You’re Not A Super Hero

I’ve read a lot of comic books. While there are many different types of comics in a wide array of genres, the bulk of the comic book medium are super heroes, so that’s what most of the comics I read are. In fact I consider myself to be a bit of an expert when it comes to super heroes. Powers, origins, you name it. And there is something very important I have decided; Just because you wear a costume, does not make you a super hero.

The very term “Super hero” comes from the popularity of the very first super hero, Superman. As I talked about before (see here), Superman is the iconic archetype of what a super hero is supposed to be. And to me, the key ingredient of being called a super hero is to have super powers. There is a lot of argument among fans about this fact but to me there is no argument. If you are called a super hero, you need super powers.

This is when I usually start hearing “But what about Batman?” Well, what about him? He doesn’t have super powers so therefore he is not a super hero. He is a costumed vigilante. A costumed vigilante who certainly can hold his own against any of the established super heroes, but he isn’t one of them. I’m sorry but he isn’t. And there is nothing wrong with that. Costumed vigilantes are what all super heroes are to begin with; they just have powers and abilities that give them the qualifier “super”. Personally it’s more impressive to differentiate between the two. A costumed vigilante fighting a super hero and winning is more impressive than two super heroes fighting and one winning.

A lot of this feeling comes from the movie Kick-Ass 2 which is out in theatres as I type this. They call the costumed characters in that movie “super heroes.” None of them are. That’s the point of the movie. These are real world individuals who are trying to emulate the costumed heroics of the four-color funny pages. The point is though that you can’t. Being a super hero is impossible. Being a costumed vigilante however, perfectly plausible.

I say this because there is nothing that depresses me more than the fact that there can never be real super heroes. Even though there are a few infamous individuals who try to emulate the behavior of comic book characters, with colorful costumes and flamboyant names, they’re not super heroes. Even the behavior of these costumed individuals in the real world is not like that of their comic book inspiration. They don’t fight crime, they caution people. They help the homeless. All noble acts, but nothing that resembles a war on crime.

Despite my rants and ramblings, super heroes belong only in the comics and in movies. I may enjoy debating the reality of super powers, the actual idea of such individuals would probably terrify me. The idea of real world super heroes would only cause chaos and confusion, not create the perfect crime free utopias that many geeks think it would. In all likelihood heroes would spend more time as the objects of celebrity than as any sort of hero. Also I am constantly reading stories in the news of excessive force by police, or psychotic mad men going on mass shooting sprees, not to mention foreign and domestic acts of terrorism. Super powers would quadruple the violence of such events and lay waste to our cities.

So to sum up, costume and name does not make a super hero. Powers are what make a super hero. But that’s fine. There are firefighters, police officers, men and women in the armed forces, and average citizens who manage to do heroic deeds on a daily basis. So while you can’t be a super hero, you can still be a hero. And that ain’t half bad.

The Normal One

An odd trend in comic books and television is the idea of normal people hanging out with super heroes. Or if not super heroes, then individuals that are at the very least more skilled and powerful and able to survive the outlandish scenarios the group gets into on a weekly basis. And yet these “normal” individuals are so beloved that it is hard to imagine the stories without them.

Part of what inspired this entry is the TV show Teen Wolf. Among a group of werewolves and werewolf hunters there stands one particular individual, Stiles Stilinski. Stiles is the best friend of Scott McCall, the titular Teen Wolf of the show. While Scott has enhanced healing and strength, along with many other abilities that comes with his werewolfism, Stiles has no abilities at all. And yet most of the time it is Stiles who jumps head first into danger with absolutely no thought of the consequences. More than that, he usually is the one who drags the powered and skilled individuals into danger to begin with.

While Stiles was the inspiration for this blog, he is merely the latest in a long line of such characters. In truth, the origin of the normal character can be traced to none other than Superman’s pal (seriously, he had his own comic book titled that) Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy is a photographer for The Daily Planet (originally The Daily Star) who is the prototypical average guy. Just an average guy, he kind of tags along on Superman’s adventures like a groupie. Jimmy Olsen is so often thrown into peril that he receives a special signal watch from Superman, to alert the hero whenever he is in trouble. Not even Lois has a signal watch, because we can assume that Lois knows how to get herself out of a jam and does not constantly need to be saved by Superman, despite the many depictions of her in just that situation.

