Are Marvel superheroes religious?

Portraying religion must be tricky in the Marvel Universe. Since so many citizens have seen the existence of advanced science, magic and gods, would people be more or less likely to follow mainstream religions? Mention of a superhero’s faith doesn’t come up all that commonly in comics but there are a few superheroes that practice particular faiths.

To start, heroes like Thor and Hercules are part of the Norse and Greek pantheons respectively and thus basically worship their families. There are not a lot of regular Marvel citizens who appear to follow either of those religions. There was once a story in Thor that dealt with the death of the last Viking follower, which is a problem for the Asgardians, who feed off the worship of their followers. The people of the Marvel Universe are very skeptical of not only superheroes and especially divine superheroes. Most believe Thor and Hercules are not gods but just powerful people who are a bit wacky and egotistical and style themselves as gods.

Marvel sometimes tapdances around the divinity of the Norse and Greek gods, maybe so as not to offend religious readers. Even beings like Odin have acknowledged there is a power greater than the Asgardians and the comics sometimes portray these beings, They Who Sit Above in Shadow, who rule the Norse pantheon. There is also a theory that the Asgardians have no divine connection but are shape-shifting aliens who took on the shape of gods because the ancient Scandinavians believed they were.

Some in Africa worshiped Storm as a goddess since they could not explain her ability to control the weather. Ororo let it go to her head when she was young but now does not believe she is a goddess. She has consistently expressed spiritual beliefs, vaguely shown as respect for Mother Earth and invoking a “Bright Lady,” but I don’t know if that’s part of an African religion or just an expression.

There are a few acknowledged Christians and Catholics in comics. Nightcrawler is a devout Catholic who was studying to be a priest for awhile. The New Mutants Sunspot and Karma are Catholic, as is the Mexican-American Firebird, who believes her power to have a divine origin. I think Daredevil is also Catholic, as his mother left the family to become a nun. Wolfsbane, another New Mutant, was raised as a fundamentalist in Scotland by a reverend who told her that her powers marked her as evil.

There are several Jewish superheroes in Marvel. Kitty Pryde has consistently worn a Star of David necklace since her first appearance. That came in handy when Dracula tried to strangle Kitty and the religious power of her Star of David repelled him (at least in Marvel, you can only repel vampires with religious iconography that you actually follow, so only a Christian can hold up a cross and get any results). Ben Grimm, the Thing, is Jewish but the comics did not reveal this for at least 30 years after his first appearance.

Of course, there is Magneto, who has survived the Holocaust. He had no personal history for a long time after his first appearance and Chris Claremont gradually worked the Holocaust into his backstory until he and Kitty bonded after attending a Holocaust memorial. It was not until recent years that they confirmed Magneto as Jewish; for a long time, he was ambiguously noted as Roma. I guess this means Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are also at least part Jewish (their mother is long dead and I don’t know her origin).

The only Muslim superhero I know is the new Ms. Marvel, a Pakistani-American teenager.  

I don’t know if there are any atheists in the Marvel Universe. Plenty of superheroes have never really declared spiritual beliefs but I don’t know of anyone who has blatantly said, “I am an atheist.”

There is one Satanist, Daimon Hellstrom, known as the Son of Satan. He is actually the son of Satan. Well, Marvel walked this back and said his father is just a demon, a stand-in for the Devil like Mephisto. But in the original Defenders story in the early ‘80s, his father was just plain ol’ Satan.

Who knows what Doctor Strange believes in. The guy has spoken to Eternity, the embodiment of the universe, so the Abrahamic religions might seem a little boring to him.