MYTHCOMICS: “EYES OF THE SERPENT” (SUPERMAN FAMILY #174, 1975-76)

 

In one reminiscence Roy Thomas recalled that his one-time DC editor Mort Weisinger was the first person he Thomas heard use the term “mythology” for a corpus of comic-book stories, in particular the “Superman Family” titles over which Weisinger held sway for the entirety of the Silver Age. I would guess that this was just a convenient tag for the editor, that he probably cared little or not at all about what comprised a genuine archaic mythology, or what status if any modern-day stories might have as “myths.” Still, in the late 1950s Weisinger made some concerted effort to have his writers utilize far more fantasy/SF tropes in the Super-books than had previously been the norm. Not all such metaphenomenal tropes are automatically mythic in nature. Yet as it happened, many writers in Weisinger’s stable—Otto Binder, Leo Dorfman and of course Jerry Siegel—did manage to use these tropes to tell a handful of stories with a high level of mythic concrescence.

However, Weisinger was edged out of DC just in time for the debut of the Bronze Age in 1970, and the Super-books were parceled out to assorted editors. Julie Schwartz took custody of the two titles starring the Big Blue Cheese, SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS. But though Schwartz’s Silver Age writers had also produced a respectable number of myth-stories, in the Bronze Age the editor favored in large part two writers given to penning very gimmicky, superficial tales: Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin. When three of the ancillary Super-features—SUPERGIRL, JIMMY OLSEN and LOIS LANE—failed to sell well, DC cancelled the individual titles and transferred their features to a portmanteau book, THE SUPERMAN FAMILY. As it happens, it was in this title that editor Schwartz and writer Maggin produced one of the few stories that can stand alongside the best myth-outings of Siegel, Binder and Dorfman.

The first page of Kurt Schaffenberger’s art for “Eyes of the Serpent” is a splash-page portraying a scene that does not literally occur in the story: Supergirl flying into combat against a giant winged dragon, while on the dragon’s back rides a green-scaled humanoid. The humanoid looks a bit like a frog-man, but Maggin’s caption makes clear that this fellow so viridian is also ophidian: “At the dawn of time, it was the acid tongue of a serpent that brought evil into the world—a serpent much like the one that now challenges Supergirl!” In this introductory sentence, Maggin establishes that in this world, he validates as real the story of the Garden of Eden, including Eve’s temptation by a serpent later identified with Satan. However, the story Maggin tells is about a serpent who is only “much like” the Biblical tempter, the better to avoid any accusations of mixing serious religious figures with the “let’s pretend” of a comic book.

As the story proper begins, the same serpent-man from the splash, Lord Beriak, stands in an indeterminate location (full of rocks and smoky vapors) along with other serpent-men, who give Beriak his assignment. He must journey from wherever the serpent-people make their home to a college in Florida, where the Kryptonian heroine works as a guidance counselor in her Linda Danvers identity. Beriak's purpose is that of “reasserting our dominance over the human race.” (Some influence from Robert E. Howard’s “serpent-men” stories seems likely, given that the snake-people are never identified as either aliens or supernatural demons.)

Once Beriak arrives in the fictitious Florida town of New Athens—where, for once, the locale plays a role in a Super-story—he takes on the appearance of a good-looking human male and contrives to meet Linda Danvers. Linda/Supergirl is somewhat attracted to the false flesh of Beriak, but she doesn’t immediately agree to date him. Since Beriak’s as-yet-unrevealed master plan requires him to gain mental dominance over Supergirl, he decides that she may become more pliable if he wears her down a little. To that end he summons a dragon from the vasty deep of the neighboring ocean and makes it run amuck in New Athens, so that the heroine will appear and bring the beast to heel. (Though dragons have some status in Bible lore, this critter is just another of DC’s countless convenient prehistoric survivals.)

While all this is going on, a mysterious young fellow named “Davy” appears at the college, and he like the serpent-man shows some ability with exerting persuasive mojo. The Davy character, created by Maggin for a three-part Green Arrow story in ACTION COMICS, is given no precise origin, but he’s clearly meant to be identified with the youthful David of the Bible, since Davy carries a lyre on which he can play enchanting music, and a sling with which he can cast stones, like the one David used to defeat Goliath. Maggin does not ever say that Davy is identical with Bible-David, who after all aged, sinned and died in the course of his narrative. But since the House of David was associated (in a roundabout way) with the lineage of Jesus of Nazareth, Davy is as associated with the powers of Heaven as the serpent-men are with the Devil.

