Superheroes are the myths of our age. Myths that tell us something about who we are - villains and heroes and victims and bystanders - and also tell us something about who we could be - villains and heroes and victims and bystanders...

One of the ideas that I'm exploring through the literature (yay for student access to university library resources and databases!) is the idea that fandoms can be religions, and that all religions are actually fandoms, that stories and myths are only distinguished because of power games, that those stories come from this weird synergy between the individual and the collective, and that weird synergy forms weird feedback loops that turn stories into gods, especially when those stories are told through mind-altering media.

Individuals create characters and stories and the ones that resonate with the collective - or the General Will as Rousseau named it - spread. When the collective needs Superman, he shows up. And the form he shows up in tells us something about where our collective mindset is - and where it wants to go. Superman gives us a mirror - love him or hate him, your response to him speaks more about you than about the myth itself.

We live in a hyperreality where the symbols that encode our existence are so far divorced from reality that we've lost touch with the originals. Superheroes fill the place of spirits and deities, each of whom were mutations of copies of stories shared across trade routes between cultures. Some are clear ports from myth - Thor and Loki - that are so different from the original myths as to have become separate deities and when encountering a Lokean in the wild web, one must be clear about which Loki they're devoted to because myth Loki? Oh noes... MCU Loki? Oh my yes...

Stories told through mind-altering media, reshaping ourselves and our reality...

Unlike the old white dudes who came to similar conclusions about humans now existing in a hyperreality of simulacra divorced from reality, I don't think that's