With Great Chutzpah Comes Great Responsibility: TOP FOUR NEUROTIC SUPERHEROES!


Over the past 2,000 years, Jews have accumulated more stereotypes than comics have accumulated reboots.  Jews are viewed as liberal socialists by half of society and money hoarding capitalist pigs by the other half.  We are big-nosed bald bankers who are to blame for every single negative event in the history of the world.  I am really impressed with the amount of credit people give us.  We are blamed for so much crap.  Anti-Semites must think we are so much smarter than them to be able to control so much!

Stereotypes are particularly damaging because your avoidance of them only confirms their influence.  I grew up so paranoid of being called Jewish slurs or hearing bad Jew jokes, I made it my mission to never be a stereotype.

Whether or not any of the Jewish stereotypes are true, I fit many stereotypes and am no longer willing to let others’ ignorance define what I am allowed to be.  With that said, I am proud to be a wonderfully neurotic Jew.

There are many ways my anxiety has benefited my life:
– I am a good organizer who obsesses over arranging every little detail of my life.
– I call my awesome mom and dad daily because they may not be here forever.
– I am a rational person who constantly questions everything.
– I have a healthy paranoia of the entire universe.
– I use my great sense of Jewish guilt to inspire me to do amazing things in the spirit of self-loathing.

Today’s column spotlights the TOP FOUR NEUROTIC HEROES!  Let’s appreciate the heroes that wear masks to hide their secret identities (and keep the germs out).  We are celebrating the stars that stay up all night, every night fighting crime (because if they sleep someone might die).   Let’s give thanks to the quasi-brave men and women who have panic attacks every time they are not battling villains, who believe that when their friends are nice to them it is because they are being mind-controlled by their arch-enemies, and who plan out their every move predicting they will mess up.  Whether Jewish or not, these are my neurotically beautiful brothers and sisters.

Peter Parker

Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, is a dark-haired geek with glasses who is constantly kvetching.  He worries that his family cannot make enough money to survive, that he cannot protect his love ones, that if he is not always fighting crime someone will die, that if he is always fighting crime someone will die…  this article will be waaaaay too long if I write down everything Parker worries about.

Parker became a hero because of his greatest asset- his guilt, which motivates him to do incredible things.  With great guilt comes great heroics!  Parker is very aware of every single little thing he has ever screwed up and he is constantly trying to make amends.

The Larry David or Woody Allen of crime fighting, Parker shows his suffering through his dry sense of humor.

A very paranoid character, Parker has learned not to trust the society that vilifies him for his good deeds.  He does not allow the media to influence his morals- instead Parker uses his neurotic impulses as his true spider-senses that tell him what is right and wrong.

Parker is the epitome of the “nice Jewish boy” stereotype, I’m pretty sure he calls his aunt at least 20-30 times a day… just to make sure she is alright.

Bruce Banner

Bruce Banner is a neurotic mess who is always paranoid that he will lose control and let the meshugenah out.   He constantly fears becoming the klutzy golem living within himself.  Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, author of Up, Up, and Oy Vey: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped The Comic Book Superhero, explains that in Judaism, “According to the Talmud, people are born with two opposing impulses: the yetzer hatov, the impulse to do good, and the yetzer harah, the impulse to do evil… The yetzer harah is not completely evil but can be depicted as the selfish impulse.”  It is up to each individual to learn how to balance these impulses.  The Hulk persona is the lower animalistic urges gone wild.  So each Jew, like Banner, has to constantly battle their lower urges.

Like the Frankenstein monster (who was based on the Jewish character the golem), society often wrongly attacks and persecutes Banner, causing him to become an isolated paranoid wanderer.  No one understands Banner: not the government, not the girl he loves and not his own teammates.

Banner is distrustful and restless at all times.  His character is all about emotion.  He is a man whose emotions are so large he is constantly repressing them.

Scott Summers

Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, was Professor Xavier’s chosen student.  Summers has always been burdened with leading the X-Men; often questioning if he could be the leader that the mutant race needs.  One of the most paranoid characters in comics, he is justified in his fears due to societies constant persecution of his people.

After taking complete leadership from Xavier, Summers moves the X-Men to an isolated island off the coast of San Francisco which he named Utopia.  He welcomes all mutants, regardless of their past, to find refuge on Utopia with him as their leader.  A control freak– Summers’ Utopia was a great success for many years, due to his incredible planning skills and obsession with every little detail.

The more Summers isolated himself and his people from the general population, the more non-mutants feared him.  After Avengers VS X-Men, Utopia was destroyed and Summers went further into hiding.  Today, he is more paranoid than ever.  Living with guilt from killing his mentor while he was possessed by the Phoenix, Summers carries the weight of preparing the next generation of mutants to live in a world that fears and hates them.

Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones is the Susie Essman of comics; her curse words are fuckin’ poetic.  Jones is a magnificent nut who is overly critical of herself and all of society.  She originally gave up being a super-heroine because she felt she was not good enough.  When Jones looks at the future, she can immediately imagine every worst case scenario.  Panic mode is the only mode she knows, and worrying is her main hobby.  Although she has grown more calm and collected, for many years she didn’t seem to sleep, only to meltdown and pass out.

With all her neurotic tendencies, Jones also fits the Jewish stereotype of having family at the essence of her character.  Her marriage to Luke Cage is one of the only positive portrayals of marriage and parenthood in all of comics.

 

Honorable mention: It should be noted that nearly all of the characters in the Marvel universe created after 1961 are essentially neurotic Jews.

Who would you guys and gals put on the list?  Who are your favorite paranoid and awesomely anxious heroes and heroines?

See you guys in two weeks for another exciting issue of “With Great Chutzpah Comes Great Responsibility”!

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Jay Deitcher, LMSW(@mrdeitcher) is an educator on comic history and runs successful Free Comic Book Day events yearly.  You can see a listing of his incredible articles at JayDeitcher.com.