Its a bird...its a plane... no wait...it's only Superman.

I'm tired of all this superhero bashing that has been going on lately.

Last Saturday the Journal Sentinel ran an editiorial entitled "America can manage without superheroes." http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=578539 I strongly believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion and I enjoy reading editorials to learn more about how other people view the world. This editorial was written in response to the death of Captain America and strongly believed that the world would be better without superheroes. She believes that they give us false hope and make it seem to easy to fix the worlds problems. The things is that we all need a little hope. There are many problems and evils in this world, and most people do nothing about it.

Then on Friday night I was out and about and went into a bar wearing a Superman sweatshirt like I usually do. This girl there just started laying into me about my Superman sweatshirt. She thought it was "weird" that a grown man was into Superman. We need more adults "into" superheroes. We need an escape, a glimmer of hope. Why is that a bad thing? Too many people are "into" being an asshole and only looking out for themselves. I say we all should find the inner child in us and believe in a man in a red cape swooping down and saving us all. Hey, why not? No one else is going to save us all.

Here is my editorial response to the Journal's editorial against Superheroes.

I read your editorial, “America can manage without superheroes,” in the Journal Sentinel on Saturday March 17, and found it interesting but a bit off-base. My first thought was, “Congratulations you cheered and took joy in the death of someone.” Albeit, it was a fictionalized person in a comic book, but still a person. I don’t see how the death of anything can make the world “better” and push people into being more involved in things like the PTA and our community like you mentioned.

You had some oversimplified stereotypes about superheroes in your editorial. You mentioned that there is an “outside evil” and the hero usually comes from the outside. Without going into any long exhaustive details, let’s look at heroes and villains and their origins. Bruce Wayne (Batman) was born and raised in Gotham City, Clark Kent (Superman) was born in Kansas (Metropolis), Peter Parker (Spider Man) was born in Brooklyn, and Captain America was born in New York. All these individuals went on to fight crime in their own hometowns. All of the them also fought against villains who were from their cities.

You said that once the evil is thwarted that the superhero runs off until the next evil threat occurs. That’s the great dichotomy of being a superhero; every one of them battles with the fact that they just want to be normal like everyone else, but they know that unlike everyone else they have this ability to do more, and they have to do more at whatever cost. That’s what makes superheroes so interesting. How many of us would be able to walk away from the love of our live to save the life of a perfect stranger that will be unable to ever fully thank you. Yet that is what everyone one of them does day in and day out. They have all had to walk away from their true lives, wherein life is simpler, and took the calling. How many of us take the easy way out everyday. We could go down to the YMCA and volunteer our time, but I’m tired from work, I’ll just go home and relax. I could take this money I’ve been saving up and donate it to that new church and rec center they are building in the city; but I think I'll just take a vacation down to Florida.

Also, consider that a good number of superheroes actually have no super-powers at all, they just have this desire to do more than the average citizen. Batman had no superpowers, just a lot of money. Captain America had no super-powers, just a potion he could take that would make him stronger; but not invincible. Green Arrow had no superpowers, just money and a very accurate bow and arrow. How is it not a good idea to look up to someone who is actually just like us but strives to do more, to save more, and be more of a difference? Is this not the same as someone who has no super-powers but is a really good surgeon, going out and working as a doctor at a free clinic? The same thing as someone who has no super-powers but is really smart and dedicated, who works as a teacher in the inner-city?

The fact of the matter is that superheroes are exactly that; heroes that are super. Yes there are heroes that walk among us everyday that deserve more recognition. A few that come to mind are Wesley Autrey (the “NY city subway hero”), Jackie Robinson (breaking the color barrier in baseball), Paul Rusesabagina (the real-life hotel owner fro Hotel Rwanda), and Jason Thomas (the gentleman who pulled people out of the World Trade Center wreckage). Unfortunately the world doesn’t care about these people, they would rather focus on the Ron Artest’s and Eminem who are popular in pop-cultural media but are horrible role models. How is it then a negative to acknowledge individuals, despite being fictionalized, who are pop-culturally famous and good people. It’s a lot easier to reach young people and show them to be good people and do the right things by having them watch a Batman or Superman movie than show them footage of Paul Rusesabagina allowing refuges into his hotel to escape death, even at the risk of his own life. People can easily respond to superheroes, they do the right things and make it look “cool” to do the right thing.

I don’t see how believing in superheroes is such a bad thing, it promotes us to become the best we can be, in our own little ways. Most people out there become whoever they have become (for better or worse) because of someone they saw and strived to be like. How many doctors out there would say that they reason they got into medicine is because either they spent time in a hospital as a child and the doctors that treated them were great, or maybe a family member was in that situation. I’m sure you became a clergywoman because faith was important to you and growing up you looked up to clergy as a source of inspiration. I am currently a high school teacher and the main reason I got involved in education is because my entire life I was surrounded by powerful teachers who shared with me the life-fulfilling power of education.

If more people read superhero comics or just watched the movies, we would have more people conscious of the world around them and might actually get more involved. Too many people walk this earth having no care about how it all fits together, that there are people in every city, on every street hoping and praying for help and guidance. What do we do; sit at home and watch Desperate Housewives, drive our SUVs, and send all our promising young men overseas to fight a war. (I don’t think any superhero went on a vigilante mission looking for theorized weapons of mass destruction.) Superheroes give us a glimmer of hope in an ever-hopeless world. Maybe we are all not doomed, maybe someone will come swooping down out of the sky and save us all. Do I believe someone like Superman exists that can stop bullets? No, of course not. But what if we could get closer to that point? What if we could have more and more people donating their time at the Boys and Girls Club downtown? More people being more conscious of gasoline consumption? What if we all cared just a little bit more? Superheroes aren’t asking us to walk away from everything and everyone we love and take a bullet for a stranger. That’s their job. We have to do the rest. Go to PTA meetings, help around the community, fix healthcare and education, and care about our brothers and sisters.

There was a great line in Smallville (a show about Clark Kent growing up and learning how to become Superman) between Clark and his mother. Clark does not want to do all these great things and save all these people, he just wants to settle down with his true love and become a farmer like his father, but he knows he is meant for more. His mom tells him, “Every world needs its hero; they inspire us to be better than we are.”