villains

Humans have a habit of making monsters. Whether it’s a fire-breathing dragon, a one-eyed giant, or a green guy with bolts going through his neck, we just love to make up more and more things that go bump in the night. It could be that this urge originates with an instinctual fear from the days our species had to contend with wild animals and the elements. It could equally be an actual subtle awareness of the diabolical, or even a sort of exorcism of our own demons buried within our fallen human nature. I would venture to say it’s a mix of all three. Whatever the reason, monsters are an enduring part of our creative consciousness from the Greek myths to modern day horror flicks.

That being said, I would say one of the most persistent and popular monster myths of the modern world has to be the vampire. Though blood-suckers are certainly present in many ancient cultures, we typically think of the vampire as we know it as a more recent invention. We can trace its origins back to penny dreadful stories of “Varney the Vampire” and of course Bram Stoker’s landmark horror masterpiece Dracula. In these early tales of gore, vampires were creatures of the night, half-demons who sucked the life out of innocent people and had access to a vast array of supernatural powers – flight, hypnotism, super-strength, transformation, and of course seduction.

Oh, but those days have long passed. Vampires, like many classic monsters, have largely been tamed and humanized. Twilight is by far the biggest culprit of this – turning a race of undead monsters into quasi-romantic, sympathetic creatures who sparkle in the sunlight. Another example would be the recent film Dracula Untold – though not “tame” by any means by my understanding the film whitewashes the sadistic character of Vlad Tepes and turns him into a bad guy worth rooting for. Another more obscure work in that line would be I, Dracula, where the famous count gives his own side of the story.

All this amounts to a disturbing trend to me – the tendency to downplay the role of evil beings and characters in literature and pop culture. There is always a desire to look at “the other side of the story” as seen with Disney’s recent hit Maleficent. The good guys are really bad and the bad guys are really good. Oh, but nothing is really “good” or “bad”. Asserting so would be ridiculous. It’s best to not pick a side – but we’d like you to think that all the evildoers are really just misunderstood. It’s Sympathy for the Devil to the max (capitalized out of respect to the Stones of course) – and something that ultimately makes for lame storytelling.

That’s because – well, let’s be honest. There is evil in the world. There is selfishness and greed and exploitation and a dozen other things that stem from our fallen nature. We need representations of that evil in art so that it can be conquered by art’s means. It goes back to G.K. Chesterton’s defense of fairy tales: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” I don’t think it’s too off-base to see this trend of turning the monsters into heroes as literary rivers rushing into the sea of relativism where nobody stands for anything – where there isn’t any good or evil only different point of views.

That is part of the reason why the original Dracula by Bram Stoker holds an almost counter-cultural place in the literary and film milieu of today. In that tale, the titular antagonist is the epitome of evil. He wants nothing but to suck the life out of human beings, create more images of himself, and ultimately take over the world.

The language of the tale is very clear, presenting a character who acts as a sort of anti-Christ. By that I mean he takes blood and deprives others of physical life as opposed to giving blood and granting others Divine life. This, after all, is the essential function of the vampire’s mythos. They are selfishness in pale flesh – feeding upon others for their own benefit and seeking immortality through their own means.

A vampire’s selfish nature also contributes to another trait which the classical image of vampirism puts forth: their role as seducer and an image of eroticism gone bad. This theme has been played up particularly in modern incarnations of vampire mythos. The spectacularly chilling opening to the 1998 movie Blade starring Wesley Snipes.(You can watch the whole intro here) In the scene, a rather gullible guy is led into a nightclub (suspiciously located in the back of a slaughterhouse mind you – that alone should be a red flag but no matter) by a sexy woman. Once inside the nightclub, the guy gets caught up in the wild excitement and loud music. However, he comes to his senses as the party goers grow colder and colder. This feeling comes to a climax when blood begins pouring from the sprinkler systems and everyone in the club goes wild. It’s one of the best modern interpretations of vampires that sticks with their evil origin, plus it’s a great intro to a badass Marvel character.

