Harry Brod is a professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He wrote a paper titled “The People of the Comic Book: Jewish Men and the Creation of Comic Book Superheroes.”

Danny Fingeroth is a former editor and writer at Marvel Comics and author of Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels. Fingeroth has taught comics writing in New York and Italy.

Read a Jan. 22, 2006, New York Times story about “The 99”.”The 99″ are Muslim comic book superheroes and the creation of an American-educated artist, Naif al-Mutawa. Mutawa’s characters battle evil, and each character represents one of the 99 qualities that Muslims attribute to God.

Read a Dallas Morning News story from 2002, posted at Beliefnet.com, about a character from the Fantastic Four announcing he is Jewish.

Read a July 1, 2005, story in Episcopal Life about religious themes in the comics.

Read this July 10, 2006, article in Books & Culture about the movie Superman Returns.

Read a June 26, 2006, interview with Bryan Singer, director of Superman Returns, in Christianity Today.

Rhys H. Williams is a professor and chair of the sociology department at Loyola University Chicago. He has done research on immigrant college students, including their attitudes toward religion and spirituality. He was also co-director of the Youth and Religion Project, funded by the Lilly Endowment, which did field work in the Chicago area to […]

Paul Hill, formerly a Lutheran parish pastor, was director of the Center for Youth Ministries at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa and is now executive director of Vibrant Faith Ministries in Minneapolis He has been a church camp director and helped plan national events for Lutheran youth, and specializes in ministry with teenage boys.