On CAPC: Marvel’s Films Reflect The Biblical Cinematic Universe
Certain Marvel films are like Ezekiel — weird, even more fantastical, and with less-certain place in the main narrative.
This week Christ and Pop Culture (where I’m a contributing writer) is on a geeky roll, such as yesterday’s article by Corey Latta:
Marvel’s consistent ability to create a sound story in each film, its transcendence of the mere art of the sequel, and its unparalleled vision reveal nothing less than contemporary cinema’s grandest composition of narrative. What Marvel gives us is a vastly imagined and epically executed composite narrative—one story composed with both previous and following interconnected narratives in mind—that presents meaning in constellation rather than individual film.
This storied pattern should sound familiar to Christian filmgoers: it is essentially the model of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In philosophy, form, and focus, the composite narrative model of story—such as the current Marvel franchise—imitates a distinctly scriptural approach to building story.
Thus you can’t — or shouldn’t — watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier without having first seen at least Captain America: The First Avenger or The Avengers. And you can’t — or shouldn’t — read the book of Luke without having first read the book of Genesis.
Read more at Living within the Story: Marvel’s Scriptural Form, only on Christ and Pop Culture.
E. Stephen Burnett creates sci-fi and fantasy as well as nonfiction, such as The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ (coauthored with Ted Turnau and Jared Moore, from New Growth Press). Stephen explores biblical truth and fantastic stories as publisher of Lorehaven.com and cohost of the Fantastical Truth podcast. He and his wife, Lacy, live in the Austin area, help with foster parenting, and serve as members of Southern Hills Baptist Church.
Share this:
In that case, is what Biblical book is Agents of Shield? Actionwise, it’s probably Mark, but it’s more like one of those epistles everyone thinks they’ve read but hasn’t.
Making overlapping stories that link together is a function of all myth, though. And he’s isolating the movies and taking them out of the tapestry that spawned them, comic books. You look at the movies, and they relate to the comic books like the Noah and Exodus movies relate to the Bible, which is not so much.
“first read the book of Genesis” – well, I was always a bit miffed at some hotels where you’d find only the New Testament on the bed stand (not that ‘D need a copy …). As for “… meaning in constellation …” – this is a concept that is meant to be found in all those “forward-looking” (to borrow from investment bankers …) Biblical stories that foretell the Messianic closure.