Carrying on the proud tradition of Jimmy Olsen is the character of Xander Harris from the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer. By the end of the series, Xander is literally the only normal person in the group. Buffy is the Slayer, Willow is a Witch, Giles is a Watcher, Oz is a Werewolf, Spike and Angel are both vampires, even Xander’s girlfriend Anya is a former demon. Xander somehow ends up being the only normal individual in a group of supernaturally powered superhumans. And unlike Jimmy Olsen, Xander is completely aware of his place in the group (actually comparing himself to Jimmy Olsen once) and often complains about how he is constantly getting caught up in the otherworldly craziness the rest of his friends are involved in (he was once Dracula’s “Monkey boy” to which he said he would no longer be).

Sometimes it’s hard to understand why the normal person hangs around with the super powered ones. Usually it seems that the normal one sticks with the group because they were friends with them prior to becoming a super group. Stiles and Scott were best friends long before Scott became a werewolf; Xander had a crush on Buffy the moment he saw her without knowing she was the Slayer. However a lot of times the normal one is just a fan. Like Jimmy Olsen. And like two of the oddest normal guys, Marvin and Wendy from Challenge of the Super Friends. These two have no powers, no special skills, and appear to be merely fans of super heroes and are allowed to hangout in the Hall of Justice. Despite the fact that the headquarters of the Justice League must be a huge target for constant attacks, the Justice League allows two teenagers to just hang out. Robin may also be a teenager but at least he has weapons and training. Marvin has a blanket that he wrapped around his neck like a cape. I can only assume Marvin and Wendy are part of some sort of Super Hero Make-A-Wish Foundation and these two are suffering from a terminal disease. I can’t explain Wonder Mutt.

Heroes die. Superman has died. Buffy died twice. Batman has had three Robins die on him. Super powered people get into rough situations and there is always the potential that they may not make it out alive. It is almost irresponsible for these heroes to allow normal people to hang around them. For their own good, the heroes should insist that non-powered people stay away from them. Or else the blood is on their hands as much as the villains.

Starcrossed Cliché

As a writer I may be committing a bit of blasphemy here but William Shakespeare kind of screwed us all when he wrote Romeo and Juliet. Essentially he insured that one of the most popular romantic tropes is to have our young lovers be from opposing groups of individuals. Not just opposing, but actively warring. The more they are supposed to despise each other, the greater their tragic love affair. And so we have seen copy after copy of this classic love story told in ever expanding varieties and flavors.

A smart person (smarter than me at least) said there are only four different types of stories. That of course is true if you boil stories down to their simplest parts but I like to think we can still create new and innovating tales by mixing and matching the available parts. But it seems like the concept of “Starcrossed lovers” is a part that is here to stay. With the popularity of films like Twilight and its many copies, bringing together two individuals who should never be together in a romantic relationship will be a trend that will not go away any time soon.

A while back I saw the movie Warm Bodies (see entry here) and before the film I saw no less than three trailers for films that perfectly fit the type of description I gave above. Now there is nothing new about romantic fantasy tales. I remember Legend as a child and certainly all the Disney fairy tale films had an element of romance to them, but these films did not completely revolve around a romantic relationship. The main characters were not making googly eyes at each other constantly throughout the film.

Not so with our current crop of romantic fantasy. What began with Twilight, progenitor of the current trend, has now culminated with Beautiful Creatures. Beautiful Creatures revolves around a family of wizards (“Casters” as they prefer to be called) who are in a war between light and dark. Lena, a caster who is young and in love, is on the cusp between the light and the dark. She falls in love with a fellow student and there is a fear that this relationship will tempt her towards the dark. So many plotlines are shared between this and other such films. The forbidden love, the concept of good and bad paranormal creatures, not to mention the internal fighting among the “families” of the supernatural being.

