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The Eiffel Problem And Why Superheroes Are Not Heroes.
The one problem I have with superheroes is that it’s not the human qualities they possess that make them heroes, but it’s usually the ones that are superfluous and completely out of this world.
Spiderman, Flash, Superman, Thor, Aquaman... you name them, these heroic figures have things in common: they’re friends of the good, have good characters (well...usually), and are enemies of the bad. Clerk Kent is humble, Dianna is compassionate, young Peter Parker is a naive high school kid, and many others. They fight to ensure that evil doesn’t triumph over good.
We get thrilled by their loftiness, but their true heroism, what made them able do what they do and be who they are, doesn’t rest of these real life qualities, rather it rests on the various superhuman abilities allocated to them by creative storytellers who only end up getting us to admire what, I’m sorry to say, we cannot have.
I’ll classify my 7-year old cousin as Spiderman’s number-one fan. Personally, I love Flash and Wonder Woman, and generally we all like the way these guys always show up and save the day. This qualifies them to be our role models, but because there is this astronomical gap separating fiction from reality, these guys teach us next to nothing.
“True heroism is remarkably sober, very…
