Earlier today I watched Avengers: Age of Ultron. I will pass over my opinion of it (I think it's overstuffed and insubstantial at the same time: too much happens for too little to happen. Praeteritio.) and will only write down some thoughts triggered by a scene in the movie.
While looking at Captain America and Tony Stark, a character refers to the Avengers as "gods", and clarityclarencememe.jpg I realized that that was exactly what they are: the gods of our time. They are heroes whom we have exalted to godlike status. We've always considered myth a necessary component of life — we seem thoroughly incapable of ridding ourselves of it — and that need is fulfilled, in part, by comic book superheroes, who now attract copious worship through the present comic book film boom. Achilles and Gilgamesh have been interred in the graveyard of gods (or of godlike heroes), but their ghosts haunt the messy age of today: Superman and the Marvel Thor, gods in a world which expressly mirrors ours; Batman and Iron Man, superhuman men who by innate ingenuity stand shoulder to shoulder with gods.
I re-appreciated James K.A. Smith's notion of "cultural liturgy": the Marvel Cinematic Universe provides a new pantheon, the cinema the altar, the film schedule the church calendar. The weeks that a movie is screened is something that outclasses a revival crusade or a fiesta for a saint; millions flock to the church of Marvel, or, every now and then, to the church of DC, to participate, rather passively, with their eyes transfixed and popcorn melting on their tongues, Coke fizzling in their stomachs.
(Of course, the similarities between superhero-gods and epic-poetry-hero-gods and between the comic book film experienve and the yearly revival camp experience end at some point, but the extent of intersection is still considerable.)
I read in some Borges collection that "men need heroes". Yes, and men need gods.
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