This Joke Is Not Funny Part II

This is not the Joker. It is the German actor Conrad Veidt as he appeared in the 1928 film "The Man Who Laughs", playing the tragic figure of Gwynplaine. "The Man Who Laughs" is based on the 1869 novel "The Man Who Laughs/L'Homme qui Rit" by the great Victor Hugo. Hugo's best known works are "Les Misérables" and "Notre-Dame de Paris/The Hunchback of Notre Dame". This is the commonly cited source for the visual inspiration of the Joker. The Joker first appeared in "Batman" #1 in 1940, and was created, to keep it simple, through a synthesis of concepts of Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson. About the only details agreed upon by the three regarding the creation of the figure that became Batman's archnemesis, and considered by many to be the greatest comic book super villain of all time, is his basis on the joker playing card and on the image of Gwynplaine as depicted in this film.

This lineage is no small matter. In fact it synchronistically directs us to an aspect of the Joker character that is rather startling in its implications. We'll work our way towards that point. There are several intriguing avenues to explore along the way.

Through this facet of the Joker we find the influence of German Chamber Films which is part of the larger movement of Expressionism. These are art modes inherently tied to the gothic, mysticism and the occult, and hugely influential on all the horror fiction that followed. All of these are umbrellaed by the larger Romantic movement, a field in which Victor Hugo is a monumental figure. Likewise, the American super hero comic book, and high fantasy in general, steadily becoming the predominant mode of popular culture, are the natural extension through time of these traditions.

The conceptualization of the Joker, due to this pedigree, as a figure out of Expressionism is an easy thing to affirm if one considers what may be the single most iconic image of the movement.


Edvard Munch, "The Scream", 1893

Reverse despair into mirth. Substitute the perception of horror with the projection of horror, and set in motion in the artificial time of the comic book narrative.


Art by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson

Note too the use by Munch of the symbolism of the Bridge and of Water in his most famous work. That the artist's official account of the creation of this powerful art piece relates a true experience in no way negates the inherent symbolism involved. We may note as well that the Bridge, if one looks over the edge rather then either end, is not so far removed from the symbolism of the Cliff, Precipice or Ledge (just ask Gwen Stacy) found in many versions of the Fool Trump of Tarot's Major Arcana. In Munch's vision, the subject has assessed the dangers around him and the emotional response is that of abject horror. "The Scream" could perhaps be considered The Fool reversed.

The character Gwynplaine, in Hugo's novel and the German chamber film, suffers his fixed, clown-like expression due to an act of mutilation by a group Hugo termed "the Comprachios", Spanish for "child-buyers". These individuals, sadly based on a real-world activity, made their living through the purposeful mutilation of children to produce sideshow attractions or even private servants for the depraved. Compare this to the Gobblers/General Oblation Board of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. This particular facial mutilation is sometimes termed a Glasgow or Chelsea Smile, and it seems to be the basis for the Joker's disfigured appearance in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight". Tim Burton's version of the Joker, played of course by Jack Nicholson, likewise was disfigured, by a bullet that passed through both his cheeks. While these are modifications to the comic book portrayal of the Joker's origin, it in fact brings the character closer to his source material, material I am certain both Nolan and Burton were aware of.





Here we find Veidt again, playing "the Somnambulist" (the figure in black) in the 1920 German Expressionist film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", bringing one of those insidious illuminated, fictional doctors into the mix. The inspiration of the Somnambulist character on Burton's "Edward Scissorhands" is self-evident (as is the visual styling of German chamber movies on his work in general). "Edward Scissorhands", arguably Burton's finest work, was the movie he released following "Batman". The name Veidt, interesting enough, was utilized by Alan Moore in "Watchmen" as the last name of the conspiracy creating Ozymandius. If we trace the etymology, we find the German name Veidt derives from the Latin "vita", meaning life of course. Saint Vitus is a Christian child martyr, tortured to death for his refusal to denounce Christianity, and the patron of actors and comedians. Perhaps you've heard of his dance.

One of the most troubling aspects of Ledger's death, which is increasing rather then decreasing as time passes and new, sometimes contradictory, details come to light, is the very feeling of unreality surrounding it all. This is an aspect well addressed by Ben Fairhall's "The Daily Behemoth" article Joker and Jokerman where he addresses viral marketing campaigns (utilized for promotion of "The Dark Knight", specifically regarding the appearance of Ledger's Joker) and Alternate Reality Gaming.

These related topics are modern day, internet based extensions of the basic hoax, an action, large and small scale, likely as old as human civilization itself. And this is no small matter. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Heath Ledger's death is a hoax, or anything other then what it has been presented as. Of course the greatest hoaxes of all are the ones that are never detected. I'm afraid we live in the Age of Hoax, where much of what we are presented with as event, fact and history are either modifications or outright fabrications.

H.P. Lovecraft utilized the structure of the hoax to great effect in the cration of much of his supernatural fiction. Lovecraft was a devotee of Edgar Allen Poe, credited with the creation of detective fiction. A detective, often, is engaged in the act of exposing hoaxes. Batman, the Dark Knight Detective, made his debut in "Detective Comics". And still we are comfortably in the domain of Romanticism.

One hoax that is very famous and still has considerable legs are the forgeries of French royalist Pierre Plantard, including his list of supposed Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion, which served as part of the basis of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code", and its nonfiction predecessor (and inspiration) "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.

Baigent and Leigh sued Dan Brown for plagiarism, and lost. To me, as a fan of both works, the connection between their books was self-evident. I always wondered if the law suit was itself a hoax, a great publicity stunt for the film version of Brown's novel and even more so for the more obscure further writings of Leigh and Baigent. Richard Leigh died just months ago, in late November 2007. Ron Howard and Tom Hanks will reteam for the prequel of "The Da Vinci Code", "Angels and Demons", scheduled for release in May of 2009.

Now, many would like to simply dismiss "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" as a whole due to Plantard's forgeries. Of course it is far from being that simple. The best hoax is the one that sits closest to the truth. It is not the point of this article to debate these matters. What is easy to recognize, however, is that many of the Grand Masters on Plantard's list were obviously occultists, including famous alchemists, Nicolas Flamel, Robert Fludd, and Johann Valentin Andrea. The occult nature of the works of Da Vinci are self-evident. The same is true of the supposed 24th Grand Master on the list, Victor Hugo.

Hugo's alchemical insights were such as to be heavily noted by Fulcanelli in "Le Mystère des Cathédrales". There are numerous references in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" to Nicholas Flamel, to a degree that Hugo's famous novel could be considered a love letter to the famed alchemist, who I am not convinced was not a predecessor of Hugo's in an esoteric organization, at the very least in spirit. Another obvious fan of Flamel's is author J.K.Rowling, who featured the famed 15th century alchemist and his wife Perenelle as still living in the late 20th century in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", the first book of her seven part series, clearly establishing the alchemical underpinnings of her children's fantasy at the story's onset.

And so we find the character of the Joker clearly a product of the esoteric stream. Alan Moore I'm certain was aware of these facets when he presented the sociopathic clown as a tragic figure in his retelling of the Joker's origin, "Batman: The Killing Joke" in 1988.

"Batman: The Killing Joke" represents a back-story for the Joker originally presented in "Detective Comics" #168, February, 1951. It was of course much lighter fare as originally told, but the alchemical undercurrent is present none the less.


Art by Sheldon Moldoff and George Roussos

Note that Batman is recounting this past adventure as as a guest Professor of criminology at an imaginary Gotham City college.


Art by Sheldon Moldoff and George Roussos.

And again, I find this portion of the story very similar in ways to certain symbolic elements of "The Scream" once we look past the exoteric levels of the works. For that matter, Hugo's "The Man Who Laughs" ends with Gwynplaine, his blind, pure-hearted true love Dea, and their foster-father Ursus sailing away from England for the continent. While Ursus slumbered Dea professed her love for Gwynplaine and then abruptly died. Ursus awakened to find no sign of Gwynplaine, who we can be certain threw himself over the ship's rail in sorrow and drowned. The man who was the Red Hood "died" in the chemical bath and was reborn as the Joker. Moore made the tragic precedent more plain in "The Killing Joke", as the Red Hood event occurred following the unexpected death of his pregnant wife. The death of Gwen Stacy contains many of these same elements in somewhat different combinations.

It was in no way my intent to link matters between these articles on Heath Ledger and the Joker, and my last article, What's The Story? Mourning Glory, which dealt with my continuing exploration of the esoteric symbolism of Spider-Man and his first true love Gwen Stacy. And yet we find several convergences just the same. The symbolism of Bridges, alchemical origins, the films of Ron Howard, a character named Gwyn/Gwen, the death of the maiden, and characters representing the Fool Trump of the Tarot.

I mentioned the Joker as the Fool in Part One, and it is an easy thing to recognize. How interesting that in the Joker's first appearance, due to the propensity of comic book characters to make plays on words, the Batman likewise associated himself with a playing card.


Art by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson

Clubs equal Wands. Look it up, it's a highly appropriate signifier for Batman/Bruce Wayne.

