Latverian Exorcism

X-FACTOR No. 228, by Peter David (writer), Leonard Kirk (artist), Matt Milla (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer). Marvel Comics: February 2012. Page 18, Panels 5 & 6, and Page 19.

So here's a fun use of Latin that was pointed out a couple years back in one of my favorite comics review columns, Greg Burgas' What I Bought.

The villain Bloodbath (terrible name, we all agree) has possessed the corpse of one of Multiple Man's duplicates (superhero problems, am I right?), so Layla Miller exorcises the demon from the dead dupe using the following bit of Latin:

EXORCIZAMUS TE, IMMUNDUS SPIRITUS, OMNIS SATANICA POTESTAS, OMNIS INCURSIA INFERNALIS ADVERSARII, OMNIS LEGIO, OMNIS CONGREGATIO ET SECTA DIABOLICA, IN NOMINE VON FATUM . . .  U TAB OMNI INFERNALIUM SPIRITUUM POTESTATE, LAQUO, DECEPTIONE ET NEQUITIA NOS POTENTER LIBERARE, ET INCOLUMES CUSTODIRE DIGNERIS, PER VON FATUM MEDICUM NOSTRUM!

I highlighted the few words where the Layla's prayer deviates from the Latin text of the "Exorcism against Satan and apostate angels" issued by Pope Leo XIII which follows:
                                                                               
Exorcizamus te, omnis immunde spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, in nomine et virtute Domini nostri Iesu Christi . . . ut ab omni infernalium spirituum potestate, laqueo, deceptione et nequitia nos potenter liberare, et incolumes custodire digneris. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

The original Latin exorcism would begin with a recitation of some Psalms and a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, and there's over a page of text missing in the ellipsis (. . .), plus a few more psalms, a Glory Be, some liturgical responses, and a whole bunch of signs of the Cross, but the exorcism portion itself is legit, not something I would expect to see in a comic book.

So let me go through the few bold-faced differences right quick: we'll see what happens to Latin when not properly edited, but we'll also see how Peter David adapts it to suit his story.

I'll start with U TAB. Unfortunately, Mr. Petit seems to be at fault on this one, the space was simply placed between the wrong letters in UT AB. It's amazing what a difference a little bit of letter separation gets you - this one probably would have thrown me a bit were I not used to reading Latin in medieval manuscripts where cramped writing and awkward word separation is the name is of the game, particularly in pre-Carolingian and Gothic scripts.

INCURSIA, and LAQUO are both simple typos. These should read INCURSIO, and LAQUEO. Both typos, however, look like actual Latin words and even seem to be in the correct grammatical case for their use, so no biggies there. It's unclear whether these were mistakes made by Mr. Petit, Mr. David, or Mr. David's source text.

IMMUNDUS, however, I believe is an error that already existed in whatever source Peter David based Layla's exorcism on. Here the word is simply in the wrong case, the nominative, as opposed to the vocative case IMMUNDE, which would be used for direct address, as the exorcist is speaking directly to the "unclean spirit". There was originally an OMNIS before the word IMMUNDE too, but that's a pretty slight omission. The incorrect reading IMMUNDUS is in fact found all over the internets, primarily due to the use of this exorcism rite in the TV show Supernatural. Typos seem to thrive in online versions of the text, even in documents that appear quite official. It took me some time to track down the clean, papally issued script I linked to above.

The really great, comic-book-y parts of Layla's exorcism though are the two intentional changes made by David in the invocation. Instead of casting out Bloodbath "in the name and virtue of our Lord Jesus Christ" (in nomine et virtute Domini nostri Iesu Christi), she casts him out "in the name [of] von Doom" (in nomine von Fatum). Long-time readers could recognize this as a pay-off from the time Layla spent in Latveria as an advisor to Doctor Doom before issue 200 of X-Factor.

The altered construction may put some Latin pedants in a bit of a tizzy: the word von is a German preposition, not a Latin one. So one might ask, "Why isn't Doom's name declined like any proper Latin noun?" Maybe David should have written in nomine Doctoris Fati, i.e. "in the name of Doctor Doom", or perhaps in nomine Victoris de Fato "in the name of Victor von Doom" (the Latin preposition de is usually used to render the German von). Even if the von is used, why not at least decline fatum? The German preposition takes the dative case (yes, German nouns decline, too), so wouldn't Von Fato be better? I have no clue how good Peter David's Latin is, but those changes would require a greater command of morphology than many of my Level I students.

