'S.H.O.O.T. First', developed by Justin Aclin will premiere in next months MySpace Dark Horse Presents
So this is strange. Justin Aclin has gotten approval from Dark Horse Comics, the largest independent comic book publisher in America, to craft a short series of "atheist" superheroes. I use quotations here because if you read his description of the premise, that term is just wildly inaccurate.
The acronym tells you everything you need to know about the basic premise of the story: it stands for "Secular Humanist Occult Obliteration Taskforce." S.H.O.O.T. are basically militant atheists, tasked with hunting down supernatural creatures, especially those of religious significance, that they don't even believe in. So in the story in MDHP #35, we see S.H.O.O.T. interrupting an exorcism to kill the demon...but they're also there in pursuit of a "holy spirit" that might be aiding the priest. It's all the same to them.
Not to belittle what sounds like a fun 8 page story but how do you not believe in things you physically fight? It's a solid core idea he's working with here but atheism, especially secular humanism, isn't about fighting religion, especially when the supernatural component you're fighting has real, physical, tangible existence - tangible enough that you can fill it with bullets. As he explains:
...every time you read a comic about someone fighting the supernatural, they're really doing it on the supernatural's own terms. If you're fighting a vampire, you bring stakes and holy water - that kind of thing. I don't think there's ever been a team like "S.H.O.O.T." that basically thinks it's all bunk, and just goes after any threat with science and bullets, and scientific bullets.
Again, the same strange mistake. How can you think "vampires" are bunk, when there is a vampire right there? Unless the story pulls a Scooby-Doo ending and the Big Bad is really Old Man Jenkins in a costume with plastic fangs, this whole enterprise is just very very strange. It sounds more like the characters aren't atheists or even secular humanists, but just more logically - and technologically - focused superheroes. The author of the QA does make one very astute observation when he notes that "a seeming majority of mainstream superheroes act morally despite unclear or nonexistent religious affiliations, which is essentially a kind of humanism." One needs only to read the enthralling Paul Dini/Alex Ross collaborations to understand what he's talking about here.
In this way, comic books are often the morality plays of our generation. Superman: Peace on Earth leaves us with a message on the futility of trying to police the world while enjoining us to act as sources of inspiration for the world. Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth shows how working with people instead of "above" them can teach us things we wouldn't ordinarily learn, helping to humanize our opponents and ourselves.
More recently in the canon of the Marvel universe a civil war broke out between two factions of supers, regarding a piece of legislation which would require them to register with the government, essentially federalizing their vigilantism. This fight over politics and power led to Captain America, the hero who has consistently been portrayed as the best America has to offer, telling a fellow hero that it...
Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences.
When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world -
"No, you move."
Now regardless of your political preferences (in real life and in the Marvel universe), you've got to admit that this is potent stuff. Superheroes, for the most part, do what they do not out of religious duty, but out of a sense of duty to humanity. "With great power comes great responsibility" and all that. Superman doesn't stop speeding trains because he thinks God wants him to, he does it because he can and feels that he should. Captain America doesn't fight to uphold democracy and freedom because he believes the country is founded on Christian principles, he does it because he believes the principles enshrined in the constitution are universal and powerful. Heroes are, essentially, humanists. (This generalization can only extend so far of course, as the number of superheroes, their beliefs and their allegiances is quickly reaching the infinite).
The point here is that as a method for delivering modern moral lessons, literature has always been at the forefront. Comic books extend that possibility in ways that other forms of media don't seem to capture as readily, bringing these concepts to the mainstream, to youth especially, with ease and grace. Like all other media comics also offer bad writing, poor artwork, cheap thrills, sex, violence and basically can just suck. For every Brad Metzer and Rags Morales there is a Rob Liefeld.
So what then, is this S.H.O.O.T. First stuff all about? Is it a wonky view of atheism and humanism cobbled together by a writer trying to sell some comics or a serious effort at tackling modern issues with religion, the supernatural and belief?
Thankfully, we've got a bit of an answer to that as well. Asked about the authors own religious views will shape the comic Aclin replies:
Basically, I always considered myself an active, if not particularly observant, Jew. Then, when it came time to decide how much of my religion I was going to teach my daughters, I found that I didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for the notion of telling them that there's an all-powerful god who created the world, etc. I mentioned that I came up with the idea on Yom Kippur: I had been thinking that day that I wasn't sure what kind of greater power I believed in anymore, but I knew for a fact that I didn't believe in a god who gave a crap if I ate or fasted on any particular day. There was also a greater feeling, based on things like the Catholic sex abuse scandal, Islamist extremist violence and, on behalf of my own people, the East Jerusalem settlers who are disrupting the Middle East peace process, that religion might in fact be a greater source for bad in the world than for good. But at the same time, it's hard to let go of the notion that there is something more out there, if only because it's so pleasant to think that way. So I didn't want S.H.O.O.T. to be polemic; like I said, it's about this struggle.
If that is the message contained in this well-drawn playground of imagination, it is a worthy one. Coming to the conclusion that you might not be persuaded by the arguments for religious dogma is a difficult rode for many and if Aclin displays some unfamiliarity with the non-theist vernacular, so be it - it is after all, just a comic book.
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