What's the Story? Mourning Glory

This article follows a thread originally spun in Tingly Intuition where I mentioned my interest in the casting of Bryce Dallas Howard in the role of Gwen Stacy in "Spider-Man 3" due to her role as the water nymph Story in M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady In The Water". A spider's web is an appropriate metaphor for this matter. The closer we look the more intertwined threads of information and symbolism we discover. Also apt is the concept of the Cretan Labyrinth which Theseus navigated thanks to the magical string of Ariadne, a goddess figure whom Spider-Man inherently resonates.



The character of Gwen Stacy holds perhaps more significance then any other non-powered or otherwise super character in American comic book history. While she lacks the longevity and name recognition of Lois Lane and the prominence of Mary Jane Watson, she holds the distinction of marking the end of the Silver Age of comic books. The boundary between the Silver and Bronze Ages is the hardest to easily determine, and it is a contended matter. I've come to view the Silver Age as ending with the death of Gwen Stacy in 1973, and the Bronze Age properly starting with the introduction of the New X-Men in 1975, but that's just my opinion.

Gwendolyn Stacy is a creation of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, first appearing in "Amazing Spider-Man" #31 in December, 1965. She is considered to be the first true love of Peter Parker. Given my contention of Spider-Man as an esoteric initiatory figure embodying concepts of higher states of consciousness and goddess worship, this can not help but be a significant matter. Peter and Gwen were both students at Marvel's fictional New York City college Empire State University. This important local was the school for much of the Spider-Man cast, as well as being the alma mater of Mister Fantastic, the Thing and Doctor Doom. Metro College, another fictional Marvel New York City college, was attended by Jean Grey and the Silver Age Human Torch. It was at Metro College that Johnny Storm (the Torch) met his friend Wyatt Wingfoot, a name clearly referencing Hermes/Mercury. It is easy to see how an imaginary school with this nature of students can reference the Invisible College.

At its heart the Spider-Man story is a romantic melodrama emphasized by super heroic allegory. The Parker/Stacy romance was on-again/off-again for a very long time, with several bizarre love triangles involving Mary Jane Watson, Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn. Peter and Gwen's relationship was further strained when her father, police Captain George Stacy (played in "Spider-Man 3" by James Cromwell) was accidentally killed by falling debris dislodged during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus (see Doctoring Art Gotic Part II).

After nearly eight years as a Spider-Man cast member the decision was made to kill off the character. The story, "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", was presented in "Amazing Spider-Man" #s 121 & 122.

The plot involves Spider-Man's archnemesis, the Green Goblin, who was aware of Spider-Man's secret identity, kidnapping Gwen and holding her captive on a New York City bridge tower. He threw her from the bridge. Spider-Man managed to snag her leg with a web as she fell, but the sudden stop apparently snapped her neck and she died.


Art by Gil Kane and John Romita


Art by Gil Kane and John Romita

In the subsequent battle Spider-Man nearly killed the Goblin in a fit of rage but stopped himself. The Goblin, however, did himself in when he accidentally was impaled by his own glider. This portion of the story was recreated in "Spider-Man 1", minus the underlying pathos.


Art by John Romita

The Green Goblin is a Lee/Ditko character first introduced in "Amazing Spider-Man" #14, July 1964. His identity remained a secret until issue #39, where it was revealed that he was industrialist Norman Osborn (Oz-Born), the father of Peter Parker's best friend Harry. We learn that Norman Osborn ingested a serum (an alchemical detail) that granted him super-human strength and intelligence but also drove him insane. He became a super-villain with a Halloween theme, equipping himself with high-tech weapons like his pumpkin bombs and his glider. Initially the Goblin's flying device was a rocket-powered flying broom.


Art by Steve Ditko

And this is why I emphasize the synchronicity of the last name Oz-Born. The Goblin shares clear characteristics with the Wicked Witch of the West, particularly the green-skinned version popularized by the 1939 film. Thus both Spider-Man and the Green Goblin are male characters representing iconic female figures. Note the presence of the green-skinned, Apollo/Dionysus/Priapus Hulk in this issue. The Goblin next appeared in "Amazing Spider-Man" #17, which guest starred the Promethean Human Torch.


Art by Steve Ditko

Interesting that Spider-Man, the Human Torch and the Hulk are the three headliners presented in the original run of "Marvel Team-Up" as discussed in my article Marvel Alchemy.

After several defeats at the hands of Spider-Man, the Goblin developed a gas that suppressed Spidey's Spider-Sense (his key ability, his Intuition). This allowed the Goblin to follow Spider-Man undetected, and he was able to learn Spidey's secret identity. He captured Spider-Man, and during the course of his super-villain taunt/rant, revealed his own identity as Harry's father. In the subsequent fight the Goblin suffered a convenient head injury that caused an amnesia of his Goblin identity. For a time the Goblin was another Apollo/Dionysus split-personality sufferer, with the Goblin identity occasionally resurfacing. This was the status quo until the events of "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" storyline.



Much of this is brought into the portrayal of the Green Goblin in the first Spider-Man movie. The Goblin was of course portrayed by Willem Dafoe. In Tingly Intuition I mentioned the interest in Dafoe's roles as Jesus in the highly controversial "The Last Temptation of Christ" and as Max Schreck in "Shadow of the Vampire". This is just the beginning of the synchronistic interest we can find by inter-associating Dafoe's various roles. To keep things as brief as possible I'll merely mention his part in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" which stars Bill Murray (see Bill Luminati) and resonates Submariner symbolism and the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. Most pertinent to this conversation is Dafoe's role as the sociopath Bobby Peru in David Lynch's masterpiece "Wild at Heart", a film that overtly refers to "The Wizard of Oz" in several significant ways. The name Peru is of high interest in major matters involving the Mayan Calender, the Precession of the Equinox/Age Shift, and as the potential location of ancient Atlantis.

That the death of Gwen Stacy occurs on a structure that is both a Tower and a Bridge is important symbolism at a level that is self-evident. The Tower is of course one of the many symbolic structures that can be utilized as a reference to the Axis Mundi, the imaginary column extending from the Earth to the pole star. Due to the tilt of the Earth's axis the pole star periodically shifts, an action again associated with the Precession of the Equinox/Age Shift. The Bridge naturally is a transformative symbol, implying the movement from one state to another, one world to another, one life to another, etc. It is in nearly all cases related to Water symbolism, which includes passage into Otherworlds and the esoteric Underground Stream. In this instance the dark goddess figure of the Green Goblin tosses Gwen towards the Water. The light goddess figure of Spider-Man catches her with his magic thread, but while he halts her literal fall he fails to prevent her figurative plunge.

The name Gwen can easily be read as a reference to the important esoteric figure of Queen Guinevere from the Arthurian Grail Romances. This is no minor detail. Guinevere is an ideal example of a Sovereignty Goddess, where a female figure represents a kingdom or country (as Britannia represent Great Britain, Erin represents Ireland, Columbia represents America, etc.). The King must be wed to the goddess representing his territory. The betrayal of Guinevere with Lancelot is the impetus leading to the waning power and illness of King Arthur, the degradation of his kingdom into the Wasteland, and the subsequent need for the Knights of the (zodiacal) Round Table to Quest for the Holy Grail (returning the blessing of the Goddess to the Kingdom). Wikipedia suggests the name Guinevere may derive from the Welsh Gwenhwyfar, meaning "the White Fay/Fairy" or "the White Ghost". It is "Gwen" that means "White". "Stacy" derives from "Anastasia", the feminine form of "Anastasius", which means "Resurrection " (from Greek, "Ana" is "Up" and "Stasis" is "Standing").

Another key Goddess figure in the Arthurian Legends is the Lady of the Lake. Note that the Lady of the Lake, a water fairy or nymph, grants Arthur his kingship by supplying him with Excalibur. Noteworthy is the comparison between the Lady of the Lake and the Greek mythological water nymph Thetis who raised the hero Achilles. This concept of a supernatural, feminine Water entity inspiring a great leader or hero is highly pertinent.



All of these factors make consideration of Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water" very interesting. This is a much maligned film. Personally I loved it. No matter your opinion though, the movie is undoubtedly swimming in esoterica (pun intended). In fact it is esoterica that is not hard to read, a rare gift that Shyamalan should be thanked for.

The movie tells the tale of Cleveland Heep, the caretaker of an apartment complex who discovers a strange woman named Story who was living in the swimming pool. Heep finds there is more to Story then meets the eye when she is attacked by a wolf-like creature with a grass-like coat. Story describes herself as something called a Narf, and the creature that attacked her a Scrunt.





Note the grid/chess board patterning in both of these images, a major initiatory symbol utilized throughout the film. Heep learns from a tenet that Narfs and Scrunts are figures from a Korean fairy tale. The legend states that periodically Narf's, a type of Water Nymph or Fairy, journey from "The Blue World" in order to enlighten a human being termed a "vessel" (the Grail is a vessel). The vessel then will be able to in some way change the world for the better. Scrunts, enemies of the Narfs, and apparently mankind, try to kill any Narf that takes this action, however, strict laws govern these events, upheld by a trio of ape/tree like creatures called Tartutic. Story informs Heep that the vessel she seeks is a writer living in the building. Once she fulfills her mission she would be able to return to her home world via a giant eagle termed the Great Eatlon. A giant eagle relates to solar symbolism, Zeus/Jupiter, the punishment of Prometheus, the constellation Scorpio, John the Evangelist, etc. It is also a device utilized in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, most significantly at the end of "The Return of the King" when Sam and Frodo were rescued from Mount Doom.

