If you missed my first blog in the series, you can read it here!
My second-favorite Christian theme in a superhero movie comes courtesy of Wonder Woman, my favorite DCEU movie by far (though I also like Man of Steel more than most people). This movie is dripping with Christian parallels involving Jesus and his willingness to sacrifice himself for our redemption.
Forget the fact that the story of Zeus creating mankind and Ares - the god of war seeking to corrupt his father's creation - has a parallel to the story of mankind's fall as described in the book of Genesis. That could be a whole other blog on its own. The entire plot of Wonder Woman centers around the notion that Ares uses the most evil men for his bidding without the men realizing there is a battle going on that they can't see. A movie like Wonder Woman never would say this verbatim, but there is spiritual warfare around all of us, whether you believe it or not. The fight between good and evil is the oldest tale in history for a reason.
This movie is chalk full of other gold nuggets, too. Wonder Woman is constantly saying she is willing to fight for those who have no one else to fight for them. In the scene after Wonder Woman frees the small town from its year-long hostage situation, she notices Charlie (Chris Pine), the sniper soldier fighting alongside her, wasn't willing to pull the trigger when he needed to. But when she jokes about him being a shooter who can't shoot, another soldier says "Everyone is fighting their own battles." How true is that? We don't need to cast judgment on others when we don't know their whole story. Do unto others as you would have them do to you, right? And don't clean the speck out of someone's eye without first removing the plank out of your own.
Overall, though, my favorite theme is the metaphor for the story of Christ redeeming mankind. After the fall of man in Genesis, evil pervaded, and God judged. But instead of casting mankind completely aside (you could make an argument for the flood, but there is way more to it than that, and I'm not going to get into that here), God sent Jesus into our world to save us despite of all the evil mankind enabled.
The most telling moment of the movie is when Wonder Woman kills the German General whom she thought was Ares, only for her to realize that men's actions were still evil after the General's death. It wasn't a spell that Ares used to control men; instead, men were evil of their own volition. The utter shock to her that men would choose to kill so many innocent lives completely shook her. Making matters worse is when she confronts the actual Ares, who further tries to convince her that men are already evil on their own. Ares hates men, the creation of Zeus, and so he does whatever he can to corrupt them. That is exactly the behind-the-scenes battle that has been raging since the beginning of time. Lucifer's sole purpose in bringing evil and harm upon mankind is to hurt the Lord. He doesn't care which people group rules, which political party is right, or which country bombs other countries. He doesn't care. He just wants to see chaos and evil win the day. That's the battle everyone needs to fight. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age."
The best part about all this is how Wonder Woman believes that mankind is worth fighting for. Even as Ares is taunting her by saying how ugly and evil men are on their own, Wonder Woman sees through that. She has the chance to kill Ms. Poison, who created so many evil weapons that led to the death of millions. "It's not about deserve, it's what you believe. And I believe in love." That is the only attitude that will conquer evil. That is exactly what Jesus did. Mankind deserves death, but it's not about what we deserve. What's important in God's eyes in believing in his son and spreading his love to others. That's it. And it's so nice to live knowing that God is willing to fight for you, even die for you.