Welcome to Folklore and Mythology Part 1: A Modern Appropriation

So based on the number of clicks on last week's blog, I'm going to assume that people are interested in me going looking into Folklore and Mythology. I just wanted to thank you guys for reading and giving me my second blog post with over 1
00 hits (the first being the one where I declared my love of all things pumpkin...go figure).

So let's start by taking a quick peek at how the modern world has been telling some of our favorite myths.

How DC and Marvel Confused My Inner Nerd...

Thor and his hammer!

It might be fair to say that my first introduction to European mythologies was by reading comic books and watching Disney's Hercules. Now the main comic book series I was reading as a kid was Asterix and the only time mythology really turned up was when they were taking their respective gods' names in vain. It took me a little longer to dive into the more popular (at least in the US) DC and Marvel comic books, but when I did I was very confused by some of the characters they were representing.

Now, it would be a missed opportunity for me if I didn't start this series off with a lot of American's introductions to mythology: DC and Marvel. It also helps that Wonder Woman came out this summer and I recently saw Thor: Ragnarok in theaters.

[WARNING: There will be spoilers for Wonder Woman and Thor: Ragnarok in the upcoming post. If you haven't seen the movie yet, read at your own risk.]

DC and Marvel have managed to appropriate two entirely different mythologies and bring them to the forefront of American Culture. DC's Wonder Woman is clearly depicted as being part of Greek Mythology and Marvel has explicitly stated (at least in the movies) that Thor's people influenced Norse Mythology on Earth (insert complicated explanation here).

And yes, I am going to say that these two comic book giants appropriated these mythologies.

There are very few similarities between what the comics, TV shows, and movies present and the actual mythologies. Some examples include Thor being a red head (extremely minor) and Ares being a battle crazed super-villain since even the slightest injury would send him running to his father Zeus to whine (see The Iliad for details). It's even harder to imagine Ares actually being able to kill all of the other gods on Olympus.

And don't even get me started on the crazy changes between the comics and movies that just came out totally throw the original mythologies out the window. I think the one I am most confused at is Hela being Odin's daughter and not Loki's (that and Fenrir is kind of her brother...not a pet she brings back to life). In both the comic books and the original mythology Hela is Loki's daughter, though her personality is very different between the two mediums (same is true for Loki).

Then there's Wonder Woman's parentage. Apparently, in the New 52 universe and the movie that came out this summer, Zeus is her father, but in Justice League Hades says he's her father. I've already mentioned above that Ares was the "father" of the Amazons in Greek mythology, but Diana isn't a Greek Amazon. She's the Roman goddess of the hunt, the moon, and nature (the equivalent of Artemis in Greek mythology).

Basically, DC and Marvel took preexisting stories and remade them for a modern audience. The fundamental characteristics are still sort of present, but there are a lot of changes. The story lines are a little more "family friendly". Roughly 75% of the original stories I've read with Zeus as the protagonist are who he's sleeping with, which kid is now his, and how Hera is going to torment everyone because Zeus can't keep it in his pants. Then there's the story about how Loki transformed into a mare and became pregnant with a six legged horse. It was bizarre to say the least.

DC and Marvel taking these stories and making them their own is nothing new. Greek and Roman mythologies have a ton of similarities. A few of their gods even share names. Disney's version of Hercules is another take on Greek mythology, even though they use the Roman version of his name and for some weird reason make Hades the bad guy (yeah, Hera's the one who's pissy in that story).

Which brings me to another confusing point. Why is Hades constantly being updated as the "bad guy" in a lot of the modern stories? He's probably one of the few Greek gods who isn't a total dick (minus the whole thing with Persephone...depending on how you interpret the myth).

Maybe it has something to do with the influence of Christianity on these myths. I'm sure I'll get around to ranting about that at some other point.

Until next week:

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. If you have a folklore or mythology you'd like me to look into (or even just read) let me know.