Whenever
there appears to be a time when we as a nation feel threatened, we imagine that
there is a magical being, a seemingly ordinary person with astounding powers.
But wait, think about this though, usually, it’s guys who have this fantasy.
You’d think it would be women, but no, it’s guys who dream up superheroes.
The
male writers of comic books slip into the fantasy of what it would be like if
there were such a person who could rescue us from whatever calamity has
currently befallen us. Is this men longing to be more powerful than they
currently are?
Women
authors write about men coming to rescue them in a romantic way, but the truth
is that men also dream of being rescued as well from all kinds of things that
are far more globally threatening.
These
writers are amazingly creative, too. They dream of this astounding being
righting wrongs, protecting us from the bullies in our life and saving the
world from harm. Predominantly, these superheroes are male. And these writers
want us to know that we can believe in the superhero du jour because he has
powers bordering on the divine:
•
this super being can fly, often into outer space.
•
this astonishing hero has the strength of twenty men.
•
this great one, has the wisdom of the sages.
•
this champion of the underdog is a soul of superior ethics, morals, and
judgment.
•
this heroic idol is so intelligent, he can figure out the toughest problem.
•
And this conqueror of evil is so humble that he walks among us, anonymous,
unknown and unsung.
What
makes this so startling, is that these superheroes come in astounding forms and virtually all of them wear tights that so tightly fit their rippling muscles and virile form that the sight of them takes our breath away:
We
have an ordinary guy in the 1940’s who fight’s Hitler, a Captain United States*
kind of guy who starts out puny and ends up with the powerfully sexy,
glistening body of a god.
There
is a guy with powers from outer space who glows handsomely green, having been
endowed with truly other worldly powers.
There’s the alien who arrives in a space
capsule and ends up living in a crystal cave at the top of the world. This is
the guy who wears glasses and flies through the air and rescues a newspaperwoman
when terrifying things happen to her, among other death defying duties.
Of
course there is the Instant guy, flashing all around very quickly.
Let us
not forget arachnid man who weaves a web of intrigue in the city he is
protecting, ever mindful of the responsibility that accompanies his great
powers.
In
the 1940’s there was a shadowy man who ‘knew’ ‘things’ psychically and who’s
ancestry went back to Tibet.
There
is the Righteous League of America a bunch of avenging guys including Instant
man, Neptune man, [and the token] Wow Woman, Superb Man and the Batty Man. Oh,
Oh!! Don’t forget the Might Morphing Strength Rangers, Ferrous Sulfate Man, Odin,
a reference to Norse strength, and a Green Lamp guy. Maybe he lights the way
for the other guys. . . .
In
the 1950’s there was Mighty Rodent who could fly and lift entire buildings.
Really? The physics of this might have defied belief, but an entire generation
of little kids bought into this idea of a small, flying rat.
If
you think about it, virtually every decade since about the 1930’s has had some
type of comic book superhero to satisfy the need to believe in a higher level
of protection. This higher power isn’t God, but someone who has the visible power of a god but who looks just
like us – with a few subtle muscular modifications.
In
the 1930’s we were suffering from the Depression, then we went to World War II,
followed closely by the Korean ‘Conflict’, which morphed into the Cold War with
the evil Soviets. The Viet Nam War was a natural outgrowth of our fears of
Communism. Were the superheroes of those times Presidents Roosevelt and Truman?
Did our leaders fail us later on with the unending conflicts of hot and cold
war?
Communism
was knocked down with a clunk in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. Were the
superheroes of the day President Reagan, and Soviet President Gorbachev? Was it
the Pope, or the Polish people who worked behind the scenes to reduce world
tension? Perhaps there was no clear-cut super hero. Perhaps it was very
ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances seizing the moment and
changing history.
However,
today, as this piece is being written, for the very first time, the threat
seems so tremendous, so terrifying that we need an entire league of
superheroes. One won’t cut it. In a recent film, it took an entire team of
astonishingly powerful champions to overcome what appeared to be an
exceptionally vague yet utterly deadly threat.
Is
that what we as a people are sensing? Are we feeling a tremendous peril that is
so overwhelming for us that we cannot specifically describe it? Think about it,
pretty much the big screen is overrun with brave men with super powers beyond
imagination fighting not only local threats to our cities, but these big guys
are also taking on global, interstellar threats. Is that what we are feeling in
the subconscious regions of our soul? Where is the source of all of this fear?
Are we fearful because despite the huge population of chatty politicians
globally, there is not one soul who inspires us to believe in truth, justice
and the way of the superhero?
Where
are today’s superheroes? Part 2 will offer some modest ideas.
*
Due to my desire to respect copyrights, the superhero names have been modified.
See if you can guess who they are!
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