Iron Man

It Always Starts With a Thought

I had the thought the other day that I'm surprised I haven't read before in a psychological article. It was about Superheroes and secret identities. We'll get to that in a minute.

If you think about it, a lot of men love superheroes. Look at the box office success of some of the classic superhero movies! Spiderman, Batman, Superman... (well, maybe not Superman... that franchise sucks.)

The point is, most superhero movies have big box office numbers, and when they're done right they are a license to print money. Most of the reoccurring ticket sales aren't women, they're men. Why is that?

I'd venture a guess that the first line of thinking could be stolen directly from the book Wild at Heart. Men have a desire to feel powerful, we want to identify with the respect and power that one might show a super-human. We want to win the damsel in distress, we want to defeat the evil bad guy and be a hero in the eyes of the masses. No doubt superhero movies appeal to the masculine need God created within. However, I think that beyond this analysis there may be a more sinister meaning behind our love for superheroes... one that approaches the dark part of our humanity which we don't often publicly discuss.

Secrets

Before I present my case, let me explore another fact about superheroes. Most superheroes have a secret identity. Batman is secretly millionaire play boy Bruce Wayne, Spiderman is secretly timid college aged photographer Peter Parker, even the nearly indestructible Superman leads a normal and seemingly pathetic double life as the dorky newspaper reporter Clark Kent.

These secret identities lend a lot to the plot of comics and movies because it is in these roles that we find ourselves identifying with the characters who go beyond our normal human capacity when wearing spandex and capes. It's the human weaknesses they display (from romantic failures and insecurities to a difficulty balancing work and life) that help us to see something of ourselves in the heroes we love.

In our normal human lives we too have a secret identity, but our secret isn't just the weakness of our humanity underneath a super exterior... it's the weakness of our flesh nature which causes us to stumble in darkness. We project the secrets in ourselves onto the archetype of the superhero because, like them, we're afraid what will happen if our true identity is ever revealed. I'm talking about sin. Let's look at a passage of scripture for a moment from 1 John 1:5-7

Living in the Light

⁵ This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. ⁶ So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. ⁷ But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

As sinners we want to present ourselves as the superhero, but hide our secret (sinful) identity from the world. Our secret identity is the truer version of ourselves yet it's only the heroic facade we choose to share with other people. We live in darkness and we don't practice the truth. According to scripture that means we are lying and cannot have fellowship with God. If you're a Christian caught in a habitual sin which you're not actively fighting, you might not have fellowship with God because you're not practicing truth.

Not Iron Man

One exception to the rule of secret identity is Iron Man (aka Tony Stark). Tony is rough around the edges and a little crude at times. What makes him unique is that when all others chose to hide themselves from the world, Tony Stark made a remarkable statement when he was asked about the identity of the Iron Man. "I... am Iron Man." With one sentence (which sounds a lot like Black Sabbath lyrics) his dichotomy of two persona's fused violently together and his world changed.

That's why I love Iron Man. He could have lived the double life but he chose to tell the truth, despite the chaos that it caused his life.

I wish I was more like Tony Stark years ago. I lived the double life for a long time. I kept my sin secret and had no Christian accountability. I presented my Superhero side to the world but kept my true identity a secret. Sin is as thinly veiled as the pair of glasses and a button-up shirt disguise Clark Kent uses to hide the fact that he is Superman. When we live a secret life we work hard to keep our secret identity, but we work in vain.

When we step out like Tony Stark and declare to the world who we really are, we're faced with a choice. We have to choose who we follow, God and our spiritual nature or Satan and our flesh nature. Every comic that runs long enough eventually features a plot line where the secret identity is exposed and life becomes more chaotic. Our secret selves will eventually show whether we choose to unmask them or not, we may as well man up and face them now.

My life was really hard when I started being real, it still is. I had a strong consistency issue and it took me a long time to get to the point where I feel like one person no matter where I am. Today I can proudly say that who I am around any one person is the same as around any other person. Hopefully any of my friends can attest to that and some might comment on some pretty radical changes in the way I behave. I am sad that I had a secret identity, but I am happy to be whole. I still struggle with sin, but I don't hide it any more.

While I may get a few dents in my armor living in the light, sin has lost it's power... I've been set free. I can proudly look the world in the face and declare that "I am Iron Man". Now I just have to get ready for the chaos and adventure that's surely next.