7 Minutes to Midnight (Part II)

As you must very well know, I love superheroes. The very idea of the superhero gets me excited, and gets my creative juices flowing. This has become an increasingly easy passion for me to feed as the years have passed by because more and more people are accepting the superhero as a legitimate form of entertainment. For me, however, it holds something more. Sure, it gives me a bit of a chubby to see someone flying through the air, or stopping incoming projectiles with telekenesis, or even exhibiting above normal amounts of strength (super strength, if you will). But there is more to it than that, in my mind.

About two years ago I wrote a short piece on facebook (which is still there if anyone is interested in reading titled "7 Minutes to Midnight") about superheroes and why they mean something to me. I really want to continue to expand on that idea because of the recent crop of above average superhero/comic book films to be released this summer. There has been something notably unusual about this recent crop of films. They have all been good. Some moreso than the rest, but there has not been a real stinker in the lot, in my opinion, which I can't think of having happened before. Usually for every Spider-man 2 there has been at least two or three Fantastic Fours to come out. This summer, though, the movies have all been good, and have really hit home with ideas that we all deal with every day, though it may not be as blatant to most of you, not meaning to be condescending here.

When I look at a superhero, I see more than some person who puts on a crazy costume and jumps around on rooftops to stop criminals. I see what we are supposed to be. Think about it like this: Superheroes are beings who have certain abilities. Those abilities make each of them unique, to some degree. They choose how to use those abilities. In a similar manner, we as people are given certain abilities. We have things we are just good at. And we have choices to make in regard to how we use those abilities. We can use them for either good or evil. And it isn't always as clear cut as that. There are most certainly gray areas. It is hard to avoid uncertainties in an adult world. Superhero stories really deal with that in the way that the public will respond to the actions of a hero. Some are for it, and some are against. It frightens people to see a person put on a mask and take the law into their own hands because that is very similar to the behavior of criminals. What gave them the right to do that? What gives this person a higher level of morality to decide that there is a flaw, and that they should do something about it.

This idea is tackled in THE DARK KNIGHT. A conversation early in the movie between Harvey Dent, Bruce Wayne, Rachel Dawes, and a Russian woman of no real consequence, delves into the reasons behind whether or not Batman is a justified presence in Gotham City. True, from the perspective of the audience, we are inclined to root for Batman, and know that he is in the right because he is giving up his own life to be the guardian of Gotham. He is making the sacrifice, and we can clearly see that, but in the film, the general public does not see this at all.

Batman is my favorite superhero, plain and simple. The reason for this is that he is a very realistic hero. He has no mystical powers or anything like that. He is just an ordinary man who has trained himself, and taken the things that he is best at, and used them to help his society. They may not like it, but he is able to endure. He is not in it for public approval. He is going this because it is his calling in life, and he believes that he can leave the world a better place than he found it by doing these things.

Superheroes show us how we should use our gifts and abilities to help the world at large. They may not always appreciate what it is that we do, but if you can influence and change for the better the life of one person, then you have done something right. The reason I want to write is not to get money or fame or anything like that. I want to inspire people. To give them hope. To let people know that it is okay to escape for a little while into an intangible world, and just forget the problems you have to endure day in and day out.

That's all I have for today. I'll be back tomorrow with something new, hopefully. I won't promise because that is always what gets me into trouble. A new poll at least will go up tomorrow. Also, I want to start sharing some of my writing pieces with you all, so I will be putting up some excerpts as time goes on.


You can't stop the signal...