Page - 62 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/01

62 | Toufic El-Khoury www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/1, 59–74 reason has a tendency to go astray. Moreover, one of those questions, both central and universal and also intimately linked to the superhero genre’s syntax, is the question of evil, of its origins and its production in today’s world. DC COMiCs UNiVerse reVisiteD iN ANiMAteD MOVies the movies considered in this article are animated adaptations of DC Comics Universe, produced since 2006, with two, sometimes three movies per year. they are adapted from classics of the 1980s or hits from the 2000s – both decades belong to the iron Age of comics. those movies are short (around 75 minutes each), were made on a limited budget, and have a narrative fluidity and concentration that call to mind mythic narratives. More importantly, those movies are very dark: faithful to the modern comics’ syntax, they often repre- sent the end of a civilization or the world, and they mostly explore the shadowy side of every hero, not only of those, like Batman, whose dark side is the core el- ement of their persona. Despite the format, the movie’s length and the limited release (they are for the most part direct-to-video releases), or maybe because of those criteria, these movies often offer profiles of the superheroes that are more complex than those of the live-action blockbusters. these animated adaptations primarily emphasize one of the main topics of comics’ revisionist era: the sensitive question of evil’s existence and production. Partly due to its mythic roots and narrative conventions, the superhero genre revolves around that question, confronting it, trivializing it, and deconstructing it. the excesses that often burden the genre, the over-dramatization of issues and story (maintaining a sometimes improbable balance between narrative obligations and spectacular imagery9), serve to stress the question as well as the ideological and philosophical contradictions of the revisionist period. the question that the superheroes henceforth ask (a question that drives them into doubt and despair and gives their hesitations an existential dimension) is the following: if we devote our lives and our superhuman powers to the good of humankind, how can humankind still be evil? Worse, why do the only palpable results of our efforts seem to be the expansion and constant renewal of evil? American comics are strongly influenced by Christian theology. Though cre- ated by two Jewish authors (Jerry siegel and Joe schuster), both children of european immigrants, who imagined superman as an alien vainly longing for his lost homeland, the iconic superhero’s “mythology” borrows heavily from the Gospel narrative, probably in response to the general public’s cultural sensibili- ties. Movie adaptations by Bryan singer (2006) and Zack snyder (2013) clearly underline this aspect of the protagonist, representing the character as a saviour 9 see Pagello 2013, 5–6.