Apr 9, 2009 03:04 PM
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It's Passover, and that means it's time to celebrate the greatest Jewish superheroes ever to save the planet. From The Thing to Colossal Boy, they've helped stop some of the worst supervillains in the universe.
The website Comic Book Religion has a great list of Jewish superheroes, from which I'm shamelessly culling this list.
The Thing is surely the greatest Jewish superhero of them all - there's not even really any doubt about it. Benjamin J. Grimm, hero of Yancy Street, got bombarded with cosmic rays and became super strong, super-tough, and rocky. But he never forgot his Jewish roots, and in Dan Slott's short-lived series, he actually goes and gets bar-mitzvahed. And then has a raucous poker game.
Colossal Boy is one of the coolest members of the Legion of Super Heroes. Writer Paul Levitz was reviewing notes on the Legion, when he realized Colossal Boy's real name, Gim Allon, was similar to Israeli leader Yigal Allon. So in 1983, when Gim married an alien shape-shifter, Yera, he wondered aloud if he could convince the aliens to let him raise their kids Jewish.
Moon Knight. Okay, sure, Marc Spector ended up becoming an adherent of the Egyptian god Khonshu, who gave him his superpowers, but he was raised Jewish. His dad was a rabbi. Editor Joe Quesada identified Moon Knight as an important Jewish superhero in his column.
Kitty Pryde, one of the coolest X-Men, is also Jewish, according to Quesada. She shows this with her "everpresent Star of David."
Atom Smasher, aka Nuklon, is also Jewish. In one issue of Infinity Inc., the Justice League member reminisces back to his Bar Mitzvah as part of remembering how he became a superhero. And then in one recent comic, Albert Rothstein gets a Christmas kiss from Supergirl:
American Flagg, aka Reuben Flagg, is also a great Jewish hero of the people, taking out all the scumbags who threaten the stability of a future dystopian America.
Magneto isn't exactly a superhero, but he is a morally gray member of the superhero world, who sometimes fights on our heroes' side. And there's a whole FAQ listing all the evidence that Magneto was in Auschwitz because of his Jewish roots, rather than some other reason.
There's lots more at the link above, including Captain Underpants, and the unlikely hero The Acidic Jew. M'chlaim!
Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at charliejane@io9.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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