Heroes

So a popular question to ask someone, a friend or significant other, is the age old question…what power would you want to have if you were a superhero. I always go to my old standby – invisibility. Psychoanalyze all you want, but how cool would it be just to walk around, go wherever you want without being noticed and peek in on people in their truest form. Go ahead, peek in on a celebrity at home, feet propped up on a coffee table watching themselves on Extra, just like we would be doing on any given night. Or check out what is going on at the White House at 2am, probably the president with his feet propped up on a coffee table watching “Lil’ Bush” or trying to make one of those tough decisions, like what to have for his late night snack – pie or nachos? But seriously, which power would you pick?

Thanks to Marvel, DC Comics, the Fantastic Four, Heroes, and X-Men, all the good powers have already been…theorized, if you will. Flying (check), invincibility/regeneration (check), telekinesis (check), ability to create spider-webs (check), screaming loud enough to disorient all within a mile radius (check). I give X-Men the medal for being most creative, but at this point, you almost have to be, all the standard “super” powers have been realized on TV, in comics, and on the big screen. At this point all that is left is to argue endlessly who is a better superhero, Batman, Superman, or The Greatest American Hero – sing it with me, “believe it or not, I’m walking on air, never thought I could be so free…” So where else is there to go? A superhero who can balance that national budget? A extraterrestrial who isn’t out to destroy earth and all its inhabitance but could if it sneezed accidental but came to earth because it was teased at alien high school? A deadbeat dad actually paying child support?

Now imagine a school like the one in X-Men where kids who possess gifted powers learn standard school curriculum but also how to apply their abilities. History will show that no matter how gifted a child might be, putting a group of similar aged adolescents in a boarding school where they are taught the basic knowledge set, they will socialize and act like every other school social system. So some kid who can manipulate fire will always be the “cool” kid, because come on, who really wants to hang out with the kid who can just turn things into cold ice. And seriously, who wouldn’t want a friend who can turn his skin into steel plates, but a girlfriend you can’t even touch you because she’ll suck the life force right out of you? Just like every other school, fights would break out, only in this ‘gifted’ school, some serious mess could go down – although a headmaster that can freeze time and kill anyone just by concentrating hard enough would certainly keep things in line.

Speaking of which, I’m not a big fan of time travel as a superpower. With the exception of “Back to the Future” and “Austin Powers”, time travel or time manipulation just really bugs me. First of all, the whole concept of time travel is even theoretically impossible, on almost every level of science. The consequences…I think I won’t even go into it, I’m sure you get the point. In fictional situations, it brings in far too many questions, and puts holes in every single aspect of the story. The best explanation of time travel in a movie was in the second Austin Powers film, “So, Basil, if I travel back to 1969 and I was frozen in 1967, presumably, I could go back and look at my frozen self. But, if I'm still frozen in 1967, how could I have been unthawed in the '90s and traveled back to the '60s? Oh, no, I've gone cross-eyed.” Exactly. Somehow it works in comedies, not dramas or action-adventures. So whenever I watch Heroes, I try to suspend disbelief because it isn’t a bad show. Just like life, sometimes we need to suspend disbelief, except everyday heroes, and find our own superpower. But for now, I think I will stick with the old stand by of invisibility because then life would be like one big, unscripted TV show. And what is more humorous than real life?