Voices in My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast) Episode 628: Truth, Justice, and the Way

Welcome back to Truth, Justice, and the Way: Superman and Spirituality, a podcast where we take a look at faith and storytelling through the enduring Power of the Character of Superman.

I am one of your hosts, Rick Lee James, and hey, I'm David Dalt, and I'm glad to be back with you, Rick.

And I'm glad to be with you, David. Thank you so much for taking some time today. I don't remember exactly when we recorded last, but I think it was about 2 months ago before we actually had a chance. Things have been busy, uh, and so before we get into our topic, which really is going to be Superman and even more specifically Supergirl related in some ways, um, I'd love to hear how have things been going since we last chatted with you?

Well, you know, I, I am on summer break, which is wonderful, but as often happens, especially when you have two kids, summer break and what you anticipate is going to be some free time never actually ends up being quite as free as you would want. So I've had a very busy summer, and I've been trying to catch up and rest where I can. I've gotten some writing done, which is really, really good, and I've gotten some good thinking done. And I'm doing some preparations for my classes in the fall. And the only other sort of piece of news is that on July 1st, I was officially, I guess, advanced to being a— no longer an associate— no longer an assistant professor, but now an associate professor with tenure. And so I'm very delighted about that piece of news. But everything else is just, you know, one day at a time, trying to keep things moving on. Now you've got some news as well that I'd love, and I know our listeners would love to hear more about. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what's been going on with you, Rick?

Yeah, well, quickly, and I think I said last time I was— I don't remember if I had headed there yet, but I headed to New Orleans, and I am officially an Associate Certified Chaplain now. So we both have Associate in our title. So that was fun. My wife and I got to go to New Orleans for that ceremony, and I got to walk. It's, it's almost like a graduation ceremony, but there's over 600 chaplains that were there in New Orleans this year, and They go around and you get high fives from everybody at the conference. It's pretty cool. So that's one thing. And I have to have my certification, which is wonderful. But the news that just happened like 2 days ago at the time of recording this podcast is I released a new song. It's called Heaven is Full of Criminals, a song I wrote. And I had the amazing Phil Keggy play guitar on it. And Phil Keggy is one of those guys that his status is almost legendary in in the music community. In fact, there is a legend which I cannot find any evidence— Phil cannot find any evidence of this happening— but supposedly back in the days of the '60s when Jimi Hendrix was still with us, he was asked a question on, I believe it was the Dick Cavett Show, who's the greatest guitarist, you know, in the world, and Jimi Hendrix said Phil Keaghy. But that is actually apocryphal. That's actually not true. Um, he just said, you know, Maybe I'm the greatest guitarist in this chair, I think is what Jimi Hendrix actually said. But the legend has, has grown and grown. And the thing about Phil is he's just a beautiful human being. He reminds me, honestly, I can't think of too many people that I would just think, wow, this guy reminds me so much of Jesus when I talk to him and so humble and could play rings around just about anybody on guitar, but is humble enough to sit and listen and learn. And even I think he's 75 now. Now, and, uh, is just an amazing talent. So, um, we had a little— it was interesting, a lot of people this time around didn't want to necessarily touch this song because it's somewhat controversial to some people. But I'm, I'm happy to say it's been greatly embraced now that I've released it, and especially among Catholic circles, interestingly enough. Um, I've been invited to be on the Catholic Faith Network next month to talk about it. I just got invited on to a podcast. It's a very prominent Catholic podcast to talk more about it. And they're interested, especially because I'm a hospital chaplain, talking about the music I make and how inspiring it was doing that work to the writing of the song and having conversations with people who feel that they are far from the love of God and feel that they're not worthy. And so it's been great. So Heaven is Full of Criminals is the song. I just checked a little while ago, a couple hours ago, Spotify is one of the few places— it's not, it's not my favorite platform. It's one of the few places that lets you kind of see in real time who's listening and how many playlists you're on. And since it released on Friday, as best as I can tell, the song has been added to 17 Spotify playlists, which is pretty great. And this morning, or this afternoon, after I went to church, I checked and it had 1,200 plays on Spotify in the last 2 days, which for an independent song, that's, that's fairly good. So I'm grateful grateful for the reception. And it looks like a lot of repeat listeners too, like people that went back to hear it again or share it. So I just want to say thank you to everybody who has listened to this song and supported that. I love making music so much. And when I felt the call into chaplaincy, I wasn't sure if that part of my life was ending. I had a suspicion it wasn't because it always seems like music is a vital part of whatever ministry I'm doing. But I'm just so grateful the way that this has turned out, the reception I'm receiving, and thanks for giving me a chance to talk about it as we go into this podcast today.

