Abe Lincoln as a superhero? As silly as the idea might seem, it has some deep roots in American mythology and popular culture.
“Americans, coming from a revolutionary tradition, have had to invent or discover new national myths and legends,” observed historian Thomas Turner. “The American Revolution provided materials for new myths and legends: the Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, John Smith, and Pocahontas.
“In addition, several of the founding fathers were deified, especially George Washington, whose aura rivaled that of Zeus on Mount Olympus. However, Washington was not always an entirely satisfactory folk-myth figure, since his perceived Olympian qualities made him a man who could be admired and worshipped from afar, but was not approachable.”
“Americans were thus waiting for a folk hero accessible to the common man, and Abraham Lincoln admirably filled the bill. Born in a log cabin in humble circumstances, he rose to the highest office in the land, saved the Union, freed the slaves, and was struck down at the height of his success by the assassin John Wilkes Booth. This is certainly the stuff of which legends are made.”
“People think, ‘We really need a man of action to lift us out of the doldrums,’ ”said art historian Mark Pohlad. “(Lincoln) was living in the most violent time our country has known.”
Turner noted that the force of such myth-making “…sanitized and prettified Lincoln.”
“A combination of both Washington and Christ, he became the demigod whose career paralleled those of the heroes of classical mythology. At the same time, however, another equally mythical Lincoln was portrayed — a western hero in the mold of Davy Crockett or Paul Bunyan.”
In Marvel Comics’ The Fourth Man (Amazing Adventures 6, Nov. 1961), scripter Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko gave us a guardian angel Lincoln in the form of a park statue.
Every day, a kindly old man feeds the birds that flock around the statue. When he is assaulted by two thugs, the outraged statue gives them a lesson in manners in the form of a sound beating.
Police can’t figure out what the heck happened here, and the smiling old gent gives them little help.
The story fits right in with the “hidden defender” theme that pops up in so many of Steve Ditko’s stories. Unheralded and unrecognized by the people he protects, the hidden defender is some ordinary-looking person or object that has access to strange powers that enable it to protect the innocent from various threats.
The Japanese Daimajin film trilogy, released five years later, would have a similar theme.
Lincoln’s mythic aspects have been irresistible to comic book writers.
In Fred Perry’s Time Lincoln series, for example, the Great Emancipator is whisked away on the night of his assassination to fight for the history of humanity.
The Invincible series includes a Lincoln who faked his death before reappearing years later as the superhero Immortal. Captain Kirk fought alongside Lincoln in Star Trek. And it is Lincoln’s face, after all, that has adorned the giant penny in the Batcave for many decades.
Even the thoroughly evil Lex Luthor is not unmoved by the myth.
In Superboy 85 (Dec. 1960), Luthor inadvertently prevents the time-traveling Boy of Steel from averting Lincoln’s assassination.
“I’m responsible for many crimes, but this is the worst of all!” Luthor thinks. “Lincoln’s blood is on my hands… I’m sorry… sorry… sorry…”
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