Heroes

Heroes and Villains. I can't get my mind off of them lately. It probably has something to do with seeing Watchmen (good, but not for the faint of heart) and the first X-Men (lighter, but no less heavy if probed deeply) film back-to-back. Curiously, my thoughts, re: activisms, are also fairly relevant.

All my thoughts boil down to one thing: if you had extraordinary abilities (and, yes, even "abilities" that aren't really abilities, a la Batman), what would you do with them?

The sheer range of answers, I think, aborts a simple "hero" or "villain" dichotomy. Would all those invested in personal gain be necessarily interested in creating collateral damage? And what about those who would fight (so-called) criminals--what about the property destruction inevitably accumulated at the hands of "doin' good"?

Yet, inevitably, we construct a sharp division between "hero" and "villain," right? Perhaps because (as my undergraduate "upbringing" would have me believe) we need one to define the other? Certainly that must be true, 'cause heroes need somebody to fight as much as the villains do too.

I think I'm going to dedicate the next few posts to this topic. It's a lot to sort out, and I, of course, want it as linear as possible.

PS: Search "hero" on Google's image search. And then "villain." Notice anything?