Year of Everyone’s a Superhero

There’s been a lot of chatter these days about “real-life superheroes (RLSH)”, with essays on Boing Boing and recently in Rolling Stone. Who the hell introduces this stuff into the atmosphere to infect and ruin people, I don’t know, but thank goodness.

Anyway, whilst lurking over at Nick Mamatas‘ Livejournal page, he posted about all this here. Which got me thinking. Hell, we’re living in science fiction now, aren’t we? We could all be superheroes, if we wanted. And if we had nothing better to do, didn’t mind a lot of pain and the risk of early death, and if we didn’t fear prison.

Why not? As some have pointed out before me, The Batman doesn’t have any magic, he’s just got billions of dollars and a martial arts discipline beyond belief. If any of us could afford to have those wonderful doohickies designed, tested, and mass produced, we could also be destroying $1.5 million in property while apprehending a single mugger.

In many many ways we’ve entered a period in history where technology is rapidly granting powers and abilities to folks who in years past would have been denied such things. From the mundane (self-publishing, personal computers) to the amazing (genetic manipulation, face transplants), we’re living in a time when a lot of stuff that used to be wild fantasy is becoming hard reality – why not superheroes? It makes sense. Vigilantism has always existed; now it can be combined with all sorts of James Bondian tech and powerful communication grids.

And, apparently, silly costumes: What’s amazing about a lot of the “real life superheroes” is the fact that while they may seem perfectly serious about helping their communities and fighting crime in practical, effective ways, they also seem waayyyy too eager to put on a Halloween costume while doing it. Why? I don’t know. The costumes invariably look ridiculous, can’t possibly serve any practical purpose, and open up the “hero” to mockery and humiliation. I mean, a man wearing jeans and a T-shirt, wielding a tire-iron, breaks up a mugging? Hero. A man in a latex home-sewn suit designed to look like a frog or something, wielding a tire-iron painted green, breaks up a mugging? A freak who did something heroic.

Of course, I may simply be jealous, as my only plausible alter-ego would be Whiskey Man, who douses varmints with liquor until they pass out. And my costume choices are not good. And plus also too my physical training is, uh, a little sub-par, and no one likes to see a superhero slumped against an alley wall, weeping and clutching his side and whining about a stitch.