Well, can I ask you one more follow-on question?

Yeah, sure.

Well, so "Heaven Is Full of Criminals" is a very provocative title. I wonder what it was that inspired you to write this song.

Well, I— a lot of things, honestly. I was thinking I think mostly about worth and what makes a person worthy, what makes a person unworthy. There's a quote attributed to St. Augustine, and I honestly don't know if it really is an Augustine quote. So I always say this is attributed to, but I haven't read enough of Augustine to know. But I find it to be a quote that always makes me think. And it says, do not despair. One of the thieves was saying, do not assume Or do not presume one of the thieves was lost. Um, and so it's sort of that kind of thing. It's, it's asking questions about, um, you know, I believe Jesus is welcoming. Uh, it starts out with the narrative of the thieves on the cross, and we know from some of the gospels that both thieves were mocking Jesus from the cross. Um, and yet one of them seems to have a change of heart and, and sees Jesus as a righteous man and says, today you'll be with me in paradise. And what is, I don't think it's controversial until the second verse, because the second verse says Christ welcomed that thief into glory. And then I say, and I bet he welcomed them both, you know. And that was the line that people have told me they could not endorse of the song, you know, which is very interesting to me because it doesn't actually say anything or make a conclusion. It's just part of my, Of what I know of Jesus, my guess is he would welcome any of us. You know, I think Jesus would even welcome that mocking criminal that didn't seem to have a change of heart. I think, I don't, I don't know what it says about us that we can't have room in our imagination to allow that even if a person decided not to follow Christ on that path, that the welcome would still be there. So it's kind of been interesting having a lot of Conversations with people around that song. The title does sound pretty provocative and there's some provocative language in the lyrics. But we have— it stretches me a little bit too, because I need to be reminded the song was as much about me and what if there's actually grace for me? If I can accept that there's grace for criminals and lunatics and liars and people, you know, Maybe there is possibly hope held out for me if there is hope for all these people, you know, because I can see the grace of God for others. I so often have a hard time seeing it for myself.

Well, even, you know, another figure that is of mutual admiration for both of us, Fred Rogers, struggled with whether he was a sheep or a goat.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm thinking about, you mentioned the Catholics, and I'm thinking about a quotation from Pope Francis. And he said, I'm just speaking for myself, but I hope that Hell is empty. And, you know, he wasn't making any kind of doctrinal pronouncement, but that also makes me think of the Protestant theologian Karl Barth, and when asked about a similar question, he said, you know, "What is the ultimate fate of each of us? I trust the God that went to the cross to make those decisions." So that's what I keep coming back to, is that, you know, the story— and I recognize that not everybody that's listening to this program is a Christian, and that is just fine. You're most welcome to be here. But for you and I, this animating narrative that we have Part of what keeps me coming back is not who gets excluded, but who gets included.