Heep figures out that the vessel is a tenant named Vick (played by Shyamalan), an unpublished author in the process of writing a book on political philosophy titled "The Cook Book", but suffering from writer's block. When he meets Story he experiences what he terms "an awakening" allowing him to return to his important work. Story is then free to return to the Blue World, but when she tries she is again attacked by the Scrunt, and is nearly killed. Heep learns further details of the fairy tale and determines that Story is a Madame Narf, a future Queen of the Blue World, a figure whom the Scrunts would willingly break the law in order to eliminate. He further learns that there should be humans capable of assisting the Madame Narf unconsciously drawn to her location, residents of the apartment building, a Guardian, a Healer, a Symbol Interpretor, and a Guild.

I don't wish to spoil this film too much for those who haven't seen it, but I want to point out a couple of interesting synchronicities surrounding the role of the Interpretor. Initially Cleveland Heep believes the Interpretor is Mr. Dory (Door-y and also related to the Greek "doron" meaning "gift"), played by Jeffrey Wright. The "instrument" Mr. Dory seems to draw his insight from are crossword puzzles. It turns out, however, that Heep was wrong and the true Interpretor is Mr. Dory's son Joey. Joey is portrayed by Noah Gray-Cabey, the young actor who plays Micah Sanders on "Heroes". Joey draws his insights from studying cereal boxes. This is a clever bit of esoteric symbolism, maybe beyond even Shyamalan's intent. Cereal refers to Ceres, the central figure of the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries. There is also the pun (which I frequently utilize) between Ceres' cereal and the term serial, for anything that occurs in a series, from TV shows to murders. Magazines and comic books are also normally serial in nature. The prophetic comic books created by Isaac Mendez are an important plot device in "Heroes". Micah Sanders is one of the characters who draws knowledge from Isaac's comic books. Amazingly "Heroes" also utilized the crossword puzzle as a symbolic device.

"Lady in the Water" is highly criticized (something Shyamalan is well used to, and bitingly refers to in this movie) but I find it to be an important statement about the necessary role of art in our culture. It is no mistake that the water nymph is named Story. Mythologies of course have anthropomorphized abstract concepts for longer then our species can remember. It is perhaps the oldest Story in the book, the Queen Story if you will. This is why I'm so taken with the incidental connections between Story, Gwen Stacy and Guinevere. Very interesting that as the film progresses, Story's hair gradually shifts from dark, to red, to blond, to white as the need for her to return to her own world increases. Guinevere is the White Fairy or Ghost. A similar process is seen with E.T., another inspirational/initiating figure with a vital need to return to his home.

Cleveland Heep was played by the gifted Paul Giamatti significant in many of his roles, including Miles Raymond in the Dionysian "Sideways" with Thomas Haden Church. How very interesting then that Church was also in "Spider-Man 3", playing the part of Sandman.



But the accounting of the Sandmen of the comic book world is a bedtime Story for another day.

Bonus synchronistic detail. The next Bryce Dallas Howard movie due for release is "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond", based on a screenplay written by American theater genius Tennessee Williams. The item I find of interest is her character's name, Fisher Willow. Howard's father is the actor/director Ron Howard. He directed "Willow", a fairy tale centered around the female messiah Elora Danan (which had sequels in the form of novels written by X-Men/Marvel Team-Up guru Chris Claremont. Book one of the trilogy is "Shadow Moon") and of course "The Da Vinci Code", a Grail quest. Grail symbolism is inherently tied to the term Fisher due to the important symbolic figure of the Fisher King.

The films of Ron Howard are a matter of great interest. Bryce Dallas Howards' first film role was in her father's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" about another diabolical green man. Christmas was also stolen by by the White Witch in C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". If you agree with my observations, you perhaps may find the underlying concept of stealing Christmas not so far removed from the murder of Gwen Stacy.

This Joke Is Not Funny (updated)

You've likely heard by now that Heath Ledger was found dead today, 1/22/08. I don't mean to be ghoulish, and it is certainly too early to in any way speculate the cause of death, but this is an alarm bell moment. There are two films that are scheduled for future release featuring Ledger, and there's a weird twist of synchronicity between them. Let me state again that this is a total tragedy that I do not mean to make light of, he was only 28 years old and the father of a two year old daughter. No foul play seemed to be involved. He apparently did have a substance abuse problem, at least at one time. He may have been suffering from pneumonia. The description of the scene sounds like a suicide but there is no clear indication of that until the autopsy tomorrow. So unlike my normal posts I write this with no pleasure whatsoever.

It is big news that Ledger portrayed the Joker in next Spring's "The Dark Knight", the much anticipated sequel to "Batman Begins". I'm sure I'm not alone in finding this disturbing and ominous on some indecipherable level. Entertainment Weekly has already stated, "No one will be able to watch [The Dark Knight] without seeing unintended ironies and eerie portents of doom".



Here's what wikipedia says about Ledger and the role:

"the Joker, whom the actor described as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy". Nolan had wanted to work with Ledger on a number of projects in the past, but had been unable to do so. When Ledger saw Batman Begins, he realized a way to make the character work in that film's tone, and Nolan agreed upon his anarchic interpretation. To prepare for the role he lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's posture, voice and psychology. While he initially found it difficult, Ledger was eventually able to generate a voice which did not sound like Jack Nicholson's take on the character in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film. He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker's thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance. He was also given Batman: The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth to read, which he "really tried to read [...] and put it down". Ledger also cited inspiration in A Clockwork Orange and Sid Vicious. Ultimately, "there’s nothing that [is] consistent", as his main objective was to frighten the audience. The challenge of the role put a strain on Ledger's sleep patterns, finding himself unable to rest for more than a few hours each night."

The other Ledger film is just as evocative, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" from Terry Gilliam, scheduled for release in 2009. By the same screen writer as Gilliam's films "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". It is the story of a traveling theater troupe who make a deal with the devil and lead audience members on a tour of another world through a Magic Mirror. Here's a production still:



It is hard to see the ornamentation above the stage, but I believe that's Shakespeare who, no matter your opinion on the conspiracy theory, at the very least resonates with Francis Bacon. Then to left and right are what appear to me to be black and white striped chariots bearing torch wielding gods and goddesses, drawn by peacocks. The peacock is associated with Hera/Juno, one of the more ominous manifestations of the Goddess. I also heard on the news today that "Juno" is the dark horse runner for Best Picture in the upcoming Oscars, a weird coincidence.

Gilliam was a member of Monty Python. How strange then that the troupe twice produced the sketch "The Funniest Joke in the World", also known as "Joke Warfare" and "The Killing Joke".


Art by Brian Bolland


Art by Dave McKean



Batman as the grim reaper. There's certainly going to be much discussed on this subject as details are released and the underlying symbolism of the many faces of the Joker and Batman are explored.

Update:

In the comments JB directed to me to some photos of Ledger from Doctor Parnassus posted at the forums of David Icke.com. The image speaks for itself:



Ledger as the Hanged Man, a Tarot card of dark portent equaled only by The Lightning Struck Tower. Note the bloody symbols on his forehead, particularly the Illuminati All-Seeing Eye in Pyramid over his pineal gland/third eye. Absolutely chilling. His white tuxedo too reminds me of the black to white shift of the tuxedos worn by the Time Bandits, another Gilliam movie, when they passed into "The Time of Legends", an Otherworld serving as the residence of Evil (see Inside the Map of the Universe).

As we discover the dark aspect of the Goddess underlying this event the punning behind this "The Dark Knight" promotional poster takes on new significance. Sirius is intimately associated with the goddess Isis.



Why so, Sirius?

Marvel Alchemy

Art by John Byrne and Terry Austin

I grew up in a household where at least a few comic books were usually around. This is the first comic book I remember really noticing. I must have been around six or seven years old since the book was originally published in December of 1978. I'm not surprised this issue was in my household because my parents were Doctor Strange fans. It was the cover that most captured my young attention. The story it contained, the first chapter of a two-parter, was beyond me. But I was as familiar with the symbolic figures of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck as a seven year old could be maybe. Even then I knew I was looking at something interesting. The presence of this comic book as a young child might explain a lot. It doesn't get much more blatant then this.

Looking at this cover now I'm struck by several factors. It is an illustration by the eighties powerhouse team of John Byrne and Terry Austin. I have great respect for Byrne's artwork (though not so much as a writer, where I find his approach to be callow and destructive) and his pencils always looked their best inked by Austin. The issue was written by Chris Claremont. Claremont, Byrne and Austin were the team responsible for classic X-Men epics like "The Dark Phoenix Saga" and "Days of Future Past".

