How To Awaken the Marvel Knights

The power of a word…it’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? The English language is filled with unassuming words we use day over day, week over week, and year over year. Words seem simple enough, yet words are a very curious thing. When one looks into the etymology of a simple common word we use, the proverbial rabbit hole begins to open wider and grow deeper, and one begins the descent into madness. At least for me.

For example, last year I reviewed the word “paradise.” Paradise, for example, is an easy enough word for us English speakers. When we hear the word “paradise,” each one of us has a thought, vision, or symbol attached to it; we then project this idea on to the context that the word used. “Wouldn’t it be nice to live in paradise?” Or “can I move to Paradise with my 21 Litecoins?” conjures up imagery that equates to bliss.

Yet paradise isn’t quite that modest; if one looks at that words origin, we see the idea of the word relating to “around” a “heap;” a place heaped around a fortification or an enclosure. It is a place that is walled in, surrounded perhaps by mud, or a fence, or armed guards, or some other type of barricade for some unknown reason. The word “paradise” isn’t so glamorous, desirable, or appealing suddenly. As I mentioned before, it’s a curious thing. And for those keeping score, no, my 21 Litecoins won't get me out of Wisconsin winters.

Paradise lost aside (bad pun, I know), I excitedly went to my local comic shop earlier this week and purchased issue number 1 of Marvel Knights 20th, written by none other than Donny Cates. The premise of the book is as such (and familiar to us DC Rebirth fans): someone or something in the Marvel Universe has erased the memories of the world’s greatest superheroes. Some agent aware of this change in Marvel Universe’s collective unconscious has chosen to commune with Dr. Bruce Banner. Banner is then given a list of names by this agent that he must “wake up.”

His first hero he must convert? Detective Frank Castle, aka the Punisher. The Punisher then tracks down a lost Matt Murdock at a cemetery, cracks him on the side of the head when Murdock attempts to flee, and the Daredevil becomes self-aware. The mystery is now in place, and we see Daredevil realizing the world is no longer the same world he existed in. Foggy doesn’t recognize him, the Fantastic Four do not recognize him, the Kingpin doesn't recognize him, and Karen Page is possibly alive and well. The cause of this illusion and fake reality? Cates hints that Dr. Doom and the “machine with the dragon around it” are to blame.

The key word of the issue is to "wake up" or to become “awake.” Something is being channeled into Banner’s consciousness that is making him aware that he needs to “awaken” the Marvel superheroes. Heroes that were currently “asleep” and have since been awakened include Frank Castle, Logan, Steve Rogers, and of course Matt Murdock.

All that said, the word awake is a very common and frequently used word in today’s media and research community. It fits in with the whole “should I take the blue pill or red pill” conversation people have been ruing about since the motion picture classic The Matrix. Are you awake? Or are you still asleep? Do you want to be awake? Or do you want to continue to live life asleep? More importantly, is one willing to take on the responsibility of becoming awake? All of these are age old questions that go far back into our ancestries.

The etymology of the word is interesting. The word “awake” is a derivative of the Old English word “wacian.” The word wacian, from what I can find in old books on the Google Machine, is representative of the following ideas:

• To watch
• To wake
• To rouse from sleep
• To excite
• To watch a corpse
• To move, or stir, or to be in a state of vigilance or action
• To revive from a state of lethargy or death
• To be awake

Awake is also considered to be related the eye. A wink of the eye, for example, is a unique use of the eye to convey some type of meaning to the observer. A wink can possibly be thought to be inclusive of awake; to be awake means that one is using the eye to see reality. The machine with the dragon around it may have 99% of the population in a state of stupor and death, but 1% of that same population is indeed awake, and is happy to give you a knowing sly wink of the eye to let you know they exist in a state of gnosis.

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This series started very strong; I could go into the Gnostic symbolism that is screaming from the printed page, but at this point that type of story archetype is everywhere in current comic books. And I love it. Cates has a wonderful grasp of mythology; his depiction of the dark god Knull, Knull’s encounter with the Sentinels, and Knull’s fall from the Light in his Venom series was quite possibly the most epic mythological sequence I’ve read this year in comic books. Where Cates and company take the blind, awakened Daredevil in this series is hopefully just, if not more, amazing in this Marvel Knights book. And what the newly found gnosis means to the rest of the fake reality these heroes exist in? I have no idea, but am excited to see where the series goes.

Who said comic books are just for kids? I'd recommend this book to everyone. Thanks again for reading, and please feel free to drop a line and feedback.