Awesomed By Comics isn’t, technically, about religion. It’s about comics. Totally awesome comics. Not so much the kind of graphic novels that get reviewed in The New York Times or the elegant “funnies” serialized for yuppies in the Times Magazine as the pulps: Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, Hulk (and Hulkling), Avengers and New Avengers and Young Avengers and old Crusaders.

The comics that resist that ol’ disenchantment of the world, the trash-lit underside of secularism, chronicles of de facto clergy in capes, matters of ultimate concern addressed with super strength, power blasts, and lots of explanatory dialogue. Consider cultural critic J. Hoberman’s take on the late Jack Kirby, the subject of a recent biography by Mark Evanier:

Kirby always saw the big picture. Evanier credits him as the first comic-book artist to design by the page rather than the panel, a development in comic language analogous to the invention of montage in the movies. And of course, Kirby dreamed big. Working with writer Stan Lee, he was instrumental in tilting Marvel toward epic sagas of cosmic struggle. Forget America, or planet Earth; in the greatest Kirby yarns, the fate of the whole friggin’ universe is at stake. In a multi-issue struggle that marked the acme of Marvel hubris, the Fantastic Four went up against God Almighty, tactfully given the name Galactus. A few years later, the Mighty Thor did as well. Even before he arrived at Marvel, Kirby was visualizing the end of existence. Their names suggesting the growls and hisses of a Michael McClure poem—Zzutak, Lo-karr, Googam Son of Goom—the world-devouring monsters Kirby drew in the ’50s for Atlas (arguably the cheesiest of comic-book publishers) are astounding representations of pure voraciousness: They suggest the abyss turned inside out.

Ready to explore the abyss? Check out the Awesomed By Comics podcast, featuring husband-and-wife team Aaron and Evie, both talented journalists by day, raging comics geeks by night.

But be warned! Awesomed By Comics is sort of like kabbala — it only really makes sense to the already-initiated. Think you’re hip because you know the difference between Green Lantern and Green Arrow? Then you haven’t sufficiently awesomed yourself. When you can name at leastfour Green Lanterns — in chronological order — explain the difference between Uncanny X-Men and Amazing X-Men, and can identify at least three distinct pantheons of gods, you’ll be ready for the Awesoming.

–Jeff Sharlet