Tag Archives: Marvel

The Untold Stories

February 14, 2023 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
2 Kings 21:16 (NIV)

While on vacation this past week I finished watching The Hunters on Amazon Prime. It’s an interesting alternative history story about an eclectic troupe of vigilante Nazi hunters who discover that Hitler is still alive and living in Argentina. They are determined to bring him to justice. It was an interesting story (and it is definitely for mature audiences only).

I have a confession to make. Over my life journey, I have found myself really enjoying tales of vigilante justice like The Hunters. My favorite Marvel character has always been the Punisher, the series about a dark, broken man bent on delivering justice to those who killed his family.

I have given a lot of thought to why this genre resonates so deeply with me. It’s easy to think that it’s about a sense of justice. There is no doubt that it feels good to see the bad guys “die by the sword,” as Jesus put it. I think there’s more to it than that. I’ve come to realize that I feel deeply for the anti-hero and the pain that drives them. As an Enneagram Type Four, this makes perfect sense. We tend to love brooding, dramatic melancholy. At the same time, I’ve come to realize that while I find it easy to extend grace to the vigilante protagonist for the pain that drives them, I have zero grace for their victims. They are typically portrayed as pure evil deserving of the violent justice the protagonist vengefully delivers.

I found myself thinking about this in the quiet this morning after reading today’s chapter about King Manasseh. The description of him is that of pure evil. He did nothing right. He did everything wrong. He committed child sacrifice with his own child. He was idolatrous, ruled with violence, and led his people astray.

Someone call the Punisher! The world needs to be rid of evil, no-good, very bad Manasseh!!

I then went to 2 Chronicles 33 to read another account of Manasseh’s story. There were some important pieces of the story that the author of Kings conveniently ignored. Late in life, Manasseh was humiliated by the Assyrians. He was taken captive, placed in shackles, and a hook was placed in his nose. They drug him to Babylon. There, having hit rock bottom, Manasseh realized the error of his ways. He repented of his sin and turned his heart to God. Upon his return, he spent his remaining days trying to undo all the idolatrous evil that he had done.

And, as a disciple of Jesus, there is the rub. Manasseh’s “untold story” changes the way I think about him. The antagonists I so easily dismiss in vigilante stories as pure evil have their own stories. My “enemies” have their own untold stories. Jesus calls me to look at my enemy and consider the story that God desires to author in his or her life. That was the example Jesus set for me.

Jesus had grace and forgiveness for the “evil” Romans who mercilessly mocked Him, beat Him, and executed Him.

Jesus told the no-good, very bad criminal on the cross next to Him that He would take the man to heaven, even though the man said he deserved to die for all the things he’d done.

Jesus told Peter that he should forgive his enemy “seventy times seven” and then provided Peter an example by graciously forgiving Peter’s three denials.

I find it easy to have grace for the broken vigilantes dealing out justice. I know their backstories. Yet, in God’s economy, the vigilante’s victims also have their own backstories. What kind of pain and brokenness led them to their lives of evil? Like Manasseh in today’s chapter, those details are conveniently left out of the story by the authors. It makes me want to ignore the fact that those whom I hate have their own stories, too.

I thought about this as I watched The Hunters killing off all of the murderous, unrepentant Nazis. And then I thought of the true story of Corrie Ten Boom, who traveled the world telling her story of her family’s Christian faith that led them to hide Jews in their home. They were caught and sent to a Nazi concentration camp with the Jews. She alone survived. One day after telling her story to an audience, she was approached by one of the former concentration camp guards. He was humbled, repentant, and asked for her forgiveness.

God was at work in his story, too.

Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.
2 Peter 3:9 (MSG)

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Love and Justice

July 8, 2022 Tom Vander Well 5 Comments

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”
Revelation 16:1 (NIV)

This past Sunday, Wendy and I returned from spending almost two weeks at the lake. We are blessed to be able to work remotely and, it’s nice to get our work done and then be right there on the water when we’re finished. Over the past several trips to the lake we have been making our way through all of the Marvel Universe movies in chronological order of the Marvel Universe’s story arc. It’s been interesting to watch the movies in their proper order. There’s so much we picked up on in retrospect that was completely lost on us when we first saw each film in the theater.