Mm-hmm. Exactly. And that's sort of the point of the song. So, and actually, that's a pretty good kind of transition into our topic for today here on our Superman and Spirituality podcast. Because I think we often miss the point if we're only focusing on like an eternal reward or something that actually the lives of faith that we live, whatever our faith might be, I think it's mostly about the kind of people that it's shaping us to be, the kind of values that we want to have, the kind of purpose that we intentionally have in our lives and the kind of lives that we cultivate. And so, and by the way, for everybody listening, I think I'm— if you're wondering why this is showing up on the Voices in My Head podcast feed, I'm planning on releasing this on that podcast as well today. You may be wondering, did I listen to the wrong podcast? Well, no, this is just sort of a taste. Of the conversations we have on this other podcast. Um, so I, I wanted to talk today, and I, and I'm, I'm really wanting not to spoil anything for anyone who has not read or seen these movie— this movie or this book. So I'm just going to give fair warning to everybody right now. If you have not seen the movie Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow or read the book by Tom King of the same title, um, we're— I'm gonna get a little bit spoilery for the sake of our conversation today because I, I think it creates some interesting dialogue for us. And David hasn't seen it himself, so he has graciously allowed me to get a little bit spoilery here today. Okay. But you've been warned. We're going to talk about it now in just a little bit. So I wanted to explore what I think is one of the most head-scratching, maybe thought-provoking changes made in the film of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow because it's so different. From the actual book that it came from by the same title. And on one hand, I was excited when I went to the movie because I like the Tom King novel pretty well, the graphic novel. And it was based on this. And much of the movie, with a couple different changes because they always change things for movies, it follows the story pretty close in a lot of ways. So if you've read the book, and I've said for years, like, why did they keep making movies with new storylines when they've got so many years of stories that are really good they could choose from to put on film, or at least inspire, you know. So they kind of did that, which I was kind of glad to see. Like, you've already got these great writers. Tom King's a good writer. Um, but they make a drastic turn at the end of the movie from the end of the book. Um, so here is the spoiler part, all right? And it will probably be no surprise to anyone. It's the same problem we have with the Zack Snyder films about Superman. Supergirl ultimately kills the villain Krim in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. He is a bad dude. He's kind of a one-note villain. There's nothing real super special about him, but he is a killer. He's a murderer. And in order to keep the girl that is traveling with Supergirl innocent, she begs her not to kill this villain. You know, there's things you basically, in essence, there's things you don't want to see. There's things you don't want to do. You can't undo. I know this man has killed your family. This man has been awful to you, but don't take his life or you become just like him. So that girl walks away maintaining that she is not a killer while Supergirl walks up and stabs him in the neck and kills him. It's like, what was the, you know, what was that? So the thing that is so head-scratching to me, they stayed pretty close to this novel the whole way, but one thing that I think makes Tom King's graphic novel so unique is same villain, same ending almost, but instead of killing Krem, Supergirl is creative enough to send him to the Phantom Zone. So to this place where when he is there, they— you fast forward a number of years till the young girl that has been Supergirl's traveling companion— it's, it's a lot like True Grit, by the way, if you've ever seen True Grit, the Western. There's a young girl that's wanting revenge, you know, for her family that this villain has done. So in the book, Krim comes back from the Phantom Zone when this young girl is now an old woman. And in essence, he's found God. He has repented. He is so sorry for his sins after spending all this time in the Phantom Zone. He comes back. He apologizes. He begs for forgiveness for the things that he has done. And she still doesn't love him. And in fact, she bonks him on the head with her sword, but she doesn't kill him.

She—

he gets gets to kind of reenter— he's not a human, but if we were going to say he was a human side of things, he gets to reenter his humanity. So there is a sense in which the graphic novel holds out the imagination that what if the worst of criminals could be redeemed? You know, what if there was still a place to welcome the worst offenders among us to be redeemed? And I was so kind of enjoying the movie until I got to the end of Supergirl, and I was like, okay, this is the part they're going to show this redemptive aspect. Nope, she just flat out kills him with a sword. And, you know, so all that is to say, now I fully spoiled you on that. I continue just to be baffled by what DC is doing with their movies with Warner Brothers. You literally have a story that is written out for the sake of redeeming, um, someone, which is a hope that I hold out. I, I would love to live with the kind of holy imagination that would say, I know I struggle with this villain, but I would hold out hope that even they can be redeemed. Because if they can't, what hope is there for me in the midst of all that? So let me just ask your reaction to that, if you have any, kind of hearing the two different endings and the choices that were made.

I have so many thoughts. I'm going to give you my my cynical take, and then I'm gonna give you my hopeful take. So my cynical take is that Hollywood and American culture writ large has a preoccupation with redemptive violence. We believe somewhere deep down that if we just kill the right people, that the world will be a better place. And so it's very difficult to get a story made that doesn't involve redemptive violence. I remember years ago I was watching a British television series called Luther, and, uh, and I was— it's about a gritty British Detective, and there was a— in one of the episodes in the first season, there's a really like climactic scene, and it's a violent scene, but it's a fist and knife fight as opposed to a gunfight. And I was thinking to myself at the time, and I said to Kira, my wife, I said, if we were watching this made in America, it would have been a bloody shootout, and instead it was a really gritty, but ultimately, you know, it was much lower in terms of violence. Still violent, but a much different sort of approach. But here in America, the pressure is always solve it with a gun, solve it with a death. Like, that becomes the kind of final piece, and we don't really like redemption arcs. Okay, so that's my cynical take is that, um, the moviemakers, uh, in this case got notes and pressure from the studio that said there's not enough redemptive violence. They wouldn't have said it that way, but they would have probably said the bad guy needs to die at the end, you know, tie that one off. Okay, so that's my cynical take. Here's my more hopeful take, because I do think that, uh, James Gunn in this particular case, at least from the evidence that we have from the first Superman movie that he has made, is that he understands something fundamental about Superman as a character. You and I have talked about this at a couple of points, but he did something very interesting in that movie. And I'm thinking about the scene with Hawkgirl near the end where, where Hawkgirl drops the bad, you know, premier of the country basically to his death.