I personally think Von Fatum works swell. The von signals to any reader of the Latin that something is clearly amiss, and the inclusion of the non-Latin word makes the whole alteration stand out more clearly. But what von really does is help out someone who is not completely fluent in Latin, but still has a passing knowledge of the language, i.e. the real audience for this easter egg. Von can call to mind only one nomen in the Marvel Universe, Victor Von Doom, and, when you look up fatum in your Latin dictionary, you can confirm this guess. It's quite a nice little puzzle.

The second iteration of the Von Fatum invocation is not quite as defensible, in my opinion. Instead of ending the exorcism "through Christ our Lord" (per Christum Dominum nostrum), Layla says, "through Von Doom our Doctor" (per von Fatum medicum nostrum). The problem here is that, as far as I know, Doom never received an M.D., so he should probably be called doctorem nostrum instead of medicum nostrum, since he was working in the sciences towards a Ph.D. back when Ben Grimm caused Doom's face-altering accident. It's, of course, a running joke in the comics that Doom never actually received his degree, but doctorem would still seem more correct than medicum.

Overall, I think Peter David used Latin quite smartly in this issue of X-Factor. Basing the Latverian exorcism rite on the actual Rituale Romanum allowed for an easy exploitation of the text for comic purposes. I really hope I find more passages that use Latin in equally playful ways as I make my way through my longboxes. It's even enough to make me forgive this terrible Greek/Indo-European etymology pun:  

ALL-NEW X-FACTOR No. 5, by Peter David (writer), Carmine Di Giandomenico (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer). Marvel Comics: June 2014. Page 3, Panels 3 & 4.

And, finally, for those who can't read the Latin of the exorcism above, here's an English translation of Layla's Rituale Latueriense, modified from the Exorcismale published by Laudate Dominum Liturgical Editions:

"We cast thee out, every unclean spirit, every devilish power, every assault of the infernal adversary, every legion, every diabolical group and sect, by the name of Von Doom . . . that Thou wouldst graciously vouchsafe to deliver us by Thy might from every power of the accursed spirits, from their bondage and from their deception, and to keep us from all harm. Through Von Doom our Doctor!"

What exactly is a Praeter?

THE MIGHTY THOR No. 6, by Matt Fraction (writer), Olivier Coipel (penciler), Mark Morales, Dexter Vines, and Cam Smith (inkers), Laura Martin (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer). Marvel Comics: November 2011. Page 22.

Meet Praeter. Praeter became the Herald of Galactus a few years ago during Matt Fraction's run on The Mighty Thor. Praeter has only ever appeared in the panel shown above. No other writer seems to have used the character after his creation. Fraction had introduced the character Pastor Mike of Broxton, Oklahoma in the first issue of that series, and by the end of the six-issue arc, Mike volunteered to replace Silver Surfer and to travel the galaxy searching for sustenance for his new master. Hence, Mike was imbued with the Power Cosmic and given a shiny new name. That name is the reason why I chose to focus on this minor character here.

Now, it's fairly common for superhero characters to be named using Latin words, e.g. Ego the Living Planet, Terminus, and Unus the Untouchable, or at least words that sound like Latin, e.g. Amphibius, Nobilus, and Scorpia. In this case, praeter is indeed a common Latin word. It's an adverb and preposition meaning "beyond" or "except". Focusing on the meaning of "beyond", the name seems pretty apt for a cosmically powered individual who explores the mysteries of space. However, it's almost certainly not the meaning Fraction intended, and I'll explain why.

