Where Are the Superheroes?

I had a dream last night: there was fire coming out of all the buildings in the apartment complex I live in. The fire trucks started coming up to the buildings, but instead of fire fighters getting out, superheroes did. They flew and climbed and jumped their ways to the windows and saved all the people in the fiery buildings. Then, without a word, they left. As they left, the fire fighters were getting out of the fire trucks, rubbing their eyes like they'd been asleep, and they started putting out the fires. Then I woke up.

When I turned on my phone, the first alert I got was from CNN about the explosion at the fertilizer plant in West, Texas. I watched the 5:30am press conference on it. Then I watched the news. Authorities are looking for two people of interest from the Boston bombing. The Senate voted down a bill that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It literally felt like everything in the world was going wrong (To be fair, it was also pre-coffee, so everything always feels like it's going wrong that early!). 

The Avengers

Then I remembered my dream. Superheroes. In the last week, we could have used some. If we could have had Iron Man (with his government military intelligence), Batman (with his justice-first attitude), or any of the X-Men (with their...well, everything), it would have helped so much! 

I started looking around at the history of superheroes and found something interesting: the rise and fall of superhero popularity is directly related to what's happening in our country at the time. Superman was the first superhero, written in 1933 and finally published in 1938. What was going on in the 1930s? The Great Depression. Captain America and Batman enjoyed wide success in the early 1940s, as World War II raged on. Comics lost public interest during the late 1940s and 1950s, because America was safe and booming. The Cold War spanned a great part of the 1960s; enter The Avengers and the X-Men, along with a rekindling of Batman, Superman, and Captain America. From the 1970s through the 1990s, superheroes weren't as popular as they had been during the 1960s. But then, the early 2000s saw a huge rise in popularity--and it hasn't stopped. Since the 9/11 attack we have been in war, depression, and at-home party rifts. 

There's another Iron Man movie coming out this summer. I went to the in-theater Batman movie marathon last summer. The Avengers movie that came out last year was amazing. After the latest X-Men movie, I went back and watched some of the previous ones that I hadn't seen. And I'm not alone. 

I am of a generation that grew up knowing that superhero characters existed, but we didn't grow up loving superheroes. And now we do. Maybe it's silly and naive, but I love the idea of a group of people who are brilliant and want justice coming to "our" rescue! And there's some part of me that thinks we need it. 

Batman

Even though we aren't in a war overseas (oh, wait--we are in wars overseas; people just don't pay attention to them anymore...topic for another day), we need to look to our leaders right now and come together to get through all of this. We have not come together as a country for a cause since World War II. Back then, people didn't mind giving up things in their every day life up for a national cause. Now, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan barely ever even make headlines. I have a friend who is about to be deployed and I feel like people aren't even going to pay attention to him or care that he's over there. Right now it feels like at home people care more about party lines and personal gain than true peace and justice. What if every day we heard about the wars and everyone was expected to tighten their belts a little bit to support our troops and our government? Maybe then we wouldn't need superheroes, we would just want them. 

X-Men

I think the metaphor of superheroes is something that's played out every day and something we need to pay attention to more. The first responders in the Boston bombings are superheroes. The fire fighters and EMS workers who were killed and injured in West, Texas are superheroes. The persevering parents and siblings of kids who were murdered at Sandy Hook are superheroes. People who try to protect and save other people are everyday superheroes. And we do need them.

It might sound stupid and child-like, but today, be a superhero. Figure out a way that you can help someone and not ask anything in return. Run toward the problems and help fix instead of running away and assuming that someone else will fix the problems. Save a life, show strength, and give hope.

Superman

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi