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Let's compare Samson and Spider-Man for a moment. Spider-Man is driven by a profound sense of moral responsibility; Samson is driven primarily by the need for revenge against anyone who has slighted him. Spider-Man's motto is that "with great power comes great responsibility"; Samson's motto essentially is "I did to them what they did to me" (Judges 15:11). Samson violently slaughtered over a thousand people, often with no more justification than that they ticked him off. Even at the end, Samson's prayer to God to help him kill all the Philistines is mainly a prayer for God to grant him revenge for his eyes. Spider-Man by contrast has always refused to kill anyone -- no matter what the cost to himself. Samson was a notorious womanizer known to dally with prostitutes, while Spider-Man, throughout his comic-book marriage to Mary Jane, has remained faithful to her through thick and thin. Is the model that Samson provides really the one we want our children to emulate?


I suggest that it derives from a naive assumption that anything biblical, merely because it is biblical, is preferable to anything that is not. The fact is that Samson is certainly a more biblical figure than Spider-Man, but Spider-Man is easily the more moral figure.