In my mind, Praeter as "beyond" just seems too generic a name for a character whose identity had already been established outside of his role as cosmic herald. In the five previous issues of the story arc, Mike's one defining feature was that he was a pastor and a preacher. If he was going to be given some post-Power-Cosmic, Latin-based name, why then would it not be the Latin word for either of those occupations? Well, for one, pastor is already a Latin word meaning "shepherd". The word was taken directly into English for its religious association, wherein "the good shepherd" watches over his congregation, literally his "flock". Hence, it would be too commonplace an English word for it to evoke the otherness of a Latinate character name. The Latin for "preacher" is praedicator, a word from Medieval Latin - hence it wouldn't be found with the definition "preacher" in most Classical Latin dictionaries, so I doubt most non-Latinists would know it - but another Latin-based name for a preacher-turned-galactic-herald would be presbyter, which is the source of the English word "priest". That name could cause some problems since Mike appears to have been Protestant (denomination unspecified), and the word "priest" is often reserved nowadays for Catholic or Orthodox clergy, while Protestant Christianity generally uses the terms  "pastor" or "minister". Despite that objection, I believe this was the meaning Matt Fraction intended when he named Galactus' new herald Praeter, and my evidence for this comes from another comic which Fraction wrote a few months later.


DEFENDERS (Vol. 4) No. 2, by Matt Fraction (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler), Rachel Dodson (inker), Sonia Oback (colorist), and Clayton Cowles (letterer). Marvel Comics: March 2012. Page 9, Panel 1, Inset 1.

Early in his run on Defenders, which he must have been researching and planning around the time he wrote the script for The Mighty Thor 6, Fraction has Doctor Strange give this interesting background to the character Prester John:

HE'S BEEN CALLED MANY THINGS. PASTOR JOHN, PRESTER JOHN, PRAETER JOHN, PRESBYTER JOHANNES . . .

Strange's exposition is mostly correct. The "Prester" in Prester John entered English through the Middle French "prestre", an intermediate source of English "priest" based on Latin "presbyter". "Pastor" is a totally acceptable translation for "Prester" and Presbyter. All the names that Dr. Strange lists have been used historically to refer to the legendary, medieval ruler of the Orient, Prester John . . . all save one. I have not found an instance of "Praeter John" in extant literature.

A Google search of the phrase led me to a possible source of the epithet. The Optical Character Recognition software which Google uses to read older books gave a false hit, reading "Praeter John" rather than "Prester John" as appeared in a scan of an 1886 edition of the Early English Text Society's edition of The Three Kings of Cologne. Could Praeter be the first Marvel Comics character whose name is based on an OCR error? It's possible. I plan to contact Fraction to see if he remembers where exactly he found the attestation for "Praeter John".

Regardless, it's clear that Fraction considered "Praeter" as a word parallel to "Pastor" or "Presbyter". The title given to Galactus' new herald thus would have served the two-fold function of 1) denoting Pastor Mike's pre-heraldic religious occupation and 2) adding a certain weight to the name through its historical provenance. This seems to me to be the nominal origin for the character Praeter, but the story does not end here for word praeter . . .


DEFENDERS (Vol. 4) No. 4, by Matt Fraction (writer), Michael Lark (penciler), Stefano Gaudiano with Brian Thies (inkers), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer). Marvel Comics: May 2012. Page 19, Panel 1.

Two issues later, Doctor Strange is still carrying on about Prester John. He's trying to unlock the mystery of the Concordance Engine, and so he names several of John's titles:

PRESTER. [NO.] PRAETOR. [NO.] PRESBYTER. [NO.] PRESTE. [NO.] OMEGA. [DAMMIT...]

Strange adds two titles not mentioned in the earlier panel: Preste, which is the Portuguese variant of Prester, and Praetor. Now, praetor is a Roman military/political position, and the title was never historically, as far as I know, applied to the mythical king Prester John. In the context of Marvel comics, Praetor is also the title given to the commander of the Imperial Guard of the Shi'ar Empire, usually Gladiator (Kallark).

Now, this additional title Praetor leads me to ask several questions which I believe only Mr. Fraction can adequately answer. Is the instance Praetor here just a typo for Praeter which was used earlier? Did Fraction realize that word he kept using did not mean what he thought it meant, and was Praetor used to correct the earlier Praeter? If so, is there some historical basis to consider Prester John a Praetor? Hopefully I'll get a couple answers and will be able to update this post.

Marvel Comic Character Names in Latin: A Quiz

Here's a little quiz I made on Sporcle. Try and test your knowledge of both Latin and Marvel comic characters at the same time.

Pax pro eo optimus arma

OSBORN No. 3, by Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), Emma Ríos (artist), José Villarrubia (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer). Marvel Comics: April 2011. Page 7, panel 1.

