Super: David is Hawkeye

Let me tell you a story about a pimp. Christy, myself, and a friend were on our way to see a movie. We drove through a less than awesome neighborhood and were stopped at a red light. In the middle of broad daylight, with many people around, a fly dressed man chased a scantily clad woman through the street while hitting her with a cane. The woman was yelling for help. People on the sidewalk kept talking to each other and laughing. People in their cars locked their doors. Nobody did a single thing while this man terrorized this woman.

Super: Joshua is Wolverine

Wolverine was never one of my favorite characters from the X-Men, but he's hard not to like at least a little. He's tough as nails and always ready for a fight.  His instinct is to shoot first and ask questions later. . . or stab first in his case.  He is an independent warrior who has to learn how to play on a team when he joins up with Professor X and the X-Men.  He isn't used to following orders and his less than cool head make it difficult for him to obey.  Often this quality of Wolverine's gets the whole group into trouble.

We can be a lot like Wolverine.  Maybe we lack adamantine claws and mutant healing abilities, but we all possess his stubbornness at times.  We have our way of doing things and don't want to follow the rules or someone else's orders.  We often act without thinking things through.  Whether it's our boss, teacher, parents, or anyone else telling us what to do, we think we know better at least half of the time.  But what happens when we get this Wolverine-esque attitude with God?  What do we do when we think we know better than the Almighty?

There is a man in the Bible who fits Wolverine's description rather well.  He is a warrior through and through, solves problems with fighting first, and has a defining moment that revolves around obeying his commander.

Super: Elijah is the Flash...Kinda

The Flash is one of those Superheroes that I don't think gets a whole lot of attention.  His only real power is his incredible speed which lets him do a whole lot of things like create whirlwinds by spinning or vibrate his hand so fast he can shatter glass, steel, and the like.  The stuff he does is really kind of cool, but he tends to be eclipsed by Superman who also has super speed on top of all of his other amazing abilities.  At least the Flash is faster than Superman as shown in this clip from Smallville.

Now, when I originally planned out the Super series, I intended on relating the story of Elijah and connecting him to Flash based on the way he outruns a chariot at the end of 1 Kings 18.  But the Lord led me in a different direction with this lesson.  Instead, I'd like to focus on what happened just before that.

Super: Moses is Storm

I used to love watching the X-Men cartoon when I was a kid.  Ok, I also watched them all on Youtube when I was in college.  There was one X-Men that I always thought was cool but simultaneously never really liked.  Storm.  She was just too cool.  She grew up in Egypt and was worshiped as a goddess by a native tribe because of her incredible mutant-granted powers.

Her mutation allowed her to control the weather which sounds tiny until you realize all of the wild things she could do with it.  Controlling the wind allowed her to fly, toss enemies around like rag dolls, and even bring down aircraft.  Power over the clouds meant she could create spontaneous floods, blast her foes with lethal lightning, and blind everyone with thick fog.  Even when her enemies were unstoppable, she would blast them with arctic winds and freeze them solid.  The the X-Men had time for lunch and naps before they thought up a plan to stop the bad guy.  Storm was great.  Too great.  She was an "I win" button that made everything way too easy.

There is a man in the Bible who became that sort of legend and powerhouse to the people of God.  He too grew up in Egypt.  He too performed phenomenal miracles over nature that would cause Storm's powers to look like the magic tricks you see at a child's birthday party.  He too was an "I win" button and no situation the people ran into was unsolvable with him around.  But Moses didn't start out that way. The movies you've seen may have painted a very different picture than the truth in the Bible.  Moses actually starts off as a bit of a loser.  So what turned him into the hero we know?

Super: Samson is the Incredible Hulk

Hulk: The Engine of Destruction

If you've seen any Hulk movie or read any of the comics, you know what the Hulk does well.  SMASH!  In Marvel's Avengers, we saw this as the Hulk chased down Black Widow in SHIELD's flying fortress and ended up wrecking the whole place.  There are Hulk comics that end with the Hulk being the only living person left on earth after nuclear fallout has killed everyone else.  It's just him and the cockroaches.  There's an animated movie called Planet Hulk that starts off with Hulk being locked in a spaceship and shot into outer space because the Avengers realize the Hulk will destroy everything on earth.

When it comes to superheroes the Hulk is definitely Super but the jury is out on the hero part.  He's just as likely to make things a hundred times worse as he is to save the day.  His blinding rage and anger consume him.  That's why almost all of the Hulk's stories end in disaster.  There is a man in the Bible who fits this description.  His name is Samson.

Super: Release Your Inner Hero [Gideon]

Have you seen Captain America?  It was good, not amazing, but pretty good.  Steve Rogers starts off as this scrawny nobody.  No powers, no abilities, nothing that makes him special in any way whatsoever.  He gets jumped in the alley and needs his buddy to rescue him.  He’s so weak that he tries to join the army and they won’t let him in!  Finally, he makes it and he’s a trainwreck.  He can’t keep up.  He’s no good.

But what he does have are his convictions.  He’s got the kind of convictions that lead him to charge straight into the enemy camp all by himself at the end of the movie.  And because of those convictions, he is given great power and leads the team to victory.  The Cap's story is a lot like the story of Gideon in Judges 6-7.  You may want to read these two chapters as I'll only be sharing a few verses.