My Trinity: The Three Comic Characters Most Important to Me

We have an interesting relationship with the fictional characters we love, don’t we?  I can divide my life into eras with them.  He-Man and She-Ra.  The Ghostbusters.  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer.  Duncan MacLeod, the Highlander.  Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca.  Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus.  The Gilmore girls.  Sydney Bristow and all her aliases.  The Doctor.  Fleabag.  The list goes on but they are the most important :).  Loving comic books since I was three-years-old, there are obviously many superheroes who land on that list.  Recently, my mind wandered to the superheroes most important to me.  Three came clearly and quickly to mind and, as I thought about each, deep feelings of love and gratitude for all they’ve given me began to fill my heart.  So with those feelings still moving within me, I figured it would be fun to examine why those characters are so important to me.

Since three characters came to mind, framing this piece as “My Trinity” made sense.  But then I thought, “Hey, wait a minute.  I’m a theology guy, aren’t I?  I teach religious studies!  Maybe I can be more intentional with how I’m using the idea of a trinity.”  I thought of my undergrad years and attending mass with the Sisters of Saint Benedict for the first time.  The mass we went to for class used gender-inclusive language and I loved it!  Instead of saying, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” they used the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier, language  I’ve often used in my own prayers ever since.  This gender-inclusive version ended up being a perfect way to frame these three characters and all they mean to me!  It’s nice when life works out like that.

So, without further ado, here is my trinity, the three comic book characters most important to me.

Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man – the Creator

Mark Bagley has always been my favorite Spider-Man artist, as a kid and even now. / Photo Credit – Marvel Comics

For me, everything started with Spider-Man.  I was three-years-old with I found Web of Spider-Man #12 on the wire spinny rack at the grocery store and Mom bought it for me.  A lifelong love affair was born!  Without question, Spider-Man is the fictional character – in any medium, not just comics – I’ve loved the longest and the most consistently.  From comics to cartoons to movies, from t-shirts to lounge pants to framed art on my walls, Spidey’s been around me in one way, shape, or form (and most often several forms at once!) since I first met him.  I was reading his comic books before I could read and I still have that copy of Web of Spider-Man #12, now with loose pages and a curled binding from many, many reads.  For nearly forty years, Peter Parker has been there for me through everything and I love him very much.

The thing is, his life is a mess because he can hardly ever find any sort of balance.  He jokes his way through it (in the coolest costume of all time), laughing through all the uncertainty, but he is a fucked up, broken guy with a waaay overactive helper part.  He can’t accept that bad things happen so he takes responsibility for everything which is why his life is always a much bigger mess than…well, any other superhero.  I too have a waaay overdeveloped helper part (I’ve learned to distinguish between the Caretaker, the balanced helper, and the Fixer, the one who frantically takes one everything for everyone to the eternal exhaustion of my system) and it was already established enough when I was three-years-old to latch onto Spider-Man!  This blows my mind!  In Peter Parker, it found justification for how it wanted to act.  Yes we can help everyone, yes we have to help everyone, even if it means the rest of our life is always a mess and we never care for our own needs because that’s what heroes do.  If it was good enough for Spidey, it was good enough for me, right?  This is a big part of why I’ve always stayed so connected with Spider-Man when my relationship with other characters I’ve loved faded or waxed and waned.  Peter Parker has formed me in so many ways, hence the “creator.”  It’s hard to imagine the shape of my life without Spider-Man.

Thankfully, after nearly four years in therapy I’m getting better :).  I’m healthier.  I’ve learned to set better boundaries, practice self-care, and surround myself with healthier and mutually symbiotic relationships.  While I sometimes wish Peter would get himself a good therapist, too (he should follow Cindy Moon/Silk’s lead!) because I love him and would like to see him happier, I can’t imagine he ever will.  Because I think we need him like this.  I think this is one part of his massive appeal.  When we’re fucked up and broken and our lives are absolute messes, we find solidarity with Spidey – at least I have and I do.  And when we heal and become healthier, he’s a measure of how we’ve grown – and I love him all the more for that.