In issue #3 of this mini-series which focuses on post-Dark-Reign Norman Osborn's incarceration in and escape from an extrajudicial, submarine prison, we find our title character taking part in a carefully planned inmate riot. Before jumping into the fray to prove himself as the alpha villain, Osborn removes his glasses and delivers the following bon mot:

      "PAX PRO EO OPTIMUS ARMA . . . PEACE THROUGH SUPERIOR FORCE."

The phrase is of course complete nonsense in Latin, meaning something along the lines of "Peace for him/it, the best man, weapons." Pax is feminine nominative singular. Optimus is masculine nominative singular. Arma is neuter, either nominative or accusative, plural. Pro eo are the only two words other than pax that actually work together grammatically, and they are here used incorrectly in place of the preposition per. A correct translation for the idea of "peace through superior force" would be something like Pax per vim superiorem, or Pax per vires superiores; the first option would refer to an individual's strength or power, while the second would be used when referring to "force" in the military sense of "a group of soldiers". Other options would be substituting superiorem/-es with meliorem/-es ("better") or maiorem/-es ("greater"). Additionally, if you really dislike seeing per used to denote means, you could replace the phrase with an ablative, without or without the preposition a(b). If you prefer the idea of "weapons" to "force", arma is a fine choice, but the prepositional phrase would then read per arma superiora.

The sort of translation found in this comic is the most common type made by folks who have access to a Latin dictionary but who have no knowledge of its grammar. Since Latin (like German or a great many other tongues) is an inflected language, the endings of words tell the listener or reader what each word is doing in the sentence. This is different from English where meaning is mostly conveyed by word order. When words are found in a Latin dictionary, they are usually in the nominative singular for nouns (the subject case), the nominative masculine singular for adjectives (used to describe a single, masculine subject), and the first person singular present active indicative for verbs (e.g. "I see"). So when you take words straight from a dictionary without changing their endings, they won't mean what you want them to mean once you put them together in a sentence.

I don't mean to pick on DeConnick by pointing out the error. She's one of my favorite comic book writers right now--seriously, go read Pretty Deadly. I just mean to use the panel to illustrate one type of error often found when comic books use Latin: non-inflection. The error probably didn't even originate with DeConnick, as the phrase had been floating around the internet as early as 2005, and it stills pops up around the interwebs in mottoes, usernames, and even in the title of a political blog.

What's more interesting than the error itself is Latin's narrative function in the comic. Osborn/DeConnick uses Latin for a couple of reasons. First, Latin conveys authority to a saying. Even though Osborn is not actually quoting any author, by giving his strategy in Latin and then translating it into English, he implies that the saying has some older, classical pedigree.

Second, the Latin quotation establishes Osborn as a member of an intellectual elite. Not only does our anti-hero have knowledge of some ancient military theory, but he can also cite this theory in its original language--and not just any language but the one forced upon schoolboys for centuries and therefore an established marker of education. In this instance, the elite level of the language strengthens the irony between the two sides of Osborn's villainy: both his strategic, conniving planning and his shear physical brutality, as he displays in the ensuing fight. The Latin quotation raises Osborn above his fellow rioting prisoners, before he immediately dives face-first into their brawl.

It's also fun to note here that Osborn is talking not to another inmate but rather to a (presumably Catholic) priest. The Catholic clergy were for over a thousand years the primary users and preservers of the Latin tongue, so I find it interesting that the priest does not comment on Osborn's (poor) Latinity. Even though Latin is not actually required for American priests today, it's still recommended that they learn it. Can we assume that our Marvel priest understood the phrase as uttered by Osborn? Also, why does Osborn give an English translation of his Latin? Did Osborn/DeConnick translate it simply for the benefit of us, the readers? Generally, Marvel does likewise make sure that Spanish dialogue in its comics is either very simple or easily interpreted by a corresponding English reply. Perhaps Osborn repeats his strategy in English, because he really just likes the sound of his own voice.

Here's my take: Osborn cockily delivers his quip in both incorrect Latin and then English. The priest recognizes the error and rolls his eyes (off-panel), but he doesn't feel the need to correct him, since he doesn't actual care about Osborn's ideology. His only concern is getting Osborn out of the prison to create further chaos in the world, since he considers him the Anti-Christ (as we find out in issue #4) and wishes him to bring about the Second Coming. As such, our Marvel priest sees no point in correcting the grammar of his crazy embodiment of pure evil. Because, really, what could be a more obvious attribute of evil than bad grammar?

