It’s time for men to grow up.

Fools rush in where only fanatics do not fear to tread. So herewith a disclaimer: Superhero comic books have no place in my adult life, and had a minimal place in my boyhood. I know that there are many grown men for whom comicbook superheroes are a very big deal — which is my point in venturing into a subject about which I do not pretend any expertise.

The recent death of Stan Lee at 95, the creative genius at Marvel Comics, occasioned much commentary, much of it the usual extravagant nonsense produced whenever a celebrity, no matter how minor, dies. But there were also others who offered more substantive reflections, even of a theological nature.

Any literature — even comic books — which has enduring value must touch on some enduring themes. When the Spider-Man movie came out and popularized “with great power comes great responsibility,” it became tiresome to note that the Gospel of Luke had gotten there some time ago: “Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more,” (12:48).

But comic books — again like all literature — are meant to make eternal verities accessible in the vernacular of the day. And for those who might never get around to the scriptures, a comic book might help.

Stan Lee’s characters were many: Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Daredevil. I spent so little time with comic books as a boy that it was only when the movies got made recently that I came to know some of Lee’s characters.

I did watch the Black Panther movie, seduced by the propaganda that a black super hero was a moment of cultural significance. Lee did make his trademark cameo in the film, but I hope that is all he contributed. The first black superhero film was set a) in a crime-ridden urban American neighbourhood, and b) in the African jungle. A cultural breakthrough got stymied by the oldest of stereotypes.

Yet it is noteworthy that as an adult I was watching a movie about a super hero that I did not even read about when I was a boy. That was a great cultural shift of Lee’s very long life. He produced 60 years ago material aimed at children and teenagers, and lived long enough to see mass male culture become teenager-ized, so that his Marvel Comics characters made more money as senior citizens than they did in their infancy.

The teenager-ization of mass culture is nowhere more evident than the parade of super-hero movies made for audiences who do not aspire to be stretched even to the extent of Mister Fantastic’s elongated arm. But it is not only at the movies that men behave like teenagers.

Video games, which are marketed to and played more by men 18-35 than actual teenagers, consume vast amounts of the recreational time of male 20-somethings. Indeed, they consume far more than that, eating into time that otherwise would be devoted to study, work, family, socializing with friends or, impossible as it might seem, reading. There are vast numbers of men for whom recreation consumes more hours weekly than work, and that recreation is an escape from the world of adult responsibilities. Or worse, work becomes a temporary escape into adulthood from the world of teenage recreation.

The rise of “fantasy” sports is almost a parody, complete with the name. Very considerable knowledge and talent is put toward pretending to assemble a fantasy team rather than, for example, actually playing sports. Anecdotally, it seems more common to run into people heading to a fantasy sports meeting — often online — than to a beer league hockey game.

The fantasy recreational culture has its dark side, too. The scourge of pornography is ubiquitous and well-documented by social science progressives, not merely denounced by the caricature of moralizing prudes. It’s called “adult” entertainment, but there is nothing mature about it. Pornography, once discovered by an adolescent, was considered something that he would hopefully grow out of. It is now, more often than not, something to be grown into, with ever more deleterious effects in the world of actual relationships.

Stan Lee is not responsible for our mass teenager-ization. He just lived long enough to profit mightily from a culture that prefers to read with pictures.

FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT NEVER GET AROUND TO SCRIPTURE, A COMIC BOOK MIGHT HELP.