The image itself is very powerful and the symbolism it invokes entirely apt. Marvel's major initiatory character Spider-Man (see Tingly Intuition) is depicted bursting forth from Doctor Strange's Orb of Agamotto, an artifact related to the Doctor's All-Seeing Eye of Agamotto, and a literal and figurative stargate. A magician's crystal ball is for certain a Looking Glass. Spider-Man as the Fool too is absolutely appropriate. The Fool is the initiate's card. They say wisdom begins with accepting one's own foolish nature. With great power comes great responsibility. Doctor Strange (see Doctoring Art Gotic Part II) is a natural as the Magician, adept in all the elements of the Minor Arcana. Ms. Marvel is The Star (see The Great Marvel Mysteries Part Three), connected to Virgo and the Goddess.

That's Clea on the High Priestess card and this is completely appropriate as well, especially within the context of this storyline. Clea is Doctor Strange's student and lover, and the niece of the god-like Dormammu. The figure on the Death card is a fairly obscure Doctor Strange villain, Silver Dagger. Here is perhaps the only real miscast, though it is understandable why Byrne made this choice. The symbolism of the Tarot plays a key role in the storyline, including Doctor Strange as the Magician and Clea as the High Priestess but reversed. Spider-Man as the Fool and Ms. Marvel as the Star are not specified, but in the story the card representing Silver Dagger is the Hierophant reversed. This is much more appropriate as Silver Dagger, a character created by Steve Englehart, is a fanatical Catholic driven mad by reading a book of magic called "The Shiatra Book of the Damned", an item clearly inspired by Lovecraft's Necronomicon (Doctor Strange refers to the Shiatra Book inspiring the Necronomicon in part two of this storyline, reversing the relationship). Reading the Shiatra Book conveyed great sorcerous power to Silver Dagger, which he utilized to hunt down and murder other spell-casters who he considered to be sinners and heretics. He is literally a Hierophant reversed.

In a previous encounter in Doctor Strange's own title, Silver Dagger became trapped within the Orb of Agomotto, in an Otherworld termed an "Unreality". The "Marvel Team-Up" issues relate his escape, achieved by drawing the astral bodies of Clea and Doctor Strange in so that he could exit. Within the Orb Doctor Strange faced Clea at her full and darkest potential, very similar in fact (but far less involved) to the Dark Phoenix Saga Claremont and Byrne presented a couple of years later. Naturally, as this is a team-up title, all would have been lost if fate had not delivered both Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel to the scene to lend Doctor Strange assistance. Of great interest here is the depiction of the Unreality within the Orb.


Art by Howard Chaykin

The Land Inside the Looking Glass. According to a flashback this continued the model established by Englehart in Silver Dagger's original appearance in the Doctor Strange series, which I have never read, but would love to get my hands on. It seems that the Orb's Unreality is one and the same as Wonderland. It also appears to be highly plastic, confirming at one point to the home dimension of Clea (the Dark Dimension) and then to the inner-world of Spider-Man. The hookah-smoking, mushroom-perched Caterpillar of Wonderland is remarkably similar to the initiatory, Mugwump Spider-Man.

In Doctoring Art Gotic Part IV I mentioned the symbol combining potential of the big two comic book publishers' various team-up titles. For a long span of issues DC's "The Brave and the Bold" involved primarily Batman teaming up with random characters of the DC pantheon. The same was done in "DC Comics Presents" with Superman pre-Crisis, and again by Byrne for a little over a year in "Action Comics" post-Crisis. There is certainly pure Gold created in some of these serial, chemical weddings. "DC Comics Presents" notably includes a visit by Superman to Eternia where he met He-Man and the Masters of the Universe during a time when DC held a license for that property. The long-running "World's Finest Comics" featured the singular pairing of Batman and Superman, who shared many weird adventures.

Besides "Marvel Team-Up", Marvel also had "Marvel Two-In-One" which featured pairings with the Thing from the Fantastic Four. There was even a couple of Giant Size issues and a regular series titled "Marvel Super-Villain Team-Up" in the late seventies, featuring Doctor Doom mostly with the Submariner except in the last few issues where Doom worked with Magneto and the Red Skull. Most of these titles, including "World's Finest" which started in 1941, lasted no later then 1988, and that was Byrne's take on "Action", a title which continued but in the form of a weekly (very weakly) anthology series. The rest had all been canceled by late 1986. This coincides with what I consider to be the Iron Age of American comic books. Interestingly all of these titles have been revived recently in one way or another.

"Marvel Team-Up" is of particular interest given recent topics on Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and the X-Men. Spider-Man was the primary figure of the title. The few issues that did not have Spider-Man featured either the Hulk or the Promethean Human Torch (see The Life Pyrotic), and in one case the two together. The initial three issues were in fact all team-ups between Spider-Man and the Human Torch. A panel from the first issue, March 1972, speaks volumes.


Art by Ross Andru

The villain they faced in issue #1 was Marvel's Sandman, an enemy shared by Spider-Man and the elemental Fantastic Four. The name "Sandman" alone refers to initiation patterns, the altered-state of consciousness achieved while sleeping, and also a Man of the Earth, an Adam. In "Marvel Team-Up" #2 Spidey and the Torch again fought Sandman as well as two other members of The Frightful Four. The wonderful Frightful Four are every bit as elemental as the Fantastic Four. The anti-gravity expert the Wizard is Air, Paste-Pot Pete is Water, and the Inhuman Medusa is Fire. Interesting here that the element missing from the Frightful Four in this issue is the single one present from the Fantastic Four. The issue also features the extra-dimensional, Cosmic Rod wielding Annihilus. In this case Annihilus is the fifth element, the ether or astral substance associating with Kiby's universal Cosmic Energy.

In issue #3 the Torch and Spider-Man faced the vampire Morbius. Vampires inherently embody life-after-death initiation rites. The story continued into issue four which featured Spider-Man and one of the last appearances of the original X-Men before the second generation was introduced in 1975. The adventure ended with Spider-Man planting a kiss on Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Phoenix, the true High Priestess of the Marvel Mysteries.


Art by Gil Kane

Interesting that without knowing the context one might naturally assume Spider-Man was kissing Mary Jane Watson in the panel above. Depending on who is rendering them, they are more or less identical in appearance. Claremont, Byrne and Austin did an interesting story with Mary Jane in "Marvel Team-Up" #79. Unearthed artifacts from the Hyborian Age (described as the Age following the fall of Atlantis, c. 10,000 years ago) were on display in a New York City museum, including an amulet that possessed a hapless night watchmen. His physical form was taken over by the wizard Kulan Gath. Spider-Man naturally got involved but he was overpowered by Gath's demonic minions. Mary Jane tagged along to the scene with Peter Parker and was herself possessed by the sword of Red Sonja who reincarnated in Mary Jane's form. Unfortunately Spidey and Red still got captured and hung on X-crosses above a dimensional portal.


Art by John Byrne and Terry Austin

Kulan Gath returned several years later in a two-issue multi-character team-up in "Uncanny X-Men" #190-191. This time Gath managed to transform the island of Manhattan into a city out of the Hyborian Age, including everyone on the island. Due to the spell they had no memory of their normal reality. The spell affected the X-Men, the New Mutants, and the Avengers. Unaffected were Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. Issue 191 opened with Spider-Man crucified again, this time in the traditional form, and it was apparent that he had been heavily tortured. Many of the characters die in the course of the story, but all was resolved when Doctor Strange combined his abilities with those of Illyana Rasputin to reverse time and erase Kulan Gath's spell from existence. This represents one of the more significant examples of Marvel's licensed properties being directly folded into the Marvel Universe, in this case the pulp, fantasy sword and sorcery realms of Robert E. Howard. Spider-Man also met King Kull in "Marvel Team-Up" #112.


Art by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito

I've been thinking about "Marvel Team-Up" since I mentioned it in Doctoring Part IV. Then Christopher Knowles of the Secret Sun posted Silver Star, part 5- Iran, the CIA and the Lord of Light where I learned for the first time about Jack Kirby's role in a proposed film based on the 1967 novel "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny. Be sure to read Chris' article if you haven't yet for an amazing "truth is stranger then fiction" CIA involvement in the project. The "a-ha" moment for me in this came because amongst the many gems amidst the run of "Marvel Team-Up" is "Marvel Team-Up Annual" #1 from 1976, featuring Spider-Man's first meeting with the full New X-Men team, "The Lords of Light and Darkness", undoubtedly inspired by Zelazny's works, primarily "Lord of Light" due to its Hindu mythological structure, but also the 1969 Egyptian pantheon based "Creatures of Light and Darkness". In the splash above the heroes are before what Zelazny might term "the tall man of smoke who wears a wide hat". Note in this image how the various figures are mostly balanced in pairs, Storm and Banshee, Wolverine and Nightcrawler, and Cyclops and Colossus. This by default leaves key initiator Spider-Man in association with Phoenix, the Goddess herself. I have not read "Lord of Light", or any of Zelazny's novels besides a few of the "Amber" series many years ago, but even the cursory, Cliiff-notes treatment on Wikipedia makes the source material for the Team-Up annual readily apparent.