I’ve personally loved this current age of superheroes in which Hollywood has made the comic book heroes of my childhood come to life on the screen. It’s been a lot of fun.

I remember in college when some buddies of mine introduced me to an entirely different genre of comic books. They were not the bright cape-wearing superheroes in spandex but dark and gritty heroes that stirred completely different kinds of emotions within me. They were anti-heroes. I confess that one of the anti-heroes that became a favorite of mine was the Marvel character Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher. Frank is a former cop whose family was brutally killed by the mob because they witnessed something they shouldn’t have seen. Frank becomes a vigilante bent on revenge. In a world in which corruption, power, and bureaucracy seem to protect evil from justice (e.g. we still don’t know who was on Epstein and Maxwell’s client list), there was something in the Punisher’s story that appealed to a very base desire for justice within me. I’ve asked myself many times what it is about the Punisher that resonates so deeply within me. Some would call the character of Frank Castle an “avenging angel.”

The metaphor of an “avenging angel” comes from the Great Story, of course. In particular, it comes from today’s chapter, which is why it brought the Punisher to mind. Seven final plagues, bowls of God’s wrath, are poured out on the earth, the unholy trinity [satan (dragon), anti-christ (beast of the sea), and anti-holy-spirit (beast from the earth)], and their unrepentant followers, including the “kings of the earth,” who continue to curse God through this period of judgment.

The bowls of wrath, once again, parallel Moses’ plauges on Egypt. The followers of the Unholy Trinity break out in festering sores, seas and rivers turn to blood, demonic frogs are unleashed, darkness descends, and hundred-pound hailstones fall from the sky. In the middle of these plagues, John records this:

Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say:

“You are just in these judgments, O Holy One,
    you who are and who were;
for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets,
    and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.”

And I heard the altar respond:

“Yes, Lord God Almighty,
    true and just are your judgments.”

Wait a minute. The altar responded? Yes! If I go back to Revelation 6:9 it is under the altar that the souls of the martyrs (the innocents who were killed simply because they were God’s people) cry out. In Revelation 8:3, the prayers and cries of the innocents, unjustly suffering under the dominion of the Prince of this World and the kingdoms of this world throughout the history of the world, rise like incense before God’s throne.

This is the day of reckoning. Evil, injustice, pride, arrogance, and corruption are getting their “just desserts.”

The words of the psalmist came to mind:

We are given no signs from God;
    no prophets are left,
    and none of us knows how long this will be.
How long will the enemy mock you, God?
    Will the foe revile your name forever?
Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
    Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!
Psalm 74:9-11 (NIV)

Today’s chapter is the answer to the psalmist’s question. “I will wait no longer. The day of my wrath has come.”

At the end of today’s chapter, the “trinity” of God’s judgments and plagues on the earth are complete. Three is one of God’s numbers, the number of the Trinity. Seven is the number of “completeness.” Three sets of seven metaphorically “complete” God’s judgment on the earth.

In the quiet this morning, I am reminded that the Great Story is a story of good versus evil. On this earthly journey, I have encountered both good and evil. In the news and in my social media feed I see both good and evil. The Great Story reveals God who is good, which means God is both loving and just. The final chapters of the Great Story tell of evil being finally and justly dealt with, once and for all.

And, I confess, this appeals to that same part of my soul that identifies with Frank Castle’s story in The Punisher.

In the meantime, this wayfaring stranger continues to press on in this earthly journey, one day at a time, following Jesus and determined to love my enemies and bless those who curse me, even as my soul cries out for justice on the earth.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Marvel Movies, Meta-Communication and the Sermon on the Mount

March 10, 2017 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
Matthew 5:48 (MSG)

Wendy and I went on a date earlier this week to see Logan, the latest movie from the increasingly prolific Marvel franchise. We generally enjoy what Marvel puts out, but Logan took the usually entertaining action story to a new level. It even made Wendy cry. All week long Wendy has been muttering, “Oh my gosh. A Marvel movie made me cry.”