While these films are trying to follow a formula which they believe is needed for a fantasy film, there is proof you can do fantasy without necessarily romance. Once Upon A Time is a successful show on ABC and it is based in a fantasy concept. But despite a love story between Snow White and Prince Charming, there is very little romance in this show. But there is lots of fantasy. Same with the recently released film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Despite one love scene (no, not between the title characters, they’re siblings, that’s gross) the film has almost no romance in it.

Part of me understands the appeal. Forbidden fruit is usually the sweetest, so depicting a forbidden relationship certainly can be quite appealing to an audience. But if the only reasons these two characters are being brought together is because they are on opposite sides of each other, the story will not carry the interests of the audience. Conflict breeds drama, and drama is entertaining.

Untrained Heroes

Batman spent a lifetime training to be the best hero he could be. Superman was blessed with amazing powers and abilities. Most heroes have gone through extensive baptisms of fire to become the heroes they are. But there seems to be a small percentage of heroes who were only half prepared to be what a hero was yet they still manage to save the day. Which has me wondering how many more people they could have saved were they properly trained.

To give you an example of this type of hero I shall cite the holy trilogy for us geeks, Star Wars. Luke Skywalker, our hero, spends much of the three films learning about his destiny as a Jedi. He gets a few pointers on what it means to be a Jedi from Obiwan in the first film and then he gets a crash course on Jedi abilities in the second film from Yoda. But as we see in the Prequel films, Jedi train from the time when they are practically toddlers. At best Luke spent maybe a week with Yoda. Maybe Yoda gave him some books to read while he’s flying from Dagoba to Cloud City but still, that’s a lot of knowledge about being a Jedi that Luke never receives. Anakin spent years as a Padawan, and he was supposed to be some sort of Jedi prodigy. Putting it simply Luke Skywalker saves the day getting the equivalent of a correspondence course in Jedi fighting.

And that seems to be a recurring theme in heroic stories. The hero starts out with little to no skills and throughout his adventure he or she masters just enough knowledge to defeat the threat to the country/world/universe. To examine this I will use the series long story in Avatar: The Last Airbender. At the beginning of the story the main character, Aang, has not mastered any of the other elements he must wield as the Avatar. He’s a skilled airbender, but not much else. As the series progresses he spends each season mastering a different additional element, until by the end of the series he has mastered all four elements (Air, Water, Earth, Fire) and is able to return balance to the world. But as we see in the sequel series, and in flashbacks of Aang’s past incarnations, it takes years to become a fully trained Avatar. While the series certainly spans several months, it is not the years of training that the other Avatar’s have received. So Aang is defeating the armies of the Fire Nation essentially with only the most basic of elemental bending knowledge.

In many ways it is this rag tag patchwork training that makes the hero so interesting. Being a fully trained and knowledgeable hero removes the concept of doubt that the hero might fail, and part of that is what makes the story so interesting. This makes me think of one of Sci-Fi favorite half baked hero, The Doctor. It you’re not familiar with the long history of the show Doctor Who then you probably don’t know that The Doctor is not a fully realized TimeLord (the species that the Doctor belongs to). While TimeLords are referred to as these ancient wise masters of all time and space, it is quite obvious that the Doctor has long ago shunned and neglected many of the teachings of his people. People who have in several classic episodes proven that they can easily subdue the Doctor and exile him to Earth (as was the fate of the Third Doctor who spent the entirety of that regeneration working for UNIT on Earth). Even his time machine is rag tag, having stolen a broken museum piece in order to travel through out the Universe, while at the same time seeing functional Tardis’s throughout the series that do not have the many issues (broken chameleon circuit, faulty navigation, nasty temperament) that the Doctor’s Tardis has. Even when the Doctor regenerates he acts as though it is a miracle every time, which leads me to believe it is more complex procedure than we think and requires training to do properly. Yet despite these many handicaps he continues to save the day.

In the world we live in there are real heroes. Doctors, Firemen, Soldiers, Police Officers, all people who save lives and have some form of training to do so. Now it is true that sometimes a random citizen can do something heroic for his fellow man, but the heroes who tend to repeatedly save the day in real life are people with extensive training. So it seems odd that our fictions are filled with amateurs constantly saving the day. Perhaps this is a bit of wish fulfillment on behalf of the authors and audience who wish they could save the day but don’t want to go through the extensive training it would require to do so.