Responsibility?

A wise man once said "With great power comes great responsibility."

This quote, the driving force behind Spider-Man's heroic journey has been a source of conflict throughout the years for our favorite web-slinger. The hero is forced day after day to choose between his personal well-being and his responsibility to others. Something that I find interesting is that the foundation for one of my favorite heroes is drawn straight out of the Gospel of Luke. When Ben Parker imparts this classic wisdom to his nephew Peter, he is essentially paraphrasing Luke 12:48 (From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked (NLV Translation)).

A parallel between the ethics discussed in Biblical Heritage and comic book heroes is much easier to make when looking at a comic book hero who finds his mantra in a scriptural paraphrase. After discussing sin in class this week it made me think of yet another definition for sin, one I briefly touched on in my introductory post. I think sin can also be viewed as neglecting to do the right thing, even if one doesn't do anything wrong. Spider-Man faces this issue in the early years of his almost five decades of publication history. Peter Parker's life as Spider-Man seems to bring him nothing but hardship, and as a result, despite all the good his alter ego does, Peter hangs up his webs and proclaims 'Spider-Man No More!'



This now classic scene (from Amazing Spider-Man #50 and later portrayed in the second Spider-Man movie) leads to mountains of conflict for Peter Parker. While he at first enjoys the freedom from the responsibility that his powers have given him, Peter's conscience eventually leads him to pick up his mantle yet again and resume his often difficult life of crime-fighting. This issue that Spider-Man faces raises many questions about the nature of sin. Is the violation of responsibility a sin? It certainly causes Spider-Man to become consumed with guilt, and thus I think he would agree. I tend to think that a sin of omission is just as bad as any other sin, if not worse. Just like the death of Peter Parker's uncle is on his hands due to his lack of action (as seen in Amazing Fantasy #15 and the first Spider-Man movie), any wrong that happened because of his cry of 'Spider-Man No More!' would have been his fault as well. When we choose to not use our powers for good, we are using them for ill, even if we don't use them at all.

And because I feel like making a musical plug, I will bring up what got me thinking of this issue before calling it quits. This week British band Oasis essentially broke up upon the departure of Noel Gallagher. My first thought was selfish. While I am not a huge fan of Oasis (I instead prefer listening to their rivals, and I think they are full of themselves), I enjoy their music, and their last album was pure brilliance (Dig Out Your Soul, check it out), so when I heard that Noel was leaving the band I immediately saw it as a violation of his responsibility to use his musical talent to bring the world decent music. Of course Gallagher had several excellent reasons for leaving, but I still wish it was not so. And that is how it is related. I'm going to go mourn and hope that the dissolution of Oasis leads to the re-forming of Blur.

'Nuff said!
-Cable