Yango isn’t going to go down as one of the most famous Superman supporting cast members, but he’s still technically out there, a part of the franchise, so I get to talk about him. He was a biker, a member of a group called the Outsiders, who first appeared in Jack Kirby’s run on Jimmy Olsen’s book. But I’m not here to talk about that run. I wanna talk about the time Yango and the Outsiders found religion.

This was after Kirby’s time with the character had ended, and it happened over in Lois’s book. It’s a weird issue, part of the story that revealed there was a real Morgan Edge and that the evil one was just a clone, so that we could still have the character around. Also, Lois’s sister is becoming an adrenaline junkie or something. That’s not important. What’s important is the reveal that the Outsiders just stopped deciding to be a biker gang and started a little farming community.

We’re not explicitly told why they do this. They try to make it sound like they’ve grown up, basically. One of them says “We left the world of violence, wars, greed, and fear– for the good earth. We grow our own food. We make out own clothes.”

The baddies come along (former Outsiders hired by the evil clone Edge) and try to fight the Outsiders, but all they get in response is turned cheeks and welcomes. Unable to fight against that, they run away and the comic gives us a quote from the Book of Proverbs! I’ve read a lot of Superman comics and I can’t think of another that just drops a Bible quote in a narrative caption like that. And they really do defeat the baddies that easily too. Edge had also tried to frame the Outsiders for being a “murder cult” by throwing some clonal “dead bodies” onto their land, but Superman shows up the very second the authorities find the bodies and confirms they’re not real. The Outsiders aren’t a murder cult, just a regular cult. All that’s on the same page as the Proverbs quote. The issue resolves so quickly, it’s strange.

I don’t really have any deeper thoughts beyond “This is weird, even for a Superman comic.” Yango would appear in the “Post-Crisis” continuity, but he and the Outsiders were back to their starting point as bikers. Their brush with religiosity is a thing of the past. Unless I get to do anything about it, Yango will probably only ever appear in things directly trying to homage Kirby.

A thing that fans of superheroes say a lot is that superheroes are the modern equivalent of ancient mythology. But is that so?

I’ll start it off by saying that, yes, I do consider Superman and superheroes in general to be examples of modern mythology. But I don’t think that makes them special, because I’d also say that ALL stories that have been repetitively retold over the years are our mythology. Not just the ones about colourful figures getting into fights.

Mythology is the way we, as people, use stories to explain the world around us. That may come in the form of etiological tales that explains how the world came to be as it is, but for the most part that isn’t what superheroes are doing*. But myths and stories also explain and teach us about the world as it is now, they’re the blueprint we use to build out own lives. Young people watch shows and movies about bigger kids going to high school or university and they think that’s what life is gonna be like when they get there. Adults watch a movie where some chump goes from rags to riches and they believe that lie is right around the corner for them. Someone watches an action movie and decides that the way the protagonist behaves is the way “real men” are supposed to act. We base our entire lives on the stories we tell. A large portion of my generation can quote early Simpsons like scripture because it had a quote relevant to every situation. The Simpsons are definitely mythology. What is Bugs Bunny shorts if not the tales of an El-ahrairah-esque trickster god? And yes, Superman is an example of how we feel about people with power and what they should do with that power.

Superheroes are modern myths, sure, but all of our popular culture is.

I get it, though. Really I do. Fans of superheroes have generations of embarrassment as a result of their beloved genre being mocked. Biff! Bam! Pow! Comics may not just be for kids anymore, but the scars remain. They cling to anything that gives the genre respectability. At least this isn’t as painful as when they grasp for relevance by demanding everything be dark and “mature” or whatever. The most childish kids are the ones who most loudly declare how grown up they are…

* Yes, there are things like the time in All Star Superman where Clark kinda created our universe, but I’m not counting it.