Yes.

And she basically says, I'm not Superman. And so she kills. And so we have established in this universe that not every hero has the kind of Batman-Superman code, which is that they will not take a life. And we've talked a little bit about this. My hope— this is my hopeful take— is that James Gunn is going to use this background of other superpowered beings being willing to kill and use their powers for that kind of final redemptive violence, that he will, over the arc of several movies, show the influence of Superman on these other characters so that they were willing to kill and they learned that there's a better way. And so, you know, just having heard you describe this story, to try and possibly get into the mind of James Gunn Gunn and the other filmmakers and to say what positive thing could they have thought about in terms of changing that story from the graphic novel, the only thing that I can think of is they have to create a kind of low point for Supergirl to move from so that she has a moral development over time and she comes to be influenced by Superman into a better hero, a more heroic hero. Now, in that case, what I, what I like about that, if that is the case, is that that tips the hat to those that are angry that the Snyderverse is over, because there is still the grit, there is still the violence, there is still the threat of violence in this universe that is being crafted, but it will not have the final say in the way that it did in the Snyderverse. And that's my ultimate hope, is that violence will not have the final say in either in narrative or in real life. Life. But that's— those are my initial thoughts, and I'm curious what you think about what I've said.

Well, that would be my hope too, um, that I, I'm not, I'm not so sure. I continue to be baffled by the direction that the— these movies and TV shows are going, and I can't figure out who the audience is supposed to be for. We've talked about that at length because it seems like in some level they're, they're wanting to make something that I you know, let's bring the kids in and let them see this. And then they make a spinoff show from it and there's nothing possibly you could show a child, you know? So the stories that they're telling about what it means to be heroic, I'm just, I think I'm getting tired, have been for a while, of anti-heroes. Like I really would like to see some people who are striving to actually be good, you know? That's one thing that still helps me with the Superman story as a character, one reason I like him so much. And I think the characters that I identify most with in fiction and comics and things, whether it be Spider-Man, Superman, Captain America, like there seems to be this, although I may not always make the right choice, I'm really striving to, you know. I kind of wish that our people who make films and maybe just American culture as a whole and the stories that we're willing to listen to and willing to tell. I wish we had a little more imagination to see a world that way, that could see more than just a gun and a fist, you know? And I realize I say that while enjoying these action superhero films and stuff, which are a lot of fists, and sci-fi is all about laser beams and things like that. So it's all a mixed bag. But I will say, in the film, Superman is in it more than I thought he was going to be. He was— there's quite a few scenes where, um, we see him greeting Kara whenever she makes it to Earth and trying to convince her of the way that we need to be in the world. And it's not something that she seems to embrace at all. She, she wants to just cover it up. That, to redeem the story a little bit, it has a lot to do with grief, and it has a lot to do with the way that we deal with our And Kara is grieving the loss of her world, you know, the loss of her planet, much more so than Kal-El is because Kal-El was a baby. And so for him to come to the Earth as a baby and only remember Earth is a whole different thing than her remembering all the people that she loves and watching them die. So she's got some trauma, you know, in her life for sure. So in some ways, I'm hoping for the less cynical and more hopeful view view of things in the direction of the universe that they're going. But I guess I'm not super optimistic in that regard. I always hope it will be. But yeah, sorry, you were going to respond.

I was going to say two things. One is, and we've talked about this before, hurt people hurt people. And so, Kara Jor-El having seen in that amount of loss and that amount of trauma, uh, might be navigating a dark place. And so again, a person who doesn't have the moral grounding of Ma and Pa Kent, who kind of shows up and is having to work from, you know, square one, uh, they're gonna make some really horrible choices. And so that's, that's one piece of it, is just simply, you know, it could be again that they're setting up this to be a kind of moral arc that will grow over time. But the other thing that I wanted to ask you about is you mentioned that Superman shows up at several points in this film. When he shows up, is he just kind of tisk-tisking, or is he actually able to give a kind of moral guidance? Would he in some way serve as the ma and pa Kent character for Kara-Jor-El in this narrative or in narratives to come?