And, that was what made Logan a different action film. All week long Wendy and I have been discussing why we found Logan to be a different kind of action film. We’ve been trying to step back and understand what the writers did to reach our emotions as well as our adrenal glands.

From the very beginning the writers revealed our heroes Wolverine, Charles Xavier, and Caliban in weakness, neediness, fear and frailty. This catches us off guard. We’re so used to seeing them in their confidence delivering pithy action movie lines as braggadocio. Add to our threatened, all-too-human heroes a cute, emotionally torn little girl and innocent children on the run for their lives. Mix in antagonists who, rather than silly comic book evil, seem like the truly evil people who actually appear in our morning headlines and you have a “comic book” movie that takes things to a different level than we’ve experienced before. (Attention parents: The “R” rating also means the producers took the violent action, language and one needless second of nudity to a new level as well).

As an amateur writer and professional communicator I’ve learned to look at and analyze communication from a contextual perspective. Most of us get mired in the details of what is being communicated. I tend to pull back and look at the larger picture. Scholars call it meta-communication.

In this morning’s chapter we wade into one of the most famous messages ever delivered. It’s called Jesus “Sermon on the Mount.” Even for non-religious types who have never darkened the door of a church or cracked open a Bible, the words and metaphors Jesus delivered in this message have become part of our everyday vocabulary:

Turn the other cheek
Light of the world
City on a hill
Salt of the earth

As I read today’s chapter I could easily get mired in the abundance of inspired teaching. Virtually every line and verse could be its own blog post. But, I found myself unconsciously doing what I do with Marvel movies. I stepped back to look at the bigger picture of how Jesus was communicating at a broader level.

Jesus starts out with an attention grabber. He lists those who are “blessed” in God’s economy and the list looks nothing like we expect it to look. We tend to think of those who are rich, strong, powerful, healthy, educated, famous, connected, athletic, and popular as “blessed.” Jesus’ list starts with “poor” and goes on to list the grieving, meek, merciful, pure, peacemakers and persecuted.

Having grabbed our attention by saying what we didn’t expect to hear, Jesus goes on to tell His listeners that we are the vehicle through which God’s kingdom will advance in this world. We are the light. We are the preservative. He doesn’t qualify it. He doesn’t limit it. He doesn’t add a litmus test. Every one of his listeners is included. This is in stark contrast to our commonly held belief that God’s work is reserved for ministers, pastors, seminary graduates, religious types, “good” people and those who don’t struggle, sin and avoid church like the plague.

So this is a different kind of message than the “toe the line and follow all the rules or you’re going to hell stuff.” Does this mean that all the rules don’t matter anymore? Does Jesus mean that those ten commands I’m so bad at and all that other stuff are obsolete and out the window?

Jesus anticipates this question and answers it with an affirmative, “No way.” But he then ups the ante and changes the discussion. We tend to think of religion in a set of behavioral rules and judgmental “don’ts” that we humans use as our self-righteous measuring stick. Jesus changes the conversation. It’s not about avoiding the legalistic “don’ts” but demonstrating the heart motivated “dos” that He is calling us to:

Not “don’t murder, but “do treat people with love and respect.”

Not “treat others the way they treated me” but “treat others the way you would have like to have been treated.”

Not get revenge, but choose to forgive and give people another chance.

Not “hate my enemies” but “show my enemies real love, patience, kindness, and self-control.”

Like going to a Marvel movie and experiencing something I didn’t expect, this morning I’m struck at how very different Jesus message really is. It reveals that the ways of God run in opposite directions than the ways of this world. God’s kingdom operates far differently than we are lulled into thinking by the flaws in what we may have been taught and our earth-bound paradigms . The economy of God’s kingdom works on a completely different set of principles than what we’re used to grappling with in the day-to-day marketplace of this world. What Jesus is communicating is different. If I get mired in the minutiae of my preconceived notions and foundational prejudices, I just might miss what He’s really saying.

He’s calling me to be different, too.