Thoughts on Heroes

 What makes a hero? Specifically, what makes a superhero? Extraordinary abilities, obviously...but some superheroes--notably Batman and Robin--have no superpowers; their extraordinariness comes from training and study.

But I think there has to be something more than that. I have always been drawn to the characters who would have been heroic before they gained superpowers or put on a tight-fitting suit. Prime example is the original version of the 1960s Green Lantern: Hal Jordan. Jordan was a test pilot before he met the alien who handed him a glowing lantern and a ring. If you read the accounts of his past as they were revealed, he was to all extents the DC Universe equivalent of Neil Armstrong. Had that fateful meeting not put him on a different path, he might well have been one of his world's Mercury astronauts. He was already a hero.

Similarly, because of the way he was raised by his foster parents, Clark Kent might have been a hero even if his alien origins didn't give him superpowers. In some ways, even when he wasn't flying around dressed in red-and-blue, he was: Reporters take risks, put themselves in danger as part of their jobs. Clark was dedicated to helping his neighbors--he didn't need a cape to do it.

I don't feel the same way about Batman, at least not as he is characterized today. In the 1950s and '60s, I did. In those days, Bruce Wayne, having exorcised his own demons, set about to protect everyone else. Today, it seems as if he is still all-consumed by those demons, viewing the world as bleak and corrupt, barely worth saving, except as doing so eases his own soul. That seems incredibly narcissistic to me.

I'll always prefer the hero who can smile when his job is well done.

Lantern's Light

Moving away from politics and current events for a bit....

When I was an active comics collector, one of my favorite titles was Green Lantern. For those unfamiliar with the character, GL was a test pilot named Hal Jordan who was recruited to become one of 3600 interstellar police officers throughout the universe by the group's founders, the mysterious Guardians of the Universe.

As a member, he was given three things: a power battery, shaped like a green lantern; a uniform; and a ring which, when charged at the battery, would emit a green energy that could be shaped and commanded by his will and imagination into anything he desired. A good deal of the time, GL used that ability to create giant, verdant versions of familiar objects: boxing gloves, fans, arrows, you name it.

That, of course, led to a question: Why use the power that way? I had my own theory--the ring was limited, as described, by the ring-bearer's will and imagination...but I figured it was also limited by his knowledge and abilities. He could create and manipulate those objects because he knew how they worked. He couldn't create a weapon that would vaporize an opponent because he had no idea how such a device would work...or even if it were possible.

Over time, I had to give up that theory as the writers came up with ways to use the ring that Hal Jordan couldn't possibly have understood (in one case, he used it to turn himself into a robot in order to enter a room filled with deadly radiation). But I always thought it was a logical limitation on his power...and one that would differentiate the various members of the Green Lantern Corps as they came from differing backgrounds and planets.