Yeah, I very much think he's filling the mom-paw Kent role. He's trying to— even down to the way that they dress, you know, she's like, why should I wear these goofy colors, basically? And he's like, so they'll know we're good. You know, we've talked about that before, and we don't want them to be afraid of us. You know, we want them to know that we're here to help, that we're here to not threaten and not harm. So there are different ways. And he keeps— in the film, he keeps trying to get her to come home. Like, he really wants her. He wants a family member, you know? He wants somebody, and he wants to welcome her into the family that is him, you know? He doesn't have that many people on his world, nobody from Krypton. And so part of it is he is continuously in the Supergirl movie holding out a welcome, um, and she's, she keeps kind of ignoring his calls and ignoring the, you know, different things. So it's, it's an interesting direction, and, and that's not in the novelization, you know. So, so that's the, the hopeful part of the films, that I do think that they're still trying to keep Superman as one that is striving to be heroic against all odds in the world that, um, in the world that we live in, you know, in some ways where all we can see is enemies have to die. There's no chance to redeem them. But yeah, I think that's an interesting choice in the film for them to connect it in that way. So I do hold out hope. I'm still looking forward to, you know, the next Superman movie whenever— Man of Tomorrow. Is that what it's called? Man of Tomorrow? Because the Supergirl one was Woman of Tomorrow or something. Or did I get the title all wrong? I forget.

So I think that the next Superman film is Man of Tomorrow, but I— yeah.

Yeah.

The thing that I am sad about just in hearing you describe this is how wonderful would it have been to have an opportunity for Supergirl at some point in the future to see that a good choice that she made ended up in somebody actually being redeemed, you know, ultimately and coming back. And that's now foreclosed. And so, yeah, the thing that is the worst part of all storytelling is the end, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And, you know, the thing about falling in love, even with villains, is— and again, I'm not— when I say falling in love with villains, I'm not talking about actual human beings in the world that do horrible things. I'm talking about characters in a story.

Yeah.

And we fall in love with characters in a story even when they are villains. Think about Darth Vader and how, you know, you can really be kind of in love with Darth Vader as a character, even though if you met him in real life, if he was a real-life person, he would be a monster. Or Gollum in Lord of the Rings, or, you know, any number of characters that we might think of. We have these kind of delicious villains. But part of the— part of the satisfaction that we often miss in our storytelling is having delicious villains learn the error of their ways and come back into grace and come back into a family. And a great example of that, of course, happens in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, you know. And so we have characters from, from the, the group of brothers and sisters who goes to the dark side, if you will, and having them be redeemed over time and come back and to recognize the harm that they've done and repent of that is an important part of the story and the storytelling.

Mm-hmm. And, and I guess I, maybe I want to throw in here too. I don't expect every character to be Superman. So that, so that's the thing. It's, it's partially because Supergirl kind of is from that family and wears that insignia and supposed to be holding out the same thing. I I have completely different expectations of Deadpool than I do of, you know, like something like that. Or for that matter, I just saw, uh, Christopher Nolan's wonderful movie yesterday of The Odyssey. And, um, and Odysseus is a different kind of character. He's not a Superman-type character. But, but it's in some ways where we get stories like we have that we see in comic books and things that comes, uh, from this. And, um, so, so I guess I get— I want to say I don't I don't expect every film, every character to be that thing. In some ways, the story needs to go where the story goes, and the character needs to be who the character is. But even in The Odyssey, it's such a profound move towards redemption, you know, in that story itself. It's not that every character along the way is going to be perfect, but It would be nice if heroes would end up becoming more heroic as the story goes on and not less, you know. I don't want to see the heroes devolving into the villain. I'd love to see the villains becoming more heroic because in honesty, you know, we're none of us just one thing. A lot of us can change and evolve and grow, which is things we've been talking about. But I do love what one of my favorite Superman writers, Mark Waid, uh, his, his biggest, uh, squabble with Man of Steel when it came out in the Snyderverse, um, supposedly he stood up in the theater whenever Superman killed Zod and yelled at the screen, no, Superman would never do that, he's, he's such a Superman, like he, he like caused a scene I guess in the theater because he was like, that is not Superman.

I love this, this, I'm, I, he and I are spirit brothers. Yes. For sure.

And Mark Waid said, when someone was interviewing him about it, said, well, you know, that's how that— what would you do? And Mark said, well, here's the thing, these are not documentaries. Like, the, the writers have a choice of how much they want to redeem and what story they want to tell. This is not Superman's story. This is not who he is. This is a complete misunderstanding of the kind of person that this man is and the choices that he would make. He would find a way somehow. And he said, you don't have to write it like that where Superman's killing playing the villain. That's the choice that Snyder made.

