Although I saw Iron Man 2 this past weekend, I had completely missed the significance of a line spoken by the villain, Russian super-genius Ivan Vanko, until Eve Tushnet pointed it out. Vanko says that it’s not necessary to kill Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) to make him ineffectual:
If you make God bleed, then people will not believe in him.
As Tushnet says, this is “the least scientifically-accurate line from Iron Man 2. Spoken by a Russian, no less!” Indeed, a Jew named Paul once gave the premier counter-example to Vanko’s claim:
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
By the way, Vanko likely acquired this theological conviction from watching an episode of Star Trek entitled, “The Paradise Syndrome.” After landing on an earthlike planet, Captain Kirk revives a stricken child with artificial resuscitation, causing the natives to think he is a god who has the power of resurrection. Later, the village medicine chief cuts Kirk on the hand and, seeing the blood, claims he cannot be a god by stating, “Behold a god who bleeds!”
(Also, I know this post should be titled “Vanko Theology”—or, for my fellow comic book geeks, “Blacklash Theology”—but that seemed too obscure.)
May 18th, 2010 | 9:37 am
Before Star Trek was Kipling’s The Man who Would Be King, wherein Dravot is exposed as a mere mortal when the Kafiri girl bites his hand and makes it bleed. Vanko’s line seems a well-worn literary trope.
May 18th, 2010 | 11:04 am
I, too, was going to mention “The Man Who Would Be King,” specifically, the outstanding 1975 movie version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073341/ (with Sean Connery and Michael Caine) where this scene is filled with foreboding, and then the aftermath of the terror-stricken girl’s bite.
But the idea that this represents a “well-worn” common theme in story telling surely is mistaken.
May 18th, 2010 | 11:45 am
Actually, this makes sense, from a “pagan” point of view. After all, from a mere human perspective, what kind of God bleeds and dies? This is why the story of Christ was, so says Paul, a stumbling block to the Jews and nonsense to the Gentiles. Christianity is about turning things upside down; God suffers death to conquer it.
But anyway, that has nothing to do with the movie ;)
May 18th, 2010 | 2:52 pm
well, Greek pagan. Norse pagans could cope — see Odin’s eye and Tyr’s hand.
May 18th, 2010 | 3:50 pm
More recently, don’t forget Leonidas in 300, who stood up to the allegedly divine Xerxes and said that he would show the Persians that “even a god can bleed.”
May 18th, 2010 | 4:06 pm
Ditto on L’s comment – the Star Trek episode is clearly an homage to Kipling’s story.
May 18th, 2010 | 4:15 pm
Dang. I thought I was going to get nerd cred points for recognizing the allusion to Star Trek. Instead, I lose lit cred points for not recognizing it was in Kipling. ; )
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