The plot involves a top-secret government installation called "The Nest" working to solve the energy crisis through use of secret method of irradiating common minerals. A team of eight international scientists were at the Nest working on the project. The developer of the method, Araman Nila, was a devout Hindu. An earthquake struck the underground complex while Nila was performing a delicate procedure, causing the unstable, radioactive compounds to explode.

As chance would have it Peter Parker was part of a press junket following American and Soviet scientists and politicians going to visit the Nest. Even more amazing was the presence on this flight of Professor Xavier and his students, as stand-ins for Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic, who was unable to attend. The plane carrying the visitors flew into the path of the smoke from the destroyed Nest and the controls went haywire due to the radiation. It was then attacked by a squadron of flying robots called Rakks, security droids for the Nest, named for the Hindu demonic entities Rakshasas, here described by Peter Parker as "Guardians of the Gates of Hell". The Rakks cut the nose off the plane with lasers and it dropped into a nosedive. Spider-Man averted disaster by quickly weaving a giant web-parachute to slow the plane's descent.

On the ground the heroes soon discovered the former site of the Nest shielded by a rainbow hued radiation field. The crack in the earth leading to the underground complex was termed a "Hellpit", highly similar to the "Hellwell" of "Lord of Light". The heroes were then attacked by entities calling themselves Yama Dharma and Kali. Kali wields an item called "the Chaos Wheel" that emits maddening, hyper-sonic frequencies, seemingly identical to the skull-wheel used by the Kali in "Lord of Light". The self-styled gods revealed that they brought the plane down in order to capture an individual on board that they term "the One". The One, as you may expect, is Jean Grey/Phoenix.


Art by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito

In this scene Wolverine's claws revealed Yama Dharma's transcendental nature. My god, he's full of stars! Following the proper super hero comic book formula, all the heroes were instantly knocked out by Kali's powerful Chaos Wheel. They awakened suspended and immobile in a force field. This was the perfect moment for some comic book exposition. Spider-Man and the X-Men learned that the powerful explosion filtered through the mind of the Hindu Araman Nila, transforming himself and his fellow scientists into god-like entities based on the templates of Nila's faith.


Art by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito

Note the caduceus styling of Shiva's trident. They further explained that they sensed Jean's great power as the plane approached, and they required her to become their ninth member, completing their ennead. They furthered that their corporeal forms were unstable, in danger of disruption. They needed to transcend or die. To this end they were drawing in "stellar energy" and when they had absorbed enough they would leave the planet. However, this process would leave the Earth a "dying husk", a fact the Lords of Light and Darkness were completely indifferent to. Phoenix was needed to "bind their energies" and stabilize their "path to godhood".

Before this could happen Nightcrawler deduced that the stasis fields were particularly attuned to each captive, so while they couldn't free themselves they could use their powers to free one another. Once Spider-Man and the X-Men were free they quickly subdued the Lords, who were apparently not all that tough as far as godlike beings go. The Lords began to dissolve. Unfortunately, for some reason, their dissolution would also cause the Earth to die. Spider-Man deduced that the only solution was to get the Lords off the planet before it was too late. Cyclops devised a plan to accomplish this, that naturally involved coordinating several of the X-Men's powers.


Art by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito

This involved the many characters forming a circle, a Magic ring. The end result was the Lords transforming into energy and traveling deep into space on one of Cyclops' optic beams, where they finished their evolution, combining to become a new star. "Marvel Team-Up Annual" #1 is not a classic by most standards. Neither writer Bill Mantlo nor artist Sal Buscema are largely considered to be top talents in the field (unfairly in the case of Buscema). However, I find the issue delightful as modern super heroes are brought into conflict with (somewhat) mythological entities, more or less on equal terms, blurring the distinctions between them. In fact, these gods were created in exactly the manner of many if not most of the "science" based super heroes (like Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Flash, etc.). And it is the symbolism of the art of alchemy that underlies this story of transmutation from mortal, to divine, and ultimately to stellar, the ultimate source of all mythologies.

The "Marvel Team-Up" Volume 1 series was a monthly alchemical formula, the chemical wedding of symbolic entities, and primarily initiatory in format. This is apparent by the major use in the title of Spider-Man as well as the Promethean Human Torch. We find synchronistic confirmation of this concept through a very unusual issue, "Marvel Team-Up" #74, published in October of 1978, which featured a meeting of Spider-Man and "Saturday Night Live's" Not Ready For Prime-Time Players, including Bill Murray (see Bill Luminati), again written by Chris Claremont.


Art by Bob Hall and Marie Severin

That's Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner in this scene with Murray and Spidey. The issue also includes Dan Aykroyd, Laraine Newman (dressed as Ms. Marvel), Garrett Morris (dressed as Thor!), and John Belushi in a samurai duel with the mutant Silver Samurai. The plot involves Belushi accidentally receiving a ring in the mail that he tried on and couldn't remove. The Silver Samurai wanted the ring and hired a group of goons to take over the "Saturday Night Live" studio. As chance would have it Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson had tickets for that night's show. The host of the show was Stan Lee (the most unlikely element of the issue). Interestingly the Samurai kind of wins this encounter.

This is far from the only instance when Marvel characters encounter real world celebrities. The Human Torch and the Thing once met the Beatles, Kirby once had Captain America and the Falcon taking orders from a dead-ringer for Kissinger, Daredevil had a team-up with Uri Geller and I've mentioned Doctor Strange's friendship with Tom Wolfe, and there are many more. In this instance the Promethean/initiatory character of the roles of Bill Murray intersect with Spider-Man, Mary Jane, and the alchemical qualities symbolized with Silver based characters. Plus the all important Magic Ring. Clearing away all doubt is the magical ability the ring is revealed to confer:


Art by Bob Hall and Marie Severin

Hiyo Silver away!

A Magic Blue-Elf Theory

Fictional circus poster from "X2"

I rewatched "X2/X-Men United" recently and an interesting detail struck my attention. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. The movie begins with an assassination attempt on the U.S. President by a brainwashed Nightcrawler. As an X-Men fan I was not totally enchanted by all the choices they made for the character, though Alan Cumming was excellently cast (speaking of interesting effects of casting, how great that Kitty Pryde of "X-Men 3" is played by Ellen Page, who is also "Juno"). There is a very interesting allusion director Bryan Singer made just as the Nightcrawler character was introduced.



Prior to his attack on the Secret Service and the President, a disguised Nightcrawler was part of a White House tour group. IMDb's "X2" trivia listing notes that in this scene, portraits of assassinated Presidents Lincoln, McKinley and Kennedy are prominently displayed (and also Washington, of interest maybe to Washington/Weishaupt theorists). This makes easy enough sense for the scene that follows, however, the interesting thing was a decision to feature the famous 1970 Aaron Shikler "Oil Portrait of John F. Kennedy" with Nightcrawler beside it displaying a highly similar posture as Kennedy in the portrait. This was undoubtedly done purposefully.



I find this brief moment one that resonates on more then one level. We quickly learn that Nightcrawler was under the mind control of the mutant hating army Colonel William Stryker (played by Brian Cox). Nightcrawler is a mutant Manchurian Candidate. Thus this visual connotation between the character and a posthumous portrait of JFK seems a very economic manner in which to make a subtle statement about Lee Harvey Oswald.  Mind control is one of the major themes of "X2" and a point I'll be returning to in the course of this article.

But I don't think that's quite the sum of what is being said with the Nightcrawler/JFK shot. It is not Lee Harvey Oswald whom Nightcrawler is being paralleled to, it in Kennedy himself. This certainly does not make a lot of immediate sense, and the typical reaction, if a viewer were to note this subtle symbol-play at all, would be to make the leap to Oswald. If I was forced to make a bet I would say that was the film maker's intent. However, synchronistically it says something else about the Nightcrawler character and the X-Men franchise in general.

My intent with writing on the X-Men comics was to start at the beginning and work my way through to my terminus point as a regular reader in the late '80s. I did not intend to 'port about randomly, but there's something here I can't ignore or store away for the moment when my organization catches up to my intentions. So let's talk about Nightcrawler.


Art by Dave Cockrum

The name, Nightcrawler, has the connotation of one who moves through the darkness, thus an adept of the Mysteries/Occult. The character's real name is Kurt Wagner, which I've always assumed was a reference to German composer Richard Wagner. Note the yonic, or grail-like shapes of Nightcrawler's costume. This is in fact a trait shared by most of the costumes of the second generation of X-Men. The sole exception was the hold over from the original team, the linear Cyclops.


Art by Dave Cockrum

As the story goes, Nightcrawler was originally designed by illustrator Dave Cockrum as a character for DC's Legion of Super-Heroes (due primarily to Cockrum's important tenure on both titles there are several links between the Legion and the X-Men). According to Wikipedia the design was rejected, oddly, for being "too alien". When Cockrum moved from DC to Marvel the character was redeveloped by Cockrum and writer Len Wein as one of the second generation X-Men. His first published appearance in May 1975's "Giant-Size X-Men" #1.