It's—

and I, I love that line of, it's not a documentary, you're not showing something that really happened, it's a, it's a thing. So, um, I, I just appreciate that, that there are writers. And, and Mark Waid has been writing the Superman stories for a while now, and they've been really good quality, and they've been diving into a lot of different things about what makes him such a different person and why he is someone that people look up to so much in that universe. And so, um, I'm, I'm all for that. I more tales that give us people to aspire to be like. And that's, that's one thing that I really hope that we will keep seeing from these, these Superman films as they continue to come out.

Well, let me, let me ask you a follow-on question to that. So within the— okay, I'm going to use a technical term here— within the diocese of the Supergirl movie, within, within that storyline, When, when the killing happens, did it feel earned? Did it feel like this, the story had built to it and it was an appropriate character move? Or did it feel kind of cheap and off the shelf? Like, how did you— I know that you received it badly because you knew an alternate ending to the similar story, but from, from within the story itself, did it make a kind of story sense?

It, it did. I mean, on some level, like, I don't know any of us watching it because because many of us felt like, you know, "Yeah, I'm glad she killed that guy. He was awful," you know? No loss in the world for that to happen. But I do think it probably was earned in the film. What was hard about it though was Kara trying so desperately hard to save the innocence of this young girl who wanted revenge so badly. And teaching her this lesson that revenge is not going to be satisfying for you. It's not going to help. In fact, it's going to scar you. And making a tearful plea to spare this villain's life to her, but then for her to walk up and, you know, again, it's almost like that Hawkgirl moment, "Well, I'm not my cousin," you know, and then cutting off his head or however the thing goes. It just seemed like such a misstep. Opportunity for me. Again, I just— I'm going to go back to Mark Waid's phrase. It's not a documentary. It didn't have to go that way. And in fact, there is a source material where there was a different ending that could have happened. And I would just love to see what that happens. But I think it's a risk. I think you're right. I think it's a risk for studios in the same way that Avengers, um, not Endgame, the one before Infinity War. Infinity War. Um, the— that we— I was talking about that with somebody this morning. I said, you know, the thing was so interesting about that movie and why a lot of people didn't like it is the good guys didn't win in the end. In fact, it was a defeat, and you had to wait an entire year before you actually got this, the rest of the story. And And I said to the people I was talking to, I said, but you know what? That's what life feels like. It does feel like the good guys don't win. And it does feel like the bad guy just did what the bad guy wanted to do. And nobody could stop him no matter how hard they were fighting. And then I said, but the thing, if we're going to talk about a Christian narrative, which I know the Avengers is not necessarily that. But the gospel is not gospel if it ends on a bad note. You know, if it's bad news, the word gospel literally means good news.

Yeah.

So it might just mean the story's not over yet, you know? And so, and it's interesting that even, you know, you had to wait a year for that final conclusion and how satisfying that was a year later to wait and wonder, like, what are they going to do now? The Avengers lost, the bad guys The bad guy won the day. But I think that was a real risk for them to kind of take. Like, people maybe would have said, this is dumb. I'm not coming back to this franchise. The good guys didn't win in the end. But I think it was compelling because they didn't win and everybody wanted to know what was next. So I'd love to see more people take risks with endings that don't make sense to our, you know, regular narrative that we have, taking a different tack and seeing like, okay, I wonder if we just, you know, pulled the rug out from underneath. This is the ending you're expecting. And it ended up, you know, to me, that it would be a much more compelling way to tell a story.

I've got like 4 thoughts.

Yeah, sure. That's great.