In comic books themselves, one of the best handling of vampires I have read comes from a Spectre comic from DC – in fact the first one I picked up. (The Spectre Vol 3 #34 by Ostrander and Ridgway to be precise) In that story, the Spectre, aka Jim Corrigan, tracks down a group of vampires who turn out to be Hollywood executives. In one of the most clever pseudo-satires I’ve read in comics, the vampires reveal that they have been using their positions of power in the culture to change their species’ image. As one vampire notes: “Vampires used to be a symbol of evil and depravity. Now we’re seen as tragic, romantic, sexy figures. We free people from the bondage of sexual repression. It’s been an effective strategy.” Now, I’m not one to blame Hollywood for everything from gun violence to spilling my coffee, but I think this take by Spectre writer John Ostrander was spot on. The comic pulls off this in a way that is both darkly satirical while maintaining the fact that these really are terrifying creatures. After all, they do viciously attack several people in the first few pages – one of which is an infant (reminiscent to one of the more chilling scenes in Dracula). The comic also pins down the pride of the vampires in the character of Cruz, a recently-turned actor who is on a spree of turning others into vampires – much to dismay of the council. He explains himself by saying how because he no longer can work in films or plays (since he cannot be photographed or rehearse during the day) he sees spreading his vampirism as part of his creative process. “So I create more of myself. Isn’t that part of the creative urge, after all – to make little copies of ourselves?” The Spectre later describes Cruz as “a monster of the ego” – a monster which we all are too capable of creating. Vampirism revolves around the idea of making oneself immortal at the expense of others. We all have this kind of ambition lurking in the corners of our souls. We’d cheat death if we could, even if someone else had to pay for it.

All well and good, but why am I on about this? We can trace that back to the two founding principles of this blog – namely my Catholicism and my nerdiness. What that means in practical terms is that my nerdy side is concerned with literary and cultural phenomena for their own sake, whereupon my Catholic side swoops in and takes note of the moral, spiritual, and philosophical undertones of said phenomena. The vampire craze is no different. To me, the importance of the vampire in literature is to present a force for evil in a physical way. Vampirism is essentially anti-Christian (that is, opposed to the redemptive work of Christ) in that it seeks to corrupt that which is good and conduct a parasitic existence. They drink the blood from their victims until they either die or turn into a monster like them. In that vein, vampires can be interpreted as administers of an anti-Eucharistic feast . By that I mean it shares residual similarities with the Christian celebration but is used with the opposite intent. As mentioned above, Christ gives blood to give life, whereas vampires take blood to take or corrupt life. This makes them formidable supernatural creatures – walking Black Masses if you will. It also explains that how the modern vampire in its Stokerian roots is repelled by crucifixes, holy water, and most significantly – consecrated hosts. Part of the reason that we have trouble treating vampires in this fashion is that it makes blatant reference to the supernatural. Even more aggravating, it uses specifically Catholic-Orthodox imagery and symbols to defeat the vampire, making it not only a tale of good versus evil but of Church versus evil. Though none of the characters in Dracula claim any communion with Rome or the Eastern churches, they all use sacraments and sacramentals as weapons because well, they work. (No, garlic is not even a natural sacrament but you get the idea)

In short, the wider culture’s flirtation with vampirism seems to betrays its tendency to gravitate towards that which the vampire represents: selfishness, unbridled eroticism, and rejection of Christ and the Church. That being said, these are not faults we can totally project upon the culture. Reflecting on my own experience, I can think of plenty of times where I fell into pride, lust, or blasphemy. In that way, the vampire’s allure is something every one of us must struggle with. For example, the tempting realm of pornography, from a Christian perspective, is perfectly vampiric in that it promises pleasure but drains your spiritual life. Cut-throat ambition in business, politics or even the arts is vampiric as you climb a ladder to recognition and success by stepping on other people. We all have ways of falling under the figurative vampire’s spell.

From a cultural standpoint, my intention here isn’t to say that Hotel Transylvania is the devil or The Munsters represents the breakdown of American morals. I’ll leave that to those who think Harry Potter is the anti-Christ. My point is merely this: sometimes it is best for monsters to be monsters. It gives us something to set up as a mirror to our own dark desires and sins which ultimately leave us empty. The diabolical, like the Divine, must have it’s own iconography – so that we can recognize and destroy it when we meet it in the world and in our own souls. Vampires are myths – and like all myths, they reveal essential truths about human nature. We must be careful not to alter that source of revelation.

There are few Marvel villains who match the enormous presence of Wilson Fisk. A massive block of muscle in a white tuxedo, Fisk is a criminal mastermind and mob boss known as the Kingpin of crime . According to Frank Miller, that means he is “the boss of everything bad that makes money in what must be most of the free world.” Sure, he isn’t a Nazi super-soldier like Red Skull or a costumed madman like Green Goblin; he has no powers, no costume, no army of robots or aliens at his disposal. But that makes him all the more terrifying. He operates “on the ground”, so to speak, or perhaps under it. He doesn’t dream up plans to conquer the world but rather runs it from behind the scenes. He’s not just another criminal. He is the criminal. The Kingpin of crime.