A mutant from Germany, the infant Kurt Wagner was described as being found abandoned in the Bavarian Alps by a gypsy/sorceress named Margali Szardos. His supposed father Eric Wagner was found nearby dead from a heart attack. Margali made a living as a fortune-teller for a small circus, and she brought the infant to them. The circus folk accepted his freakish appearance and he was raised as one of their own. Margali acted as his foster mother and his best friends were her son Stefan and her daughter Jimaine. Kurt trained and worked as an acrobat and aerialist at the circus. As I've said before, the circus always makes a nice reference to the zodiac.

As a young adult Kurt quit the circus when it was bought by a Texas millionaire who planned to move the best acts to the United States, and intended Kurt be moved to the freak show. Kurt then made his way to the village of Winzeldorf where his foster brother Stefan was living. Kurt found that Stefan had gone mad and murdered several children. During a violent confrontation Stefan died when his neck was accidentally broken. Based on his demonic appearance, the villagers assumed Kurt was the one who murdered the children, and he was attacked by an angry, torch-wielding mob. He was rescued by Professor X who then recruited Kurt as one of the New X-Men.

Later, as depicted in 1980's "X-Men King-Size Annual" #4, Margali cast Kurt into a facsimile of Dante's Inferno as punishment for Stefan's death, for which she mistakenly held Kurt responsible. With the help of Doctor Strange the X-Men rescued Nightcrawler and the truth was revealed to Margali by Strange's All-Seeing Eye of Agamotto. At this time Kurt also learned that his foster-sister Jimaine, a sorceress like her mother, had been posing as his girlfriend, Amanda Sefton. It is one of the X-Men's stranger adventures, which is really saying something. In a story titled "Nightcrawler's Inferno", Amanda/Jimaine is then a subtle Beatrice. There is a further, more complicated Dante connection in this equation as well.

Eventually Nightcrawler learned that his birth-mother is the mutant, terrorist leader of the second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the blue Mystique. At a later point, in an unpopular storyline, Nightcrawler's true birth father was revealed as the demonically named Azazel, an evil warlord from a race of demon/mutants. Originally long-time X-Men writer Chris Claremont intended a very different, and far more intriguing parentage for Nightcrawler. Claremont's concept was for Nightcrawler to have been the son of Mystique and her long-time female companion, the precognitive Destiny. The shape-shifting Mystique would have taken male form and impregnated Destiny, making Mystique Kurt's female father. This concept was nixed as too controversial. That's a shame, but I rather like this detail as part of the esoteric origin of Nightcrawler, the offspring of Mystery and Fate. Between Mystique, Destiny and the green-skinned, ram-horned Margali, Nightcrawler has three mothers, all of whom resonate aspects of the Goddess. Tripartite depictions of the Goddess are to be expected.

This combines with Nightcrawler's powers to make a character of high intrigue. Nightcrawler is of course a teleporter, a living stargate. He shares Spider-Man's ability to walk on walls and his super-human agility. The two male, goddess resonating figures hold much in common. Another ability of Nightcrawler's, one erratically presented, is his shadowy nature. Even in normal lighting Nightcrawler is typically depicted as being partially in shadows. At one point he learns (from leprechauns no less) that he not only blends into the shadows, he becomes completely invisible in darkness.

But what does all of this have to do with JFK? One factor is that Nightcrawler is depicted as a Catholic, and of course Kennedy was the first and so far only Catholic U.S. President. In another relatively recent storyline Nightcrawler nearly became a Catholic priest and in a convoluted storyline was almost made the Pope of the Marvel Universe. In "X2", after Nightcrawler fled the White House, he hid out in an abandoned church in Boston. There's no real reason for the use of Boston in this movie and I wonder if it was utilized as a further synchronization to Kennedy.

The other shared detail of Nightcrawler and Kennedy is as targets of assassination. Nightcrawler is one of the many Marvel characters who was killed prior to the events presented in the monumental X-Men storyline "Days Of Future Past". Details of his death in this alternate time line were later revealed when Rachel Summers escaped her own dystopian reality and joined the cast of the X-Men. We learn the dominance of the Sentinels was preceded by an assault on Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters. As Nightcrawler and his (in that reality) wife Amanda Sefton walked Illyana Rasputin, the younger sister of Colossus, to meet her school bus, all three were gunned down by unseen snipers. Another assassination victim in this attack was Professor X, who is frequently compared to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.


Art by Bill Sienkiewicz

"X2" includes a prominent, though far less dramatic or devastating, military assault on Xavier's School. It is safe to say that Singer was aware of the source material of this plot point. The primary comic book source for the story of "X2/X-Men United", however, is not "Days of Future Past", but rather the exceptional 1982 Marvel Graphic Novel #5, "God Loves, Man Kills".


Art by Brent Anderson

Like "X2", "God Loves, Man Kills" featured the X-Men teaming with Magneto to stop a plot by anti-mutant activist William Stryker. One of the major differences, however, is that Stryker, rather then being an Army colonel, was a fundamentalist Christian televangelist whose ministry was spreading a message that mutants were the product of Satan. As in "X2", Professor X was abducted and brainwashed by Stryker into a telepathic weapon of mass destruction, hooked up to a machine that enhanced his abilities to the point where he could murder every mutant on the planet simultaneously. In the graphic novel the brainwashing involved a series of induced hallucinations, including a nightmare where Xavier was crucified by the X-Men. For some reason this was depicted as taking place atop one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

And these are not the only times when the Nightcrawler character has been presented in assassination themed storylines. I mentioned the similarities between Nightcrawler and Spider-Man and indeed the two have been depicted on cordial terms, for the most part, since early in Nightcrawler's existence. Of course when they first met they mistook one another as enemies and fought for awhile, but that's to be expected of super heroes. They became friends afterwards. The two first met in October 1976's "The Amazing Spider-Man" #161, the first part of a two-issue story, written by Nightcrawler co-creator Len Wein and illustrated by Ross Andru.


Art by Gil Kane and John Romita

A string of sniper shootings leads to Spider-Man and Nightcrawler mistaking one another for the killer. The shooter is actually purposefully impersonating the Templar resonating vigilante Punisher, and is eventually revealed to be a plot by the Punisher's archenemy, the Dick Tracy-esque Jigsaw (Jigsaw Killer, did you see "Saw"?). I am highly intrigued lately by the connotations of team-up comics, particularly involving Spider-Man and the X-Men, and it's a topic I'll be returning to, I believe in my next post.

If all of that's not confusing enough here's another rather convoluted connection between Nightcrawler and Dante Alighieri and the "Inferno" portion of "The Divine Comedy". Bear with me. Back in the Golden Age of comics when Marvel was Timely, one of their first characters was the Tarzan-clone jungle lord Ka-Zar (as such a definite Dionysus resonator). Ka-Zar actually first appeared as a text character in a pulp magazine in 1936. In the Silver Age the name was reused by Lee and Kirby for a character who debuted in "X-Men" #10, March of 1965. This Ka-Zar was still a jungle lord, but the world he occupied was the "lost world" The Savage Land hidden in Antarctica, populated by dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Ka-Zar's constant companion is the saber-tooth tiger Zabu and he later marries the leopard-skin clad Shanna the She-Devil a jungle heroine in her own right, both of whom reemphasize Ka-Zar's Dionysian nature.

Ka-Zar subsequently appeared several times in the pages of the X-Men and other Marvel titles and starred in several short-lived series of his own. In "Ka-Zar the Savage" #11, February 1982, the demonic sorcerer Belasco was introduced. Belasco was created by writer Bruce Jones and illustrator Brent Anderson, the artist of "God Loves, Man Kills".


Art by Brent Anderson

As the story goes, the Savage Land was created millions of years in the past by an alien race called the Beyonders (entities separate from the Cosmic Cube born/Secret Wars causing Beyonder) as a kind of zoo. The Savage Land was discovered during the days of ancient Atlantis, and they built a kind of amusement park there, one with a strong resemblance to Hell. In the 13th century Belasco, a Florentine alchemist, made a pact with a race of Lovecraftian "Elder Gods" (a nod no doubt to the Antarctica based "At The Mountains of Madness"). They made him immortal and a powerful sorcerer. In return the now demonic Belasco was to sire a race of Earth-born demons.

He kidnapped Beatrice, the true love of Dante Alighieri, and fled with her to Antarctica, raping and impregnating her on the way. He was pursued by Dante. The chase led them to the Atlantean amusement park in the Savage Land. Dante arrived but was too late to save Beatrice who died in childbirth. Dante and Belasco fought and during their combat a pipe containing some kind of liquid coolant was burst and Belasco was frozen solid, and subsequently buried in an earthquake. Dante returned to Florence and loosely recounted the tragic adventure as part of his epic poem (in which Lucifer is depicted frozen in the bottom Circle of Hell).

Hundreds of years later Ka-Zar and his companions discovered the amusement park while exploring the Savage Land, and found the immortal Belasco had revived. Belasco determined that Shanna was the reincarnation of Beatrice and decided to make her his new bride. Ka-Zar, of course, managed to save Shanna. For his failure, Belasco was punished by the Elder Gods, cast into the timeless dimension called the Otherplace or Limbo. Belasco next appeared in the pages of the X-Men when he kidnapped the aforementioned Illyana Rasputin, seemingly because her mutant ability allowed her to directly enter and exit Limbo. The X-Men pursued through circular portals between worlds.