Now send me my NO PRIZE!

Abstract

I'm writing this blog to collect and categorize appearances of the Latin language in comic books. I'm a Latinist and an avid comics reader, and I want to use this first post to give some background on who I am and why I'm writing.

Currently, at the start of this blog, I'm a graduate student writing my dissertation on the reception of Classical rules for Latin composition (rhetoric) during the Middle Ages. I teach Latin (both the Classical and Medieval varieties) at the university where I'm getting my PhD. Teaching Latin is what I've wanted to do ever since I first studied it in high school. I majored in Classical Latin and Medieval Latin in undergrad, and continued on to get a Master's in Medieval Studies. I then drove submarines for a few years for the U.S. Navy, who had payed for my undergrad degree. I didn't have much use for Latin as the Assistant Engineer of a nuclear reactor, except for occasionally advising my sailors who were planning to get a tattoo written in Latin--I would usually advise them first to simply not get a tattoo. I left the Navy to go back to grad school, and I've been having a blast ever since. Hopefully, I'll one day be able to make tenure as a professor of Classics, but, given the academic job market, that may take a while. Regardless, I really like reading and teaching Latin, and I get excited whenever I see or hear it in the wild, whether that be in paintings, inscriptions, mottoes, movies, television, or, as will be the focus of my posts here, comic books.

I first got into comics in the early 90's when I was twelve or thirteen years old. My favorite books were Nicieza/Liefeld's X-Force and Marz/Lim's Silver Surfer, both filled with the "extreme" 90's-ness I still totally enjoy. I eventually set aside comics when my interests shifted to music and girls and since my local comic store closed with the 90's Comic Bubble Collapse. I got back into comics in the early 2000's through the contemporary manga boom. A friend of mine had introduced me to anime after I expressed my interest in Cowboy Bebop which was then running on Cartoon Network. Anime led me to manga. I went to a few anime/manga fan conventions, and there I was reintroduced to American mainstream comics, starting with Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602--a comic that really appealed to me as I was working on a Master's in Medieval Studies at the time. I then picked up the short-lived new Silver Surfer series (vol. 3), which I liked, since it was set in my hometown of New Orleans, but found overall disappointing. More importantly I came back to comics just in time for Ed Brubaker's Captain America run and Warren Ellis' Iron Man run. After that I was hooked. I now keep around 30 to 40 titles on my pull list for any given month--mostly Marvel comics, although I do get a few DCs and any Image/independent releases from specific writers I follow, e.g. Jonathan Hickman and Ed Brubaker-- and I have about ten thousand comics in long boxes and filing cabinets, cluttering up various corners of my house.

As I mentioned above, I get really excited whenever I find Latin outside of its normal, academic habitat of scholarly histories and editions. Latin gets used for all sorts of reasons in the modern world, and due to its increased absence from schools, the Latin we see or hear in popular culture is usually riddled with errors. Since I teach Latin, I can get really pedantic about correct grammar, and throughout this blog I won't shy away from noting and categorizing the types of errors I find in comic book Latin. But I also want to explore why Latin is used in comics. What role does Latin play in today's culture? What is expressed by the mere fact that someone--a character or a writer--speaks or writes in Latin? How does a dead language work differently from any other foreign language? There have been studies on these sorts of questions, but since I haven't bothered to read most of them yet, I figured I would just give it a go and try to sort things out for myself in blog form. My understanding of the subject is sure to develop over time, but that development won't happen unless I take the time to think it out.

I haven't the slightest clue how much interest a blog like this will attract from the vastness of the internet. I plan to post twice a month for at least the first year, just to get things running. I would love to post more often, but I have this other pressing commitment called a doctoral dissertation. Each post will focus on one specific comic book where Latin appears. I'm drawing from my personal comic book collection as a source for discussion, and I'll hopefully be able to wade through all my long boxes and find all the Latin contained therein. The majority of the posts will feature Marvel comics, since I'm using my own collection, and I mostly read Marvel. But I would truly appreciate it if readers sent me other instances of Latin they find in comic books. I could definitely use the help sorting the hundreds of titles published every month.