Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes (edition 2007)

Not the right time for this one.

I picked up this book thinking it would be a fun and thorough examination of comics as a modern telling of religion and all the things that come along with it (mythology, mysticism, occultism, etc). It does all of that, but I think the book fell just a little short of what I was hoping for.

It opens with a detailed history of religion and mythology, and how it gave rise to occultism and mysticism. Then it follows that into the involvement of literary figures (Poe, Lovecraft, Doyle, etc.) which then creates the pulps and then eventually comics. It's a solid evolution, but it suffers greatly in its segregation of topics. The first half of the book is all about religion, with very little to do about comics. The middle is about literature and social trends, and then it picks up about comics, with little to do with religion -- certainly not enough to make a solid argument.

I think the author is 100% right in his claims. I just think they suffer in this book from being separated and isolated from one another. It seems like he felt he had to give us the background on religion first, and then show us how comics have translated it. A better outline, I think, would have been to jump right into the history of comics, told chronologically and pulling aside at times to expand on how the characters represent religious aspects.

By separating them as he's done, the author separates also characters from religion and defeats his whole purpose. At times, it felt like I was reading two, and sometimes even three, different books.

In all, I think the author almost nails it. It's a great book with great analysis and revealing comparisons. It's only fault is that it fails to combine the two aspects of comics and religion at once, choosing instead a "this and that" format.