Apparently X-Men from more then one reality did this and one group became lost in Limbo for many years, during which time Wolverine and Colossus were killed. Nightcrawler was eventually corrupted by Belasco and became the sorcerer's lackey. The X-Men from the "regular" continuity managed to escape however (with the help of the alternate Storm who had become a powerful sorceress in her own right), but lost hold of Illyana just as they were exiting Limbo. They managed to grab hold of her again but when they did they found that she had aged several years. In that time she had been trained as an apprentice of Belasco, eventually overthrowing him and becoming the new ruler of Limbo.

This story was further related to Nightcrawler years later in the pages of "Excalibur", involving his foster mother Margali and his girlfriend Amanda/Jimaine in overtly complicated ways (Winding Ways). Then in Alex Ross and Jim Kreuger's alternate Marvel future story line Earth X, which is not considered canonical, Belsaco was revealed to have originally been a time-displaced Nightcrawler who had lost his memory and morality, and gained a similar but different hued form, due to a deal he made with Mephisto (the same devilish entity with whom Marvel had Spider-Man recently make a deal). So again we have the pure-hearted Nightcrawler turned into a tool for an evil plot. In this case a Mephistian Candidate.

Tingly Intuition

Art by Steve Ditko

Note: This article predates the relaunched films with the traditional web-shooters.

You know that Peter Parker really is just a regular guy with everyday problems like the rest of us. Here we see that he's a dandruff sufferer who, always strapped for cash, has agreed to do some product endorsement. The left-side is tingling!

That is of course a joke. For the most part when I describe Spider-Man as "the Mugwump Spider-Man" as I did, for example, in Doctoring Art Gotic Part IV , it is meant as a joke as well. Cause I think it's funny. But the more I think about it the more inherent truth I see in the comparison.


Art by (I believe) John Romita

If you've never had this concept of Spider-Man before, I apologize, but you gotta admit, he's ejaculatory. He's super ejaculatory. Spider-Man's ejaculations are multi-functional and nigh-unbeatable. It's one of his two truly great powers, a great story-telling device, a kind of street-level Green Lantern's Ring, all the more entertaining from its inherent limitations. The switch to organic webbing for the movie only makes this connotation more easy to recognize. It is inherent in any version of the character.

But the Mugwump thing is deeper then that with Spider-Man, and it's other level involves Spider-Man's other truly great power. But I'll get back to that.

The Mugwumps in question are not the Republican supporters of the Democrat Grover Cleveland, the British pacifists, or the 19th century VD medicine. It is surely the inspiration for the early '60s band name, The Mugwumps, members of which went on to perform in the Mamas and the Papas and the Lovin' Spoonful. And I just can't imagine J.K.Rowling didn't know what she was doing when she titled Albus Dumbledore the "Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards". Indeed.


Dumbledore loads his Pensieve

But I'm talking about the Mugwumps from William S. Burroughs' novel "Naked Lunch", and more specifically the creatures as they were presented in the 1991 film adaptation.
Burroughs meets his creation on the set of "Naked Lunch"

I read "Naked Lunch" probably fifteen years ago. I've seen the film many times. Mugwumps are a sentient species that excrete semen that acts as a super-hallucinatory drug in the non-reality of Interzone. Have you seen "Naked Lunch", because if you haven't you should. I'm not saying you're going to enjoy it, but you should see it.

You may now be asking if I think that Stan Lee made a superhero out of a Mugwump on purpose. Well, it isn't impossible, but it's pretty unlikely. "Naked Lunch" was first published in Paris in 1959. A separate version, based on a 1958 manuscript in the possession of Allen Ginsberg, was published in the United States in 1962, the same year that Spider-Man debuted.


Art by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko

Spider-Man first appeared in "Amazing Fantasy" #15, August 1962. The last issue of the series that once featured the adventures of Doctor Droom. In March of 1963 the title was relaunched as "The Amazing Spider-Man". Jack Kirby drew the famous cover above, inked by Ditko. Kirby actually played a significant if controversial role in the creation of Spider-Man. Stan Lee has stated the character was inspired by the pulp character The Spider. Ditko invokes animal based super-heroes, specifically DC's (blatantly Horus resonating) Hawkman, and further connects the concept of a spider based character to already established insect based Marvel super hero Ant-Man.

As the story goes Lee wanted to create a super hero who was a teenager, but a super hero in his own right, not just a sidekick like Robin or Aqualad. And he wanted this teenager to be more real, in the happening Marvel style, with troubles just like the real kids, on top of his super adventures. He received approval for a character called Spiderman and went to Jack Kirby with it.

Jack Kirby, with his partner Joe Simon, had already created a spider based character, of course, back in the fifties, beating Lee and even Burroughs by at least a couple of years. Kirby has stated that he and Simon pitched the Silver Spider character for Crestwood publications "Black Magic" title. How great is that? The literal Occult-Kirby Spider-Man connection. Note the use of Silver for the character's name.

But it is an occult matter in another way as Joe Simon tells a different story, and one that Kirby affirmed as true shortly before his death. In Simon's own words:

"There's an interesting story behind Spiderman. I don't want to go into it fully here, but I can tell you that back in 1953 I created a superhero, a young man with spider-like qualities. I put the character in a presentation for a publisher and entitled it Spiderman. I designed the Spiderman logo. I had Clarence Beck do the penciled sketches. He was the predominant artist for Captain Marvel, the man who gave Captain Marvel its special comic style, and I believe he came out of semi-retirement to work with me on this. At the last minute, I changed the name from Spiderman to the Silver Spider. I thought at the time there were just too many 'man' titles around,-Superman, Batman, that stuff. I took the presentation up to Harvey Comics where it languished. I kind of forgot about it after a while. I was onto new projects. I wasn't looking back; there was no time to look back. You went on; you created. In the late 1950s, Archie Comics asked me to create a new line of superheroes. I gave the Silver Spider sketches to Jack Kirby and I changed the name again, this time to The Fly. Jack held onto the sketches and when Stan Lee asked Jack for new ideas, Jack brought the original Spiderman pages to Marvel Comics. Jack was busy with other work so Stan handed the pages over to Steve Ditko. Ditko, on first seeing those pages, commented, "This is Joe Simon's Fly." Steve Ditko worked up his own version of the character's costume. The comic that was published was called Spider-man. Marvel had stuck a hyphen in between the Spider and the man, for trademark reasons I suppose. Jack told me this years later. A few years before he passed on, he sent me back my original Spiderman logo."

This is all pretty great. It's from an interview with Simon presented at simoncomics.com, which you should check out for a link to a Joe Simon sketch of the original Silver Spider. It's very interesting too that the great C. C. Beck(who looked a bit Dumbledorish) played a role, and that the Kirby/Simon character The Fly is the crossbreed/midpoint between the Fawcett Captain Marvel and Spider-Man. And then there's that other David Cronenberg film.

So Kirby revived the Silver Spider as Spider-Man, keeping the magic ring motif, and apparently the transformation into an adult super hero. He was armed with a "web-gun". It wasn't quite what Lee was looking for and he passed the project onto Ditko. Ditko designed the costume, maybe the most brilliant in the genre's history. Ditko also did away with the gun and mounted the web-shooters on Spider-Man's wrists. Ditko certainly came up with the distinctive hand gesture Spider-Man utilizes to emit his webs, which he shares with Lee/Ditko's Doctor Strange. There's another interesting contention on this point. At the time he designed Spider-Man, Ditko was sharing a Manhattan studio with fetish artist Eric Stanton. Stanton has claimed no true credit in the creation of Spider-Man save for the possibility that it was he who thought the webs should come from his hands. A fascinating detail for the heroic Mugwump.

Looking back at the Cronenberg version of "Naked Lunch", there are a number of interesting common elements that almost want to make one think of Spider-Man in a far more existential manner. First of all, both the film and the famous origin of Spider-Man are initiatory stories. Note that Peter Parker is not only an orphan, but also a widow's son as his adopted father Uncle Ben dies due to Peter's irresponsibility leaving him with just Aunt May. For all we know Aunt May is a literal virgin mother to Spider-Man. The orphan motif is also in Kirby's The Fly. Peter's initiation involves learning his higher calling from his martyred Uncle, "With great power comes great responsibility". This is Spider-Man's essential statement. Great power does not just confer responsibility for that power, the power and the responsibility are one and the same. Having great responsibility then likewise means that one has great power. What is Spider-Man's great power? Greater then his webs? It is his Spider-Sense of course. Intuition is Spider-Man's great power. Intuition is Spider-Man's great responsibility. When he ignored his intuition it resulted in the death of his adopted father. Like Batman, this was a hard, swift initiation and it led to Spider-Man becoming the greatest hero of the Marvel Universe, and a mass initiator for other super heroes for that matter. This is a trait Spider-Man largely adopted from his friend/rival the Human Torch who frequently played a similar role in the early Silver Age.

