(Note: "Part One" of this article was a direct reprint from the original New Creation newsletter. The second part has been revised and expanded specifically for the NCE blog.)
New Crew Copyright © 2008 Kevin Yong . All rights reserved.
Welcome back to part two in our look at superhero universe "world building" from a Christian perspective. Last time, we looked at a few of the challenges in taking the typical elements of a comic book universe -- superheroes, aliens, etc. -- and fitting them together with a Christian worldview. This time, we'll look at a few possible ways of dealing with the challenges.
Like many comic fans, I used to invent my own superheroes as a kid. First, I'd invent my own characters, then stories about the characters, then whole worlds where all the stories tied together. Soon, I had entire unwritten comic book "universes" floating around at the back of my mind.
However, as I grew in my Christian faith, I began to take a second look at the fictional worlds I had created, and I soon realized the challenges I would have in trying to integrate the two. I wanted to avoid any fantasy elements or fictional histories that would conflict with what was recorded in the Bible. The last thing I would ever want to do would be to take an "Everything You Know Is Wrong!" approach to redefining the scriptures to make room for my fantasy stories. (When the Bible mentions XYZ, it was really space aliens and mutant superpowers!) And so, I had to decide what kind of universe the stories would take place in, the source of the fantasy super-powers that defined the stories, and also an explanation for space aliens and other fantasy creatures that would somehow remain consistent with a larger Christian worldview. I came up with a wide range of options to choose from. (And please note that this list is not exhaustive):
What kind of universe?
-A "realistic" universe: This is a world which more or less matches the real world we're familiar with. This could be anything from a historical romance to a crime drama, but whatever twists and turns you add to the plot, the reader would know not to expect something completely outside normal human experience. (The romantic heroine won't suddenly be abducted by aliens, or the cop won't solve the crime by using his x-ray vision). If supernatural elements exist in the story, it stays close to the kind of supernatural elements we already accept as Christians: perhaps spiritual warfare between angels and demons, or a prophet receiving a supernatural word of knowledge -- but not something absurdly fantastic like a modern pastor gaining the power to fly and bounce bullets off his chest due to inheriting the apostolic mantle of a time-traveling android replica of Saint Augustine.
-A "non-earth" universe: This is what C.S. Lewis used for his Narnia Chronicles. This creates a fictional universe that exists independently of the normal human world, with it's own history and spiritual laws by which it operates. When God intervenes in Narnia, it looks different from how He intervenes in our normal human world, and thus the "magic" and other supernatural elements of Narnia have no bearing on the historicity of the Bible or the doctrines of Christianity. The two worlds are separate, even as the human characters may cross between them for occasional adventures.
An "alternate" universe: This is where you set your story on Earth, but the story premise includes some drastic change from the world we're familiar with. This could be anything from a world where the Germans won the first World War (alternate history) or where Aristotle invented anti-gravity rays (alternate scientific laws). In either case, the further back in history the premise is changed, the more the world of the story would end up being very different from our own.
-A present day "divergent" universe: This is similar to the above example, but instead of the fictional world diverging from ours in some remote point in history, it matches ours up to some sudden event the present day. This could be anything from the sudden discovery of a serum that gives super-powers, to scientists accidentally waking up hibernating dinosaurs. A "future" universe: A common setting of science-fiction, it sets the story in the future, showing what the world may or may not be like depending on what changes and new inventions are created. Could be anything from a post-apocalyptic wasteland to a bright and shiny future of robotic space exploration.
