Over the past seventy-five years, elements of Indian and
Tibetan Buddhist tantra have appeared in a number of popular Western superhero
comics, from the Golden Age’s Green Lama to the Silver Age’s Strange
Tales to the postmodern era’s The Invisibles. As a spiritual
path, tantra has been practiced by mainstream heroes (e.g. Batman) as well as
alternative ones (e.g. King Mob, Promethea), challenging traditional notions of
the superhero and opening possibilities for readerly identity formation in
popular culture narratives. This chapter uses specific case studies to provide
a diachronic overview of how tantra has been presented in comics and graphic
novels. Critical analysis examines changing attitudes towards authenticity
versus cultural appropriation, the evolution of the spiritual superhero, and
the use of literary devices (e.g. metafiction, symbolism) to make
tantra-related content more accessible to readers.