November 10, 2013

Slice of PIE: Super Hero Dreams

I’m going to talk about something that most of us don’t want to hear – and a sentiment I rarely hear expressed in the world of speculative fiction.

Superheroes ruined my life.

My childhood anyway.

I’m an old guy, so the super heroes I read were the classic ones: Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Daredevil, and the original yellow-and-black-spandex X-Men. Green Lantern was and IS my favorite. But so long as I haven’t been visited by an alien seeking my help in keeping peace and tranquility in the Universe, I ain’t gonna be able to imitate him.

My only recourse as a kid was Batman. He was Human, and though he was fabulously wealthy, his “superness” was attainable, so I wanted to be Batman.

As a child, my access to skin-clinging spandex and tights was limited and there was no possible chance I could make a cool rubber mask like the one Batman wore on the only TV series I had to compare to, so I had to be content with something less-than-fabulous. Also, I didn’t sew, had no interest in telling my mother and father I wanted to be Batman more than anything else – by the way, the other reason I wanted to be super is to hide from what I was: a fat little boy who lived a boring life in a boring suburb of a boring big city. My life seemed to be ultimately boring and there seemed absolutely no way to escape its boredom except to become “super”.

So I made my own costume out of paper bags from the grocery store.

Mask, belt, and emblem, I drew countless costumes and even though I knew in my real, rational mind that I looked like a pre-adolescent wearing a paper bag cutout costume, in my unreal, irrational mind, I was a superhero.

I suppose that if I’d stayed in my bedroom from 10 years old until I was in my early 30’s, I would have done all right. But I didn’t.

I ran around the neighborhood, hoping a local superhero would see me as Ward material and adopt me into the exciting life of wearing tights and fighting crime. I kept looking to the sky for aliens to drop me a ring. I wanted SO badly to go to Monticello, MN where there was a nuclear power plant and an increased likelihood of radioactive spiders to get bitten by. None of that happened.

What DID happen was that I became a neighborhood freak. A laughingstock. My brothers mocked me. My neighbors mocked me. My mother felt sorry enough for me to make a real, live, cloth Batman suit from a pattern, ostensibly for Halloween. I wore that thing forever.

But I never became super. I never saved anyone – at least not until I became a lifeguard and in my career saved the lives of two kids, though never to public acclaim. They’re the only ones who know I helped them. I was a classroom science teacher for twenty-something years and I’m now a school guidance counselor, but I don’t think I did anything more than inspire some kids. Certainly I never “saved” anyone.

All of this is to say that comic books set me up to have unrealistic expectations, set unrealistic dreams for myself, and set me up for ridicule and reviling by my peers and neighbors. Quite possibly I was an embarrassment to my family...I had no “friends” to embarrass at that time...and I may be permanently scarred.

The thought then is what is the “live-action-superhero-craze” doing to some kid, somewhere, who is pudgy, self-conscious, silent, and isolated? Is he wondering if he mixed a potion and drank it he’d turn into the Incredible Hulk? Is SHE wondering if she wore clingy, spandex outfits, and could ONLY fit into a size 2 and have bigger boobs, SHE would be “super”? I don’t know – and if the truth be told, I am, perhaps, AFRAID to know...

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