Ten Thousand Angels and Comic-Book Theodicy
Stefan Lochner, Last Judgement, c. 1425, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
As a child in my family’s church, I would occasionally sing a hymn called “Ten Thousand Angels.” The song reflects on the possibilities open to Christ on the cross. What if he changed his mind, chose to let the cup of suffering pass? What if he brought about the destruction of a depraved world, rather than offering his death as atonement? Each verse is sung in a slow, mournful manner, while the disconcerting refrain comes at an upbeat pace:
He could have called ten thousand angels,
To destroy the world and set Him free.
He could have called ten thousand angels,
But He died alone, for you and me.
The alternative scenario brought to mind a grotesque panorama of violence. I imagined the dark silhouette of three crosses against a blood-red sky. Avenging angels pour from the skies to incinerate the earth and slay its errant inhabitants, the holy army spilling blood on an unholy scale. Christ ascends to the heavens, rescued by winged warriors and borne away from his earthly torment.
Years after those gothic moments in the pew, I tend only to recall such scenes of cosmic violence while immersed in the pages of comic books. Like the hymn, these stories can feature climactic battle scenes with otherworldly avengers and the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. Such scenes, resonant with my childhood imagination, seem apropos of an illustrated Book of Revelation. Yet, I think the connections run even deeper. In theological scholarship, the project of theodicy is to reconcile divine benevolence with the existence of evil. I would argue that comics creators can also practice a form of theodicy. The creators of comic-book cosmologies offer a world where evil is pervasive and persistent. Pain and suffering occur on a harrowing scale, and benevolent beings of extraordinary power seem to do little more than maintain an unsatisfactory status quo.
An especially striking example of comic-book theodicy appears in the “Rage Planet” story arc from a 2016 run of the DC Comics series Green Lanterns. In the DC universe, a species of humanoid aliens anointed themselves the Guardians of the Universe after one of them wreaked cosmic havoc by trying to peer into the moment of the universe’s creation. They now seek to keep the cosmos as orderly as possible. To do so, they created an intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. Each member has a ring that bestows extraordinary abilities on its owner, and the ring uses a power source in the form of a green lantern.
Earth has supplied a healthy share of guardians to the Green Lantern Corps—including John Stewart, one of DC’s earliest black superheroes. However, there is no recruitment office for the Corps. One does not send a cover letter and resume. Green Lanterns are inducted into the corps because they have courage born of great trial and the deep empathy needed to serve creatures across galaxies. Each Green Lantern is assigned a sector of space to protect. During the events of the “Rage Planet” arc, two Green Lanterns are responsible for the sector that includes our solar system: Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz. Cruz is a Latina who witnessed the murder of her friends while on a hiking trip. Baz is a Lebanese American who was incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay. Both have endured staggering depths of inhumanity, and now, they are now bound to protect all of humanity.
In “Rage Planet,” Cruz and Baz confront an apocalyptic threat from Lord Atrocitus and the Red Lantern Corps. Similar to Green Lanterns, the Red Lanterns have powerful rings that they charge with special lanterns. Instead of working for the Guardians of the Universe, however, the Red Lanterns use rage as a power source and have their own ideas about justice and order. Atrocitus is a hulking red humanoid alien, and his soldiers are grotesque creatures from across far-flung planets and galaxies. At first glance, everything about the Red Lanterns plays into familiar tropes for sci-fi and fantasy villains: a monstrous evil army led by a megalomaniac seeks to destroy the innocent denizens of Earth. Yet, as we learn more about the Red Lanterns, we find that perhaps their sinister plans are not wholly gratuitous. The members of the Red Lantern Corps are not bloodthirsty minions, but rather, they are the injured and downtrodden cast-offs from outrageously unequal societies. This reversal of expectations is a reminder of how characterizations of “monster” and “alien” serve as cover for hatred and disregard of marginalized people.
The lamentations of Atrocitus could easily sit alongside those of a Hebrew prophet or psalmist: “The universe is madness. Shall sins go unpunished? Crimes justified into toleration? Victims, forgotten? This mad universe would say . . . Yes.” Rather than waiting on another power to make things right, Atrocitus and his Red Lantern Corps have embarked on a violent reckoning that will engulf the universe. The plan is reminiscent of Yahweh in Genesis, choosing destruction over salvation in order to halt the horrors of creation. Atrocitus wants to launch his final judgment from Earth by infecting humans with rage and turning the planet into a new homeworld. Green Lanterns Cruz and Baz are there to halt the Red Lanterns’ final judgment. There is the requisite amount of skirmishing and dueling among combatants that one would expect in a battle of superbeings. However, the greatest strength of Green Lanterns is not martial skills but the ability to channel willpower to non-destructive ends. A severely injured Baz appeals to Bleez, a chief disciple of Atrocitus, to reject vengeance. In a poignant soliloquy, Bleez cries “I became as wicked as those who tried to destroy me. I destroyed myself. There is such despair within me, I cannot feel the bottom.” Her defection from the Red Lantern Corps allows Cruz and Baz to turn the tide of battle and save Earth’s inhabitants from becoming rage automatons.
The paradox of theodicy is that the truly memorable parts are not the resolutions but the unresolved tensions that no literary narrative or philosophical formulation can fully address. What if the service of Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz in the Green Lantern Corps is not a noble act? Perhaps it is yet another instance of when people of color are asked to do extra labor for the very societies that oppress them. Two survivors of injustice on Earth are called to become soldiers to enforce the status quo. Maybe the Red Lanterns should choose a path beyond intergalactic destruction, but what other options are available to them? For Bleez to abandon that path, she has to become a fugitive from the Red Lanterns, who would likely kill her, and the Green Lanterns, who would likely incarcerate her. It is these questions that linger long after the story arc has concluded with the salvation (yet again) of a planet ridden with inequality and suffering.
“Rage Planet” stays with me in the same way that the Book of Job does. A hallmark of Jewish and Christian theodicy, Job is the story of a godly man becoming the test case for a cosmic debate about good and evil. The book is a beautiful and brilliant meditation on theodicy, but I have never been satisfied by the ending. Yahweh thinks that Job has a lot of nerve questioning the mysterious ways of the divine, but part of that mystery is Yahweh taking a dare from a trickster figure. From within the whirlwind, Job hears, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” Isn’t that just gaslighting by God? For his faith, Job receives all that was taken from him. But does he? Job lost his children. Giving him more children does not ease the sorrow. Are humans nothing more than interchangeable action figures?
Many people would say my questions are insolent, but I believe that dissatisfaction is necessary to theodicy. It is neither an irrelevant, esoteric pursuit nor a puzzle to solve and put aside. It is a call to action and caveat against complacency. Let us return to the death of Christ and those ten thousand angels who stood down. For German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, a theology of the crucifixion and resurrection is ultimately about liberation and hope. In his memoir, Moltmann exhorts us never to rest: “Easter is the feast of freedom from death. We must keep the two things together. Resistance is the protest of those who hope and hope is the festival of those who resist.”
Christopher Fite is a Doctoral Candidate in the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
William Blake, Job’s Despair, 1805-06, The Morgan Library and Museum, NYC. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.