Though a long-running adversary of both Spiderman and the Punisher, Kingpin is best known as the arch-nemesis of Matt Murdock – aka Daredevil. It is here his evil genius is most on display – matched against a single enemy who proves his opposite in almost everyway. Take one of the best story arcs to come out of Marvel comics, Daredevil: Born Again. In this run, Kingpin finally learns the true identity of the man who has been giving his operations so much trouble. He uses this information to systematically and sadistically dismantle Murdock peace by peace. He freezes his assets, strips him of his law practice, destroys his home and threatens all those close to him. Ultimately, this leads him to a confrontation with Murdock, who he beats into a pulp and sends careening of a peer in a damaged vehicle, making it look like a drunken accident. This is why the Kingpin is such a sinister character. He doesn’t merely want to kill the hero – he wants to annihilate him, to devour him, to destroy him and corrupt his reputation. He enjoys the torture, the sadism, the feeling of being in control of a whole city and the one man that will fight for it.

Kingpin’s overbearing presence haunts the entire run. Everybody seems to be in his pocket- hitmen, assassins, corporations, and even government agents all run to his aid as an endless arsenal of assets to use against Daredevil and his allies.

This is what makes Kingpin a unique and memorable villain. He seems to have his fingers in everything – the police, hospitals, the press. His power is frighteningly close to our everyday lives – of the real evil that grows just beneath the surface of human society. Fisk’s enormous facade is that of a legitimate businessman – civilized, dignified, and attached to the finer things in life. This is all to hide the sadistic interior, the lust for power, and the animal-like fury and rage which is captured by his brutal physical presence. This strength of body is bested only by his horrifying omnipresence in the city – the way he fills up space with all the men and women and institutions who he has paid off.

We often feel this way about evil. Like the Kingpin, it appears to lurk everywhere we look – overlaying all reality like a fog. Human trafficking thrives even in the smallest of cities. Heroin and meth claim lives in our backyards. Cops gun down innocent youths in the streets. Priests molest children and bishops cover it up. The list goes on and the bodies pile up. The fight continues but evil still sits behind the scenes, fat and bloated with the blood of countless victims.Christ’s passion alone gives us comfort in this time. As Christians, we believe that God’s answer to the problem of evil was answered in the sorrowful passion of Christ. In that act upon the cross, he let all the toxins and corruption of the world cling to him. He bore our sins and suffered through mockery and blasphemy. The cross is the answer to evil, but even there the elusiveness remains. Even Jesus felt betrayed and alone as the sky grew dark: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” We can only take comfort in this cry for help. Even God knows what it feels like when all hope is lost. He knows what it feels like to think that evil has won. In the words of G.K. Chesterton, God had been forsaken of God. The devil had won the day.

Daredevil: Born Again presents Kingpin in this way. Like the devil, he thought he had finally got the best of his enemy. After all, the hero had come to his doorstep and invited his own destruction. He had dug his own grave. All the devil had to do was give him a tiny push.

But like the devil, he was wrong.

For Matthew Murdock had his own resurrection. He escaped from the drowning vehicle like someone emerging from baptism. It is here where the title of the overall work hits home. The symbolism is less than subtle. In historic Christian belief, to be born again is to be baptized – to be born of water and spirit. As St. Paul proclaims: “Do you not know that all we who have been baptized into his death? For we were buried in him by means of Baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ has arisen from the dead through glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.” (Romans 4:3-4) The Catholic Church teaches us in baptism we undergo “regeneration”. That is, we are given the divine life capable of blotting out original sin, though a tendency to sin remains to be battled throughout life. There is a reason that we as Catholics each year at Easter we recommit ourselves to our baptismal vows and reject the devil and all his empty show. In the time between, we cross ourselves with Holy Water, reminding ourselves of our sacramental defense against the darkness which hangs overhead.

Our share in the resurrection of Christ through baptism gives us an experience not unlike that of Matthew Murdock. With the image of Christ imprinted on our soul, we have the power of resurrection, even when we seem most destroyed and broken. We can surprise the Devil by leaping from the grave again and again. We drive him mad as he repeats the threefold despair of Kingpin in Born Again: “There is no corpse, there is no corpse, there is no corpse.” That dauntingly massive and smug figure of evil can be defeated, even when death and despair appear to rule supreme. With a drop of holy water and a simple sign of the cross, we acknowledge the power of the resurrection even when pitted against the foreboding shadow that is the immensity of evil.