Irony of the Superhero

L Ets admit all of us wanted to be badass superheroes at one time and some of us actually work to attain that badassery but we all know that there is no way we can be like out heroes. How does it feel to know that no matter how you train, you'll never be a fast as the Flash, as strong as Superman, as as smart as Batman or as powerful as Captian Atom and have it as a fact? Even some of the deconstructions of superheroes barley touch on this theme but I like to think even if I cannot do half the ings they can, at least I can become a hero in my own way right?

Sadly even in real life, most people are better than others at something and it doesn't help that it may had been the things you always wanted to do yet cannot achieve. That is not to say you cannot be badass, just as not as badass as the other person in front of you. The only reason superheroes exists is because of wish fulfillment and the desire to go to places that you never been before but ther eis also stuff like Watchmen, Supergod and Spider Man displaying why it may not be a good idea or the potential problems of this.

Even that very desire to be a badass gets deocnstructed and taken to its logical conclusion. How does it feel to know that you may never be as great as the heroes we idolize?

This article explains it best

But there are heroes in real life. I don't mean people like Axle-Grinder Man, either. There are heroic people in real life, and hard work can pay off.

Superheroes are just a fantasy exaggeration of the concept for entertainment purposes. They're not dangerous so long as we don't start thinking they're real.

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Well, there are advantages to being one of the herd. Suppose you're bulletproof, you're walking down the street with your SO, and some gang starts shooting at you. (Forget for the moment how useless it is to shoot at someone who is famously bulletproof.) As many supervillains have realized, when you can't get at the hero directly, you get at his support group. After a while nobody wants to be seen with you.

Another is the 24/7 on call thing. Don't you like to sleep in sometimes? But no, there's a bank robbery downtown, you have to show up for work or lose your street cred.

Then there are all the other inconveniences, like getting pulled into other dimensions, catching exotic diseases, replacing equipment, dealing with bad press. Keep your long underwear, I'll stay like I am, thank you.

Under World. It rocks!

What he said.

I dunno how you manage to always be right, Bobby.

edited 23rd Jan '11 9:33:03 AM by juancarlos11

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.

Essentially what Bobby said. And the Real Life heroes are all the more amazing because they aren't super. And some of them manage to save hundreds of lives even when the solution is not nearly as simple as "That guy. Beat him up."

edited 23rd Jan '11 9:42:39 AM by OnTheOtherHandle

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."

Who says there aren't superheroes in real life? You've clearly never been to Seattle.

Neither have I...

edited 23rd Jan '11 10:00:11 AM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Didn't that guy just get beaten up?

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Sure there are heroes, but there aren't super heroes.

And come on, admit it, who doesn't watch the news, all the bad crap happening, and going "If only I could do something about it."

Sure, you can help out in small ways, and thats great, but people still have that desire to just swoop in, beat up some bad guys, and save the day.

Sadly we cant do that, and why we fantasize about it.

The only thing you can do is be the right person, at the right place, at the right time.

I.E. if we had an Air Marshal on each of the planes that hit the World Trade Center, they would be heroes, even though they would just be doing their job.

Interestingly enough, nobody would ever know how drastic the effects of their actions would have on history if they were there.

I dunno about anyone else, but I've never been interested in the "hero" part of superheroes. I'm in it for the powers. Also, I've always related more to the villains. It doesn't feel like anything. These characters' abilities are so extreme that the idea of achieving them in real life was never plausible to begin with. I think better examples would be characters on TV with more plausible skills: The Profiler, Living Lie Detector, Hyper-Awareness, Sherlock Scan, Awesome by Analysis, Good with Numbers. These are possible, but out of most people's reach.

The Profiler is impossible too.

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^ On the same level as everything else in that list is. There are real profilers, but they just report stats like 'sexual serial killers are almost all male'. Just like real-life Sherlock Scan is on the level of 'he might do manual labour, or else exercise a lot'.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

I suppose I get the appeal of superpowers, but I've never once longed to possess them with any ardency and I can't really relate to the OP. Superhero stories, at their core, are basic wish fulfillment. There's nothing terribly complex about them, and there's nothing especially admirable in the thought processes that produce them. Like On The Other Handle said, the qualities we should be inspired by are those that enable ordinary people to do extraordinary thing through effort and willpower.

And come on, admit it, who doesn't watch the news, all the bad crap happening, and going "If only I could do something about it."

Eh, not me.

Sure, you can help out in small ways, and thats great, but people still have that desire to just swoop in, beat up some bad guys, and save the day.

Vigilantism is idiotic. Real life, for the most part, has no "bad guys." You can't assign yourself to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner because you believe without any solid proof that someone is doing something wrong. If you're interested in dealing out justice, then you have to consider their motivations before determining their guilt. This is why we have a legal system and not a bunch of idiots wearing ball-squeezing spandex running around with grapple hooks and push knives.

edited 25th Jan '11 9:39:55 AM by kashchei

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

@ettina: Profiling has long been replaced by forensic psychology, more or less. Since i'm looking to get into the latter field I am of course biased for it, but it seems more reliable and useful.

Profiling has a 10 percent accuracy rate, which means that you aren't going to rely on it but if you have nothing else to go on, you'll use it to get you somewhere more solid. And if it detects something unusual, like this guy was 8'11 and had purple skin, then that will help greatly.

@kach: some people don't want real-world commentary or events, they want superman to punch out an alien. I am one of those people. :V

Also motivations don't factor in determine their guilt outside of death penalty cases and a lot of cops would love some more street justice.

edited 25th Jan '11 9:38:45 AM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Actually, you can assign yourself to be judge, jury, and executioner. The problem is not getting caught.

Of course motivations factor in. That's why our legal system takes intent into consideration, and distinguishes between premeditated, voluntary, and involuntary, as well as different degrees of murder.

^ Good luck with that.

edited 25th Jan '11 9:43:11 AM by kashchei

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

Motivations no, what steps you took to plan out those motivations, yes.

Intent is slightly different from motivation. Especially if its a felony.

If its a misdemeanor, its certainly a factor.

I guess you can be a vigilante, but isn't that limited too, at most, just capturing the guy or making a citizen's arrest?

edited 25th Jan '11 9:47:06 AM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Now we're just entering an argument on semantics.

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

Welcome to law. Where semantics can change a whole fucking deal of a lot. :V

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Semantics has a lot to do with it.

@OP: What if you like the Punisher?

Becoming The Punisher is not a realistic or sane goal, and I think most fans are aware of this.

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Realistic, yes; sane...that's up for debate. There are people who have training and skills like that; they just happen to work for their respective gov's.

Ah, good point. But that's not really vigilantism, is it?

He's not really a conventional superhero, anyway.

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I've considered what would happen if I were to have the power to and engage in superheroic vigilante justice. Really it could go down several distinct but complementary slippery slopes. One, I'm so effective at it that I eliminate major crime, but because I don't have the powers of discernment of an entire judicial system, I end up falling into the Knight Templar or Well-Intentioned Extremist role. Two, I'm good enough at it and at maintaining The Cape profile that I supplant law enforcement and turn an entire city/country/world completely dependent on me, depending on the scale of my abilities. Third, I make an enemy of law enforcement and government and have to choose between fighting the bad guys or the people I'm protecting from them. Assuming I survive and continue in the path I set, I see no way that it doesn't end up with me as some kind of Supreme Dictator of the world. How Superman avoids this is by liberal application of Deus ex Machina, in my opinion.

I've given this quite a bit of thought, actually, since I have since childhood had a superheroic alter ego that I compose stories about.

edited 25th Jan '11 11:49:45 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"