First of all, anybody, anybody who is frustrated by the ending of Avengers: Infinity War, my advice, if, if that is your sensibility, never watch world cinema, only watch American movies, because French movies, Asian movies, etc., you're gonna find a whole bunch of movies that have disastrous endings that are really gonna disappoint you. So that's, that's one piece, like, just keep yourself in your bubble because you'll be happier. But the other thing that really strikes me is if we go back through the history of comics to the Hays Code and the Comics Code Authority, authority. Part of that history is that, you know, when, when comics were first hitting the stands, there was a kind of moral outrage over them because they would tell lascivious stories. And part of the, part of the Hays Code and the Comics Code, uh, that was there were— they were put in place to ensure that the bad guys never won. Won, and that we would never see evil profiting and triumphing. And so in one sense, the end of Infinity War is a violation of the Comics Code Authority. It's a violation in that, but it does it not because it wants to glorify evil, but it does it because exactly as you said, it wants to set up that feeling of the ultimate triumph that comes in the next movie. And so it's like This is my third thought. It's like the ending, the historical ending of the Gospel of Mark versus the ending of the Gospel of John. Historical ending of the Gospel of Mark is Jesus is crucified and everybody runs away. And then there later there's an, there's an ending appended to Mark. And if you go into a Bible that has any kind of apparatus that will sort of show this to you, it'll, it'll explain this later ending was added which talks about the resurrection, but in the earliest versions of Mark that we have, there is no resurrection. It is, if you will, an Infinity War moment where, you know, if you will, evil triumphs. And you go then to a more elaborate and narrative gospel like the Gospel of John, and you get then this full exploration of what happens not only after the crucifixion, but in— but for weeks and months after the resurrection, you get this sort of notion of what the world can be. And so we have this kind of— this choice, just like we have the choice about how we tell the stories of our heroic and villainous characters, we also have the choice of where to end the story. And I, like you, I really appreciate the bold bold and courageous decision to end Infinity War at the darkest point, the— where everything is lost, and to start Endgame showing the consequences of that. And, and so again, if we— this is my, my, my fourth and final point— if we want then to fold that back into what might be happening with James Gunn as a filmmaker here Kara Durell is now at a low point because even though she was able to convince somebody else not to do the thing that would take their innocence, her innocence has been lost at this moment, or at least from the way that she's thinking about things, she has done the irredeemable thing and she has done it now probably thinking that she has nowhere to go from here. And so part of my, again, my hope in the storytelling is that that sets up the possibility of real redemptive forgiveness and love coming from the only family member that she has, and the person that she would think would be most likely to judge her, instead to find a way, a path to offer her kind of sanctuary back into the family, to use your language from earlier, that there is no act that can be, uh, that you can't be redeemed from. And so in that sense, Even though the villain character is not redeemed, she has in some way taken the place of the villain character, and her redemption might serve the narrative point that this— that, that was there in the graphic novel served by the villain. Now, we haven't seen that movie yet. We don't know what's coming. We're just talking about hopeful things. But listeners, this is the power of storytelling, and every single one of us gets involved in storytelling. And so as you are telling your stories and as you are involved in storytelling in your world, think about exactly what we've been talking about, the choices that are being made, particularly when you're not telling stories about actual events that have happened, but instead stories where you have some kind of control over the characters and the outcomes. There are real moral consequences to simply falling into the trap of saying death or killing solves everything. And if we can make better choices as storytellers, maybe we can learn to make better choices in real life as well.

Indeed. Well, I also wanted to— well, I'm thinking along this line about villains and, you know, what I would hope in the writing It is possible to tell compelling stories about villains who do have a redemption arc. And as bad as Lex Luthor was in the first James Gunn movie that we see, Mark Waid also wrote a really great, I think it was a 3-part story for the DC's Black Label line that they have, which is supposed to be a little more outside of the DC Comics norm, sometimes a little more gritty and dark. This one wasn't necessarily gritty or dark like that. It. Um, but I believe it was called The Last Days of Lex Luthor, I think is what the, the name of it was. And, um, it, it is very interesting because I feel like in that story, Luthor is every bit as evil and unlikable as he is in the James Gunn movie, with the difference being that, uh, Superman not giving up on him makes a difference in his life. And so as he is, is going through what appears to be— it's literally like kind of an imaginary story about Lex Luthor's dying. Um, I won't give any spoilers away on that. I've given enough spoilers today. But I would recommend people check it out because Mark Waid is not afraid to challenge us in our thinking about heroes and villains, I think. And I appreciate that he's someone— and, and I know, uh, he— Mark Waid has said a number of times that he, he's not really a person of any particular spirituality at all. I, I think I would disagree. I think we all a spirituality, whether it is, uh, something we acknowledge or not. Um, but I, I feel like the places where, uh, what I define spirituality as is where a person finds meaning, value, purpose, connection, and transcendence. Where Mark Waid seems to find those things are in, uh, creating a room for villains that can be redeemed, that you could have an imagination that would turn enemies into someday maybe they could actually be friends, you know. And, and I'm I think we, we need that kind of storytelling in our world today because sometimes it feels like evil keeps winning, you know, and, and sometimes it feels like the villains keep having the upper hand. Um, but I, as a person, I want to live like in the world I always want to hold out hope. That's not the end of the story. It can't be the end of the story. Yeah, there are days when it looks dark. Sometimes it looks like the end of Infinity War, but hold on, that's not the end of the story, you know. Um, you may have to wander in the desert for 40 more years before, uh, before the story changes. Sometimes it takes a while, um, but hold out that hope. There is my favorite definition of hope is anticipated joy. And so I, I love that. I think that might have been Donald Capps who coined that phrase. And as a chaplain, um, if I was Supergirl's chaplain, let me put it this way, um, and she had confessed to me all that had happened in her life, I think I would walk in and hopefully not be judgmental as much as just hear her story for what it is and give her room to be able to tell it with all the trauma and the difficulty and, um, everything that she had been through, knowing I understand why she made this choice. This is a, a person who has had a difficult life and it's very hard, and I can't judge her for the choices that she's made, but I can hopefully hold out hope to something better, you know, down the road, which is what I hope these stories help us aspire to along the way. So, well, David, this has been a really great conversation. I've enjoyed talking with you, and I knew it was going to be good even though you hadn't seen the movie or read the book, just because I know you. But anything that you'd like to add before we go into our short reflection that we usually end the show on?

