14th January 2021
Shhhh….I have a super power. How many people can claim that? According to my cost centres it is the ability to pick up hot things with my bare hands. Bet you wish you could be superhero Asbestos hands….
I showed cost centre 3 clips from the Christopher Reeves Superman films. It was wonderful….well ok – only to me. Clearly nostalgia for films I grew up with but there was also remembrance of how entertained and exhilarated I felt as a child watching this movie. As an aside, the incredible score John Williams created for it is still admired today, 40 years later. When you focus on the music of a film alone you can really appreciate the additional sensations and depth it adds to what we watch and in this case to what might admittedly not be the greatest movies…..
Now I know I invite controversy here but I think that Superman has to be one of the best superhero’s created. He clearly has the most effective powers and can only be defeated by a mineral that is so rare that only dastardly criminal masterminds with a fiendishly complex plan can find their way to securing it. Cost centre 3 disagrees. For her, Harley Quinn is the embodiment of fabulous, kick ass power. Husband adores Cat woman but that is only because he dreams of Michelle Pfiffer in a leather cat suit….sighh…when having a serious superhero conversation in my home, standards are low.
This American Life had a fascinating podcast about superhero powers and how people feel about them. Is it surprising that men and women think differently about such things? For example women wanted to be invisible, men wanted to fly. It was something around men wanting to be more visible, although I’m more disturbed by women wanting to act (properly or not) without anyone knowing. When this group were asked what they would do with their superpowers, very few said they would use their power for good as their first reaction. Does that surprise you?
So it might come out of the blue, but I am a comic and superhero nerd with almost 40 years of reading comics and graphic novels under my belt. I love reading and I love this genre but I’m quite aware that it hasn’t been able to cross over into ‘civilised society’. People are bemused, not quite sure where to look when I discuss my comic collection. When the last Avengers movie was released it was the highest grossing movie of all time and yet none of the superhero movies of Marvel or DC have in their whole tenure ever been considered for awards of serious note. However, these films still take effort and skill to make; to bring characters to life. Some are akin to modern day fables embodying morals similar to their more serious counterparts.
Admittedly over the years some very strange super heroes have been fabricated which makes you wonder how ‘off their heads’ people were when getting their creative mojo on! Lockjaw is a talking dog that can travel through time, Big Bertha who as the name suggests has the power to add weight to become very heavy and then throws it all up to return to normal size. The Almighty Dollar has the power to shoot coins from his body. Arm fall off boy can detach different limbs to use as weapons; Bouncing boy can inflate and bounce around and Matter Eater lad can eat anything at super speed. And for the #MeToo era – Starofox, who could move people to be sexually attracted to him and offer ‘pleasure simulation’. No idea what that’s about!
Still I’m sure you’ll agree that nothing compares with Asbestos hands. Not even Superman.
Curiosity and the rascal 