Doreen Green, the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl – the Redeemer

Best. Comic. EVER. / Photo Credit – Marvel Comics

If you told me when I returned to reading superhero comics in the fall of 2015 that I would begin reading a title called The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, I’d’ve thought you were nuts.  I didn’t even know she existed!  In fact, I first learned about Squirrel Girl from Theresa.  We were talking at work one day and she told me her son had a Marvel Encyclopedia and it featured the Great Lakes Avengers who had a member called Squirrel Girl.  I was sure she was messing with me.  She had to be, right?  Much to my surprise she wasn’t, and I found myself checking out her solo title that fall (as it was written by Ryan North and I loved his Dinosaur Comics).  Had you told me when I first picked up an issue of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl that it would become the single greatest comic book I’d ever read or that I would come to see it as the most important superhero comic ever written, I’d’ve thought you were nuts (ha! oh my gosh, I didn’t catch that pun above!) or messing with me or on some sort of hallucinogenic drug or some combination of the above.  Lo and behold…

I don’t think – in the entire history of superhero comics – there has ever been a character more subversive or more courageous than Doreen Green, the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.  She’s the only superhero comic I’ve ever read which routinely shows its readers how to really save the world.  I love her so much and she means so much to me.  I literally wrote an entire chapter about her in my own book!  (It’s called The Heart of the Superhero: Considering the Prophetic Dimension of Modern Superhero Comics and it’ll be published soon as part of Claremont Press’ Religion and Comics Series (when it’s available for purchase this line will be a link).)  I will never be able to adequately express the gratitude and admiration I have for everyone involved with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1 #1 – Vol. 2 #50.  But I place the run beside Doctor Who as one of the most important pieces of art I’ve ever experience and, for me, there is no higher compliment.

So why is Squirrel Girl “the Redeemer”?  Doreen makes people better.  She makes everyone better for her example, her presence, and her heart.  When I read her comics she shows me what’s possible and how to be the best version of myself.  Plus, her kindness, empathy, open heart, and joy routinely turn literal enemies into friends!

Harley Quinn – the Sanctifier

Harley with the support group she started for victim’s of the Joker War. / Photo Credit – DC Comics

For me, Harley Quinn is hope personified.  Without going into detail, as they are not my stories to share, I have watched several people I love very much struggle in abusive relationships.  It is a…special sort of pain to see someone you love as the victim of abuse.  That was the sort of relationship Dr. Harleen Quinzel, the Joker’s therapist at Arkham Asylum, found when she fell for the Joker and became his lover.  But she got out.  She got out.  Not everyone does.  My heart fills in a special way with Harley Quinn.  Being with her character brings deep feelings of relief.  She represents potential.  She represents hope.

“Sanctification” means to make something holy.  What is holiness if not relief, potential, and hope – along with courage, compassion, clarity, and love of self and others – being born amidst such trauma and pain?  What’s holiness if not healing?  What’s holiness if not finding the beauty among our brokenness?

What’s funny is when I first encountered Harley Quinn on Batman: The Animated Series when I was a kid, I didn’t much care for her.  For years I couldn’t understand the hype.  Then watching Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn made me want to read her origin story novel, Harley Quinn: Mad Love, by  Pat Cadigan and Paul Dini.  Then watching DC Universe’s Harley Quinn made me NEED to read ALL her comics.  Now that I’ve met Harley, everything about her character rings in my heart and soul.  She is chaos incarnate, living free of all the bullshit systems we surround ourselves with that at best don’t work and are actively harmful and unjust at worst.  She lets her heart lead her in all things, for better or worse.  Harley is so open, accepting, and loving.  As a landlord in Coney Island, she opens her building to all the outcasts (a literal freak show is one of her tenants).  She adopts (well, steals-with-intent-to-raise) hundreds of pets when she realizes they’ll be put down.  She and Poison Ivy love each other openly, beautifully, and without possession (they are my favorite couple in comics, maybe in all of fiction).  She even joins the Bat Family in her efforts to atone for all she did when she was with the Joker and returns to Gotham, even though most naturally fear and reject her there, in her quest for redemption as opposed to staying in Coney Island where everyone loves her and sees her as their hero.  No matter how messy and complicated things get, Harley sees it through and stays true to herself.  And she’s a literal therapist superhero!  Ahhhh!  That’s the best thing ever!

With the featured image Spider-Man has two pictures in this piece so I wanted to make it fair for everyone else. Harley Quinn prepares to defend Gotham as she works to redeem herself and atone for all she did there (despite having been a hero in NYC and L.A. for years). / Photo Credit – DC Comics

There you have it, dear reader, the three comic characters closest to my heart.  My Trinity of those superheroes most important to me.  Do you have characters who touch you in a similar way?  Who fill your heart and move your soul?  You needn’t share them if you’d rather not (though you’re certainly welcome to below) but I’d suggest you take a few moments to call them to mind.  Let them move through your heart and mind.  Let yourself feel all they mean to you.  Then offer a bit of that grateful energy moving inside you up to the world, to the universe, to the divine reality woven through all things.

I love you, dear reader, and I’m thankful for you, too.  I hope you have a magnificent day!

Squirrel Girl and her Amazing Friends! / Photo Credit – Marvel Comics