Another spot on piece. Everything you say resonates so deeply with me. As a kid my favourite superheroes were found in the works of Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, characters like Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan and later on comic characters like Batman and Iron Man. Simply because they didn’t have super abilities. They were just ordinary men in extra ordinary situations that allowed them to grow to their full potential.
I always knew there was no way I’d be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but there was some part of Batman, of Tarzan, and of Conan that was in some small part attainable, and that made them all the more real for me.
I was similar, with the exception of my three favorite X-Men....Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine. I wanted to be one of them, OR a combination of all three -- which to me would have been the ultimate male hero.
...but when you said, "...because they didn’t have super abilities," I remembered all the TTRPGs I played and always loved heightened intelligence as the power I wanted, because then, IF you had the correct backgrounds, you could do ANYthing.
You had ALL the superpowers.
Thanks for your feedback, Jon.
I think you're going to enjoy this whole series. The 12 articles are complete and being edited and prepped, so the whole series will happen to the comclusion.
Hopefully I'll be able to encourage people to write more deep fiction to expand the imaginations of readers...
Wow. What a well done post! I really enjoyed reading this.
I always struggle when I try to think of fictional heroes I looked up to. There were so many for so many reasons and I dont have the best memory. In the context of this I’d probably mention Shawn Hunter from Boy Meets World (it’s so good, William Daniels is in it). Shawn dealt with a lot that I dealt with growing up. Through that he still tried to do the right thing and always came through for the folks he cared about when he was needed. It may not have always worked and he deffo wasn’t a perfect character. But as a little kid I figured if he could do it so could I.
....and that's a what I mean. Shawn Hunter wasn't the perfect character, but he was RELATABLE. That's most important for us, when we are young.
But here's the fun thing about fiction:
...it's the same when we are old, also.
I still prefer books to characters I can relate to over those I cannot.
I take refuge in stories where someone figures out the impossible when the world is beating them down.
...and honestly, I fall into movies where the good guy is poetically beating the hell out of genuine evil people, when I don't want to harm someone in RL, but want to scream at the horrific injustice I'm experiencing.
[Pssst. Mad at life, guys? Watch 'FASTER' with The Rock - not a single innocent person dies in the movie. Only bad / guilty ones.]
Another spot on piece. Everything you say resonates so deeply with me. As a kid my favourite superheroes were found in the works of Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, characters like Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan and later on comic characters like Batman and Iron Man. Simply because they didn’t have super abilities. They were just ordinary men in extra ordinary situations that allowed them to grow to their full potential.
I always knew there was no way I’d be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but there was some part of Batman, of Tarzan, and of Conan that was in some small part attainable, and that made them all the more real for me.
I was similar, with the exception of my three favorite X-Men....Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine. I wanted to be one of them, OR a combination of all three -- which to me would have been the ultimate male hero.
...but when you said, "...because they didn’t have super abilities," I remembered all the TTRPGs I played and always loved heightened intelligence as the power I wanted, because then, IF you had the correct backgrounds, you could do ANYthing.
You had ALL the superpowers.
Thanks for your feedback, Jon.
I think you're going to enjoy this whole series. The 12 articles are complete and being edited and prepped, so the whole series will happen to the comclusion.
Hopefully I'll be able to encourage people to write more deep fiction to expand the imaginations of readers...
Wow. What a well done post! I really enjoyed reading this.
I always struggle when I try to think of fictional heroes I looked up to. There were so many for so many reasons and I dont have the best memory. In the context of this I’d probably mention Shawn Hunter from Boy Meets World (it’s so good, William Daniels is in it). Shawn dealt with a lot that I dealt with growing up. Through that he still tried to do the right thing and always came through for the folks he cared about when he was needed. It may not have always worked and he deffo wasn’t a perfect character. But as a little kid I figured if he could do it so could I.
Welcome, Thomas.
I'm so glad you enjoyed this.
....and that's a what I mean. Shawn Hunter wasn't the perfect character, but he was RELATABLE. That's most important for us, when we are young.
But here's the fun thing about fiction:
...it's the same when we are old, also.
I still prefer books to characters I can relate to over those I cannot.
I take refuge in stories where someone figures out the impossible when the world is beating them down.
...and honestly, I fall into movies where the good guy is poetically beating the hell out of genuine evil people, when I don't want to harm someone in RL, but want to scream at the horrific injustice I'm experiencing.
[Pssst. Mad at life, guys? Watch 'FASTER' with The Rock - not a single innocent person dies in the movie. Only bad / guilty ones.]