The initiation process in "Naked Lunch" is of course much different and much darker. There is the fatal William Tell act of course, but I'm thinking about the three levels of narcotics William Lee, played by Peter Weller, engages in, increasingly bizarre, unreal, monstrous and powerful. The first stage of his trip to the unreality of Interzone comes from ingesting the Bug Powder he uses as an exterminator. This leads to lucid hallucinations that cause Lee to believe he is a secret agent working for a company that is fighting an organization called Interzone Incorporated. Lee travels to Interzone, a mixture of Tangiers and Wonderland, and writes reports on Interzone Incorporated's activities. These notes go on to become the novel "Naked Lunch". Lee writes his reports into a living, insectile typewriter named Clark Nova. I really enjoy the Kafka/bug powder level's easy synchronization to Spider-Man and his radioactive spider-bite.


The original blogger?

Lee (is that cool or what?) is a very strange kind of reporter writing essays on the events of his paranoid delusions. Peter Parker is a freelance newspaper photographer who specializes in taking pictures of himself as Spider-Man, photos that are used to defame him.

While in Interzone Lee moves off the toxic bug powder to the transcendental Mugwump Jism. This then coincides with the second level of Peter Parker's initiation into a super hero. Like an alchemical master Peter (perhaps intuitively) develops his wondrous web-fluid. This is something the filmmakers didn't get or chose to ignore. Spider-Man is not just a victim of science like the Hulk, or nature like the mutant X-Men. He enters stage two by being a super scientist, enhancing his abilities gained in stage one. Now, this is pretty clear in the Spider-Man origin and could be accepted I believe as planned. Stage three Spider-Man occurs much later and more synchronistically.

The top level of hallucinatory narcotic that William Lee encounters in Interzone, the cream of the crop, is the dried meat of a species of rare, giant, black centipedes. And quite nicely the Wonderland-drug plot of Interzone Incorporated involves the gender-hiding super villain Doctor Benway.



"Spider-Man 3" featured a highly altered version of the black, alien symbiote-costume storyline from the Spider-Man titles started in 1984. Of course there was no way they could have literally adapted the symbiote saga.


Art by Mike Zeck

In the comics, Spider-Man came across the alien costume while engaged in the "Secret Wars". "Secret Wars" involved a god-like being called the Beyonder, a god greater then Galactus and distinct from Eternity, who created a "Battleworld" and summoned numerous Marvel Super Heroes and Villains to fight a war for him to study. The prize offered the winners were their ultimate desires. The Beyonder was later revealed to be a Cosmic Cube by Steve Englehart in the "Fantastic Four". On the Battleworld, Spidey was out of web-fluid and his costume was badly damaged. He found the symbiote which handled both concerns as it generated its own, even better webs, now inexhaustible. The costume further enhanced all of Spider-Man's powers. However, at this important stage Spider-Man's intuition failed him as the symbiote was eventually revealed to be a sentient, parasitic entity. Perhaps this is why Spider-Man has never been the same since. The symbiote went on to become the monster-movie, fluidy Venom and other boring extrapolations.

Interesting though that Venom/Eddie Brock was played by Topher Grace, Eric Foreman from "That '70s Show", a sitcom that incorporated regular drug use in "the circle". Eric's father Red was played by Kurtwood Smith. Smith participated in the very violent initiation of Robocop in the 1987 film. Robocop was played by Peter Weller.

Spider-Sense is of course a psychic premonition of imminent danger, a higher state of consciousness by anyone's definition. One of the things they got wrong in the Spider-Man movies was the Spider-Sense. I found this to be especially so in number 3 where Spider-Man is constantly getting hit from behind. If nothing else Spider-Sense was specifically designed to prevent getting hit from behind. Anyway, they got a lot right in the Spider-Man movies. The costume works brilliantly. The casting is great for the most part, especially Tobey Maguire, and the villains. And I believe that's J. Jonah Jameson playing himself, I really do. As Mary Jane Kirsten Dunst is perhaps a bit bland. And unless they're planning to do something with it in a number four, they included the character of Gwen Stacy for no real reason. But casting Bryce Dallas Howard in the role has the very cool effect of making sacrificial Gwen no less then Story Incarnate. This is a point probably worth a long-ass article all its own.

Beyond the easy correspondence between Spider-Sense and the transcendental state achieved in 'Naked Lunch' from consuming alien ejaculation, there is also an interesting relationship between Spider-Man, drugs and hallucinatory experiences. Does the fact that his girlfriend/wife's name is Mary Jane even need mentioning?


Art by Steve Ditko

This is Spider-Man during his first encounter with Doctor Strange, which is almost always a "Through the Looking Glass" experience of one kind or another. I love this panel, from 1965's 'The Amazing Spider-Man King Size Annual" #2. These kinds of things were bound to happen when hanging out with illuminated Greenwich Village occultists in the mid-sixties.

In 1970 Spider-Man even helped alter the Comics Code regulations regarding the depiction of drugs. The Nixon administration apparently requested Marvel feature an anti-drug storyline in one of their comic titles. Lee chose "Amazing Spider-Man" #s 96-98, May-July of 1971. In the story Peter's friend, the son of the Green Goblin, gets hooked on pills. The Comics Code refused to approve the storyline so Marvel ran the issues without the seal. The success and merit of the issues led to the Comics Code revising their regulations. Or so the story goes.

As said, casting Willem Defoe as the Green Goblin was perfect, but as others have noticed, the dumb-looking costume of the movie was as much a failure as Spidey's was a success.



I suppose it is a bit Mugwumpy, which somehow makes sense in proximity to an actor who was both Jesus and Max Shreck, but Defoe's real face is far scarier then that helmet. This is a hell of a lot more scary.


"Maximum Overdrive". I'm the only one who likes this movie.

Spider-Man also drugs his villains a lot. Many super heroes do it, some of them full time. They're a bit like fascists in that way. Because Spidey has chemistry skills and frequently fights creeps more powerful then him he has to do something to stop them or slow them down. Here he takes out the Templar emblemed, vengeance seeking Frank Castle, the Punisher, with a cocktail he whipped up.


Art by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson

And he works a Ceres reference in to boot. And of course as a super hero Spider-Man gets drugged, gassed, or otherwise whammied into a hallucinatory state like twice a month. Drugging Spider-Man is sole purpose of existence for my favorite Spider-Man villain, Mysterio.


Art by Steve Ditko

Here we see the hallucinatory attack enacted by the Green Goblin from the spectacular "Spectacular Spider-Man" #2.


Art by John Romita

Note that it is Spider-Man's will, his great power, which is Intuition, which enables him to break the spell of the psychadelic pumpkin-bomb. I'm happy to note that Spider-Man ultimately defeats the Green Goblin in this storyline by exposing him to his own psychotropic agents. Like Batman and the Scarecrow in "Batman Begins".

Now to mythology. It is very interesting to note that Spider-Man is a goddess resonating figure and an interesting one at that. We should not at this point be at all alarmed to find the Goddess incarnate as a masculine character, especially given all of the alchemical nods in the Spider-Man story. Indeed a feminine spider super-ejaculator is a hermaphroditic metaphor of profundity. The Spider is almost always feminine in nature, from Shelob to Charlotte. And this is the case in Greek mythology as well in the form of Arachne. Arachne was a great weaver who boasted at being better at it then Athena. This led to a disguised Athena and Arachne entering a weaving contest. Arachne's work was flawless, but as it depicted transgressions of the gods, highly disrespectful. Arachne hung herself in shame. Athena took pity and turned the noose into the spider's web. With great power comes great responsibility. This of course connects the symbol of the feminine spider to the important Goddess metaphor of weaving Fate. Note the application of this legend to Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as well.


Diego Velázquez, "The Fable of Arachne", c. 1644-48

In "The Mystery of the Cathedrals" Fulcanelli wonderful illustrates the connection between Arachne and the important Mystery School initiatory figure of Ariadne via the spoken Cabala. Ariadne was a bride of Dionysus. When Dionysus descended to the Underworld he rescued Ariadne and his mother Semele and brought them to Olympus, a resurrection allegory of highest importance in Dionysian and Eleusian Rites. It was also the magic thread of Ariadne that enabled Theseus to navigate the Minotaur's labyrinth, a major initiation emblem and a symbol of the Great Work of Alchemy.


Artist unknown

I haven't read Spider-Man in years, not since the days when Todd MacFarlane started making Mary Jane's hair a third main cast member. But I heard recently that Marvel decided to undo a number of their fumbles with the franchise in a decidedly dark manner if you ask me. To do away with mistakes like the marriage to Mary Jane, the death of Aunt May and added spider-powers including organic webs like the movies, they wrote a story in which Peter and Mary Jane make a deal with Mephisto, who is the Devil, sacrificing the happiness of their marriage for the return of Aunt May to the living. Obvious occult symbolism at play, but, a deal with the devil as a retcon device? What level of initiation is this? Where is Peter's Intuition? It is not unlike shooting your wife in the head a second time playing William Tell in order to enter Annexia.