents a semi-fatalist piece about the futility of attempting to flout destiny, as well as a reproach for those who would rebel against God. In summary, Jonah refused to deliver some good news to some Gentiles, since he thought they were getting a better deal than the Israelites; he went on the lam to get out of this unwanted task; he took to the sea; when the folks on his ship figured out he had brought a curse of bad weather down on their heads, they threw him overboard; a giant beast of the sea swallowed him, and he languished inside said beast's innards for three days; then, finally, the beast disgorged him like a contrarian hairball, and Jonah stopped bucking the chain of command and got with the program.

In context, this piece intends to define the place of human will and obedience to God, somewhat deeper themes than DC required of the story, which they cast as a means of creating a "Wow! Even Superboy can't do that!" story.

However, the self-conscious silliness of this piece makes it an unlikely source of offense. Someone offended by this story on religious grounds probably woke up in the morning with an intent to take offense at something, and spent a considerable amount of energy looking around for just the right affront. The story itself had no particular intention of reaching such a persion; instead, it served as a delivery vehicle to an annoying variety of humor once known as "corn."

Where the Suffering Starts

When a writer mines the Bible, we can suspect things like malicious intent (for instance, satire) or obnoxious pretentions (for instance, attaching messianic trappings to a superhero). However, the delivery and context of this piece suggest rather strongly that the writer of this Weisinger-era piece mainly intended to rub the readers' faces in a bit of corn just long enough to make their noses red.

The very familiarity of the Old Testament as a common cultural referent invited generations of wise guys to mine it as a source of humor, including corny humor.

Like "camp" and "kitch," the term "corn" seems to mean something but not everyone can define the term with clarity. Perhaps the following attempt will put some light on it. The concept of corn combines several attributes. Corn does not stray from the familiar; to introduce something original would, in effect, betray its corniness. Corn also involves some kind of affront to dignity, with its silliness, through this affront could attach to the speaker, the listener, or the subject. And, lastly, corn tends to intrude like the wet nose of an attention-starved dog; it denies you the option of ignoring it, so suffering must invariably follow. Given these traits, one can note that one type of humor - puns - tend to fit under the broad banner of corn almost by their definition.

Purveyors of corn intend gently to abuse their audiences. Some of you might recall grandfathers who subjected their descendants to kinds of humor that might make an image-conscious listener of another generation uncomfortable, since getting the joke could affront the set of cultural credentials we describe as "hipness" - the antithesis of "corn."

Hipness, for better or worse, ultimately displaced corniness from the remote corners of DC's comics stable, as much as Superboy, Supergirl, and Legion of Super-Heroes stories once might have depended upon it. Hipness withers under the sort of ridicule that hoakum can inflict upon its dignity; and only the rare corner of comics of the following decades would dabble in its guilty pleasures.

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Email the author at ouzomandias@mailexcite.com.

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