I'm just really grateful that you went where you went with the topic today. I think a lot of kind of podcasts about comic books and comic book movies would ask a different set of questions and would put the evaluation of the film on a different set of metrics. And I think I think the idea that Superman holds out for us not just a vision of powerful violence but a vision of powerful redemption and hope, that to me is what keeps me coming back to these stories again and again. And as you and I have discussed at several points during, you know, the episodes of this podcast, it really is what gets me choked up when I think about this as a character. Like, the, the singular nature of what Superman embodies is different than the strongest guy in the room that can beat up anybody. It's, it's the strongest guy in the room that can beat up anybody and chooses to go about solving problems in a vastly different way. Yeah. And, and chooses to try and find a way to move towards and to bring it back to a Catholic thing, what the late Cardinal Bernadin would say, a culture of life, and a situation where the wholeness of life can be honored. And that to me, you know, we've been talking about trying to solve problems with some other means than violence and hoping that eventually those who are our enemies will maybe not become our close friends, but will at at least change in such a way that they can say, I'm sorry that I hurt you, and I want to try and make amends as I can. Fundamentally, that's what politics is supposed to be. You know, when, when we're doing it right, we're not, uh, we're not sports teams winning on the field. We're human beings working things out so that everybody gets a better life. And, and so when I look to Superman, I don't just see, uh, a great, uh, hero who can fly. I see exactly what you've been describing, an inspiration to be a person and to be a better citizen and a better neighbor. Because if, if Superman can do it, maybe I can do it too. And so those are just my kind of final thoughts here and just how grateful I am always for your friendship and for the invitation to be part of these conversations. I really love talking to you about this stuff, Rick.

Well, same here. And I'm so grateful that we have a chance to do this together. I always learn a lot from you, and I very much value what you think about things. You often take me down roads I didn't expect to go down, and I'm grateful for that because we can all get a home blindness at times, you know, like we just want to keep seeing the same thing. But I think, you know, today, just some closing thoughts as I move into our reflection. In the end, I do think that every story we tell, every act of justice, you know, it kind of shows what we believe is possible, you know, for humanity. And we're dealing with some pretty deep questions, you know, can people change, you know, can mercy coexist while still still providing accountability, you know. Um, is hope naive, or is it one of the bravest things that we can actually choose, you know? Um, so because in the end, like, the question isn't, um, whether Superman— or in this case Supergirl, as we've been talking about— whether or not they live up to these ideals. I think it actually is confronting us with the question of whether we are living up, you know, to these ideals. We're using these stories to tell stories about us. So as we end this time together today, we usually, if you're new to the show, we usually end with a closing reflection. And so as we bring this episode to a close, we just want to invite you, the listener, into a moment of reflection wherever you are, in your car or on a walk. Maybe you're doing the dishes. Just invite you just right now you have permission just to take a deep breath and let yourself pause, even if it's just for a few seconds. Or maybe you just need to pause the podcast and just pause and ask yourself, where did something stir in me today? Was there a line, a question, a story that made me think more deeply about my life, my purpose, my wounds, or even my calling? And what part of the Superman or Supergirl story that we've talked about today, what part of it feels closest to my own? What can that teach me about my humanity? And what might be happening in that stirring? Is it God moving? Is there something deeply moving within you? Is there something that you're being invited into that maybe you've not noticed before? And so we don't want you to rush to answer. You don't have to figure it out, just notice it. And as you go, may you walk with curiosity, with courage, and compassion. And may you remember, sometimes even the stories we think are just fantasy can wake us up to the most sacred truths. So until next time, thank you for listening, and keep looking up.