Source of super-powers:
Supernatural: Since a Christian worldview excludes the possibility of "neutral" or "white" magic powers of the occult, the supernatual source of any super-powers would thus either be directly from God (such as Samson's strength or the miracles of Elijah) or ultimately from demonic sources. The challenge when using this as an explanation for superheroes is having to explain why God would suddenly break with all previous examples of bestowing spiritual gifts for the sole purpose of spreading the Gospel and building the Church, and instead give these amazing super-powers to a hero to dress in costume and fight crime from rooftops. (I'm not saying it can't be done. Just that it can be hard to write consistently with scriptural tradition.) "Realistic" science: Think Bat-Man or James Bond. They have tools and gadgets that are obviously exaggerated for dramatic effect, but not as wildly "sci-fi" as (for example) a Star Trek transporter. "Imaginary" science: This can either be a literally something new invented for the story (secret engine X can travel faster than light and create time-traveling force shields), or real scientific terms applied to impossible super powers just for the sake of making them sound plausible. (This is part of the willing suspension of disbelief required for the superhero genre to work. There's no possible way gamma rays could really transform anyone into an invulnerable super-strong green-skinned monster. But by putting a scientific label on it, it's code for the reader that the source of the powers is due to a quirk of the natural world and is not a divine prophetic gift or a "magical" curse from demonic sources.)
Aliens and other non-human creatures:
Aliens are demons in disguise: This explanation is that there is no life on other planets. UFOs and the visitors who appear from them are actually demons on a mission to distract and deceive mankind from seeking spiritual truth. Aliens are unfallen: Alien life exists as a separate creation from God on other planets, and they avoided the mistake Adam made on Earth and have not fallen into sin. (This is the premise used by C.S. Lewis in his "Space Trilogy". The rest of the universe is unfallen and continues to live as God designed it. It is only Earth that is home to sin and thus cut off from the rest of the universe.) Aliens had their own fall: This assumes that aliens exist as a separate creation from God, and that they had their own version of the Fall. The thorny theological question then becomes, how can they be saved? Can an alien who doesn't share in Adam's sin still be saved by Christ's sacrifice? Or do they need a separate means of salvation that applies only to them? This might make for an interesting story, but expect a lot of debate among Christians about the theology. Aliens are related to humans: In the distant past, the aliens (or goblins or whatever other fantasy creatures you might care to use) were actually part of the human race before being lost in time/space/hyperspace/whatever, but because of genetic changes over millennia, they now bear little outward resemblance to us. However, as part of the human family tree, they share in the sinful nature of Adam, and can likewise share in the redemption by Christ.
What I used:
When building my own superhero universe, I decided to use imaginary science to explain the super-heroes (a mix of genetic engineering, alien technology, and the broadly undefined catch-all explanation of "hyperspace"), and I explained aliens (and elves and vampires and any other not-quite-human super creatures) as being a long lost distant branch of the human race. This required that I set my story in an "alternate universe" where aliens and humans branched off in different directions long ago in prehistoric times (before the Flood) and only recently came into contact again. Those were the overall options I chose in defining how to explain the details of the universe; the real work was in hammering out all the specific details as they involved my particular stories. But that's another story for another time.
What I wanted most in creating this project was a universe filled with those exciting elements of the genre I loved as kid: amazing heroes and strange creatures in thrilling adventures. A world with superheroes. A world with aliens. A world where the Bible is still completely true. A world still plagued by sin and in need of the forgiveness found only in Jesus Christ. A world where Christians struggle with living out their faith, whether in the context of an alien invasion or the quiet doubts of normal everyday life. In short: it's a Christian superhero universe. (One way of doing it, at least.)
Here at New Creation, our writers have taken multiple approaches for our various stories. Some are "realistic", and the only supernatural elements are in the form of invisible spiritual warfare regarding our individual moral choices. Some combine elements of spiritual warfare set in a divergent near-future world with superhuman technology. Others, like myself, may create complex alternate histories to explain the settings of their superheroic science-fiction tales.
In creating these fantasy worlds, what we are doing is changing some external details of reality (such as finding monsters on Mars, or access to a parallel universe of talking animals, or a man being able to gain the proportionate strength of a spider) and then trying to logically show what else would result from that divergence from the real world. The point is not to say "This story shows how the world really is", but rather "Just imagine if the world as we know it was like this instead. Here's what it might look like! And here's what might happen next!"
And if these impossible tall tales we tell of amazing heroes doing incredible deeds happens to not only entertain you as a reader, but to also reflect the spiritual worldview and moral values that we ourselves hold as the writers of these stories, then we're doing the job we set out to do here!
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