Thread by @CaseAiken

Fuck it. Just found out this existed and it 100% brightened my sad week. Special thanks to @CaptMarvelology for sharing this image from the Scooby Doo comics. So without further ado, today's #supermananalogue (s) are Norville "Shaggy" Rogers and Velma Dinkley!

@CaptMarvelology These two of course hail from the enduring property "Scooby Doo" from the animation juggernaut Hanna-Barbera. It originated as a show about a group of late teens/early 20 somethings who solved mysteries with vague counter culture overtones that were kept kid friendly.

@CaptMarvelology There have been multiple iterations and adaptations. For example, growing up in the 80s, my first exposure was to "A Pup Named Scooby Doo". That series was a little more meta, with a character even named "Red Herring".

@CaptMarvelology I can't say it's ever been my favorite property, but who can say no to a mystery solving canine and his crazy companions? And goddamn is it a well known franchise. Definitely one of those where its reputation overshadows any individual interpretation.

@CaptMarvelology Shaggy was the theoretical owner of the titular Great Dane. He was kind of a goofball who was noted as fearful of pretty much everything. Also, maybe he ate dog food or maybe he just shared his edibles with his dog.

@CaptMarvelology Meanwhile, Velma was the brains of the team (and the stone cold fox of the team if you have any taste). When she discovered a clue, she'd cry out "Jinkies!" Meanwhile, Shaggy had his own catchphrase of "Zoinks!" when he was surprised.

@CaptMarvelology Anyway, so apparently in this story, the duo meet the wizard, SHAZAM, from... Shazam (or as I prefer to call it: Captain Marvel) and are granted their own magic words based off their respective catchphrases. As with the word "Shazam", theirs are acronyms for the names of deities.

@CaptMarvelology But where do those powers come from? Some are pretty common figures of mythology, while others are a little more obscure...

@CaptMarvelology Zeus is pretty well known. He was the king of the Classical Grecian pantheon. A god of Thunder and the Sky. He's also the only one on this list that is part of a standard Shazam acronym. He's associated with the Roman god, Jupiter/Jove. Power makes sense

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeus

@CaptMarvelology Odin is the king of the Norse pantheon (as we all know from the Thor movies). He's most known as a god of messengers and tricks, making him comparable to Hermes/Mercury. His ravens gather all the secrets of the world and whisper them to him, so: knowledge

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin

@CaptMarvelology Icarus is a weird fucking choice for flight given how his is mostly known as a cautionary tale. He was a mortal who crafted wings of feather and wax to escape captivity. The boy flew too close to the sun and the wax melted causing him to fall to his death

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus

@CaptMarvelology Neptune was the Roman god of the Sea, so depth is pretty on the nose. He's the parallel to Poseidon, who was actually the king of the Bronze Age Greek Pantheon.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune_(…

@CaptMarvelology Kronos was the king of the Titans, the progenitors of the Greek Gods. He was the son of heaven and earth. His uprising allowed life to flourish, rather than literally being crushed by his father fucking his mother. Both gross and an interesting metaphor!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronus

@CaptMarvelology Sisyphus is another mortal of note. In this case he is best known for his existence after death, constantly pushing a boulder up a hill that keeps slipping. His persistence his virtue.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

@CaptMarvelology Incidentally, I bring up this myth ALL THE TIME in life. It's even represented on the whiteboard in my office.

@CaptMarvelology Juno is the Roman equivalent of Hera. In the times when the respective societies were more matriarchal, she was the absolute ruler of the gods, though relegated to merely being the number 2 by marriage in patriarchal eras. A Queen with a dominion always

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(myt…

@CaptMarvelology Isis is an Egyptian goddess who I can't summarize in a tweet, but suffice it to say "Magic" describes her. She AT LEAST dates back to the Old Kingdom (and might be older because she might be the Summerian Ishtar) and persisted until Christianity arose.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis

@CaptMarvelology Nemesis is a figure of divine retribution for affronts to the gods. "Justice" is a solid description here.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis

@CaptMarvelology Ishtar... Alright, so Ishtar is this badass Mesopotamian love and war deity that disseminates into all these other pantheons. I mentioned Isis, but also Aphrodite, so love is appropriate.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna

@CaptMarvelology Electra is thought of as the female equivalent of Oedipus as a result of the complexes named after them, but rather than being a father fucker, her love was as a vengeful daughter following her father's murder. Courage works given the danger of the act.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra

@CaptMarvelology Sibyl wasn't actually a singular entity, but a series of oracles (so the reason "Foresight" is the virtue here is pretty fucking obvious). Oracles were, of course, human vessels for prophetic (potentially drug induced) vision.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibyl

@CaptMarvelology It's safe to assume that Shaggy and Velma were "roughly" comparable in power to the classic Shazamily. Black Adam and Mary Marvel both had their own super sextets, so we've seen similar power levels coming from a variety of divine sources. Anyway, this was an unexpected delight!

Please unroll @threadreaderapp