In addition, in what may be the shortest foreshadowing in a comic book, an orange-picker falls unconscious after eating an orange in a local grove. The man is never seen again, though by customary expectations the reader would assume he’s okay once the threat of the serpent-men has been vanquished.

The disguised Beriak once more encounters Linda Danvers after her heroic other-self has driven off the winged dragon. This time, he places her under his mental thrall, at least enough that she accepts a date with him. As Beriak leads his victim to the slaughter, Davy follows along, sometimes playing the music on his lyre, though for reasons undisclosed the serpent-man can’t hear it. (Perhaps Maggin believed the legend that snakes can’t hear or thought that his audience would believe as much.)

Beriak takes his date to an orange orchard—possibly the same one where the unnamed man collapsed—and ramps up the Eden-references by getting Linda to eat one of the tree’s “forbidden fruits.” Whjen Linda eats the orange, it apparently puts her under Beriak’s total control. Beriak then reveals his scaly other self and makes the Girl of Steel perform a few super-feats for his amusement. Then he finally reveals his master plan. Beneath one of the orange-trees in the orchard—presumably the one from which Linda ate, just to keep up the parallel with the Biblical Tree of Knowledge—lies a “golden stone” called the Eden Rock. Once Beriak compels Supergirl to surrender her life-energy to the stone, this maneuver will give the serpent-race total dominion over humanity and all of its superheroic defenders.

However, Supergirl has been shamming: she caught on to his imposture early on. The two super-beings fight, and though Beriak gets the upper hand once, Davy is on hand to distract him with a handily-hurled sling-stone. Beriak finally recognizes Davy as an old foe of his Satanic species, and Davy uses his magic to keep Beriak restrained while Supergirl tunnels beneath the earth and destroys the Eden Rock, so that no one can use it again. Then, as the enemies square off again, Beriak’s fellow serpents, who are watching from afar, decide to call back their agent, commenting that he was stymied by “our old nemesis, the immortal singer David.” Supergirl and Davy converse briefly and the story ends with a minor coda at Linda’s workplace.

It would appear that the serial’s Florida setting was the only reason for Maggin to substitute an orange for the forbidden food, though to be sure some scholars don’t believe the Biblical fruit was an apple, either. Maggin doesn’t say why this particular delicacy is forbidden, or who forbade it, or why eating it doesn’t really affect Supergirl at all. Presumably the only parallel is an inverted one: unlike Eve, Supergirl resists the blandishments of the serpent, and so preserves her world in contrast to Eve losing Eden for herself and Adam.

As noted, since the Biblical David was not “immortal” like Davy, there can only be a symbolic connection between the two. Davy is what Carl Jung might have called a “puer eternus,” an eternal child—which is, to an extent, an archetype to which Youthful David subscribes as well. Bible-David has no connection with the mythology of Eden except in the sense that David provides a link between Adam and Jesus of Nazareth. In a larger sense, of course, the expulsion of the first Man and Woman from Eden leads to Christ’s sacrifice to redeem humanity, so the Fall foreshadows the Redemption, and the general defeat of Satanic evil. In addition, in Maggin’s scenario Davy is meant to be something of a destined warrior like David: able to overcome evildoers who seem far more powerful than he.

There is nothing paralleling the Eden Rock in Genesis. However, there are a few foundation-stones in the Bible and in later Judeo-Christian commentary. In the Zohar, God is said to have unleashed the flood—the instrument by which the Divinity eradicates almost all the sinning spawn of Adam and Eve—by moving a foundation-stone called the Eben Shetiyah. There is no firm evidence in the story that Maggin knew of this trope. But given that he was already juggling the myths of Eden, it’s not improbable to think he might work in one from the Flood-Myth, even if he does turn it into a standard comic-book gimmick, “the thing that makes all humanity bow down.”

Lastly and leastly, Beriak’s name doesn’t seem to have any strong forbears, Biblical or otherwise. There is a Canaanite deity named Berith or Baal-Berith, who later becomes a Christian demon, but in this case it’s just as possible that “Beriak” took no influence from this figure, that the serpent-man just has a nonsense-name. It’s of passing interest that “Berith” means “covenant,” which reference could take us back to Flood-mythology—but that’s not a holy hill on which I’d choose to make my stand.