Myths, monsters made modern and Marvel-ous

Author Peter Meineck 

By BRIAN KLUEPFEL 

Masked defenders. Iron-clad warriors. Triumphant villains and conflicted heroes. 

Since the cave-dwelling predecessors of homo sapiens etched legends in stone, humankind has required some sort of mythology or storytelling to explain itself. Peter Meineck, a rare combination of volunteer firefighter, theatrical director and classics professor, has been interpreting these stories for three decades.

On Feb. 17, he drew a connection between ancient myths and 20th century Marvel Comics in a book launch at the Bedford Playhouse. Fittingly, the audience included some of his New York University students and fellow Bedford firefighters. 

“Tony Stark, Odysseus, and the Myths Behind Marvel: Ancient Heroes in the Modern World” is Meineck’s latest book in which he draws parallels between several cultures’ mythology. After mentioning the Indian Vedic scripture and Homer in the same breath, he noted “it’s funny how all these things are linked.” He ventured, half-jokingly, that one could probably write 20 books on myth-making commonalities.

During his South London childhood, Meineck didn’t read Marvel comics — they were too expensive, and he opted for the 2000 AD Judge Dredd series. But he was still drawn to the creators of the American strips, who in the 1940s, made a bold statement against rising global fascism with characters like Captain America. Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg on Manhattan’s Lower East Side) was among a cadre of first-generation American Jews who “were responding to real-world events,” Meineck said. 

While the America First movement, headed by powerful figures like Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, still backed Nazi Germany, “these sons of Jews (wanted) to galvanize the American youth … to create kids who are anti-Nazi,” Meineck said. Kirby’s son, he noted, said of the man who wore a Captain America costume to the Jan. 6, 2020 insurrection; “my father would’ve punched you in the face.”

At the Playhouse lecture, Meineck’s Aquila Theater troupe presented scenes from different plays illustrating his book’s themes. In a rather gruesome scene where Odysseus gets Cyclops drunk and then stabs him with a flaming sword as “his eyeball crackled,” Meineck noted that the heroes of yore could be “problematic,” not dyed-in-the-wool goody-goodies. Indeed, the Aquila actors later showed prideful Agamemnon falling prey to the Black Widow’s flattery and a literal red carpet of welcome, only to be killed by a double-bladed axe to the head. Euripides is driven mad by jealous goddess Hera, his subsequent murder of his own family resulting from “a storm of insanity cracking against the rocks.”

“It was shocking how the Greeks presented their heroes,” Meineck remarked. 

He conjectured that Marvel’s Wolverine sprung from the loins of ancient Rome’s lupine-suckled twins, Romulus and Remus, and perhaps from the earlier Greek worship of Lykia, whose rites included werewolf transformation. Before presenting Act 1 of Julius Caesar, Meineck noted the scene’s connection to Lupercalia, Rome’s foundational holiday centered on “wolf boys” running amok. 

The issue of the disabled superhero (“supercrip”) was discussed, as well. Meineck mentioned the Daredevil, a 1964 Stan Lee creation, as one of the exemplary representations of a hero who due to his or her disfigurement or injury develops a parallel “super-power” to somehow counteract the shortcoming. He noted that popular author Rick Riordan’s main character relies on this duality and indeed, a generation of students has signed up for Meineck’s class, influenced by ADHD hero Percy Jackson. The furthest extension of the supercrip, said Meineck, is Punisher, who suffers from PTSD and whose image has been taken up by far-right groups, police departments, and Navy SEALs as a symbol.

Meineck, with his daughter’s help, immersed himself in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for research, and noted that his favorite films were “Black Panther” (“it spoke to a moment in American culture”) and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (whose protagonist is yet another “supercrip”). 

In presenting the book Meineck said he was happy to step into the role of storyteller and away from the world of academia, where all points require proof. He also grew to appreciate the comics themselves, which he called “a wellspring of beautiful graphic art.” 

To Meineck, ancient tales resonate into the 21st century, stories from the Maya, Greeks, Norse, and Egyptians being given second life through the pens of comic book artists and others. 

“I see mythology alive and well, thriving on our movie and TV screens, and in the pages of our books and comic books,” he writes in the introduction to his new book. As we examine the daily events of the modern world, perhaps we too are faced with a question from Black Panther: “Hey, Cap, how do we know the good guys from the bad guys?” Marvel and its predecessors leave that question hanging.