Believe me, you don’t want to live in a country that doesn’t have Comic-Cons, that doesn’t know how to play—even well into adulthood. When exactly are you too sophisticated, too grounded, too spiritual, too concerned with the plight of the suffering masses, too damn serious to set out on bold intergalactic adventures, even if you never leave the confines of a climate-controlled auditorium?
You know when? When you’re part of the problem.
You know which countries don’t have Comic-Cons? Syria. Sudan. North Korea. Saudi Arabia. Venezuela. Cuba.
Throughout the western tradition, man has craved heroism. We may find it in an Odysseus, an Aeneas, or a Beowulf. We may find it in a St. Perpetua, a St. Ignatius, or a Sir Thomas More. We may find them in an Ivanhoe, a Natty Bumppo, or a Sherlock Holmes. Or, we may find them in a Superman or a Batman. There is a continuity from an Aeneas to a St. Ignatius to a Superman. We long for heroes, and we will have them. Indeed, the entire genre of the superhero most closely resembles the stories of the saints. While more modern comic authors have often shaded the areas of morality, in terms of violence and sex, the great figures of the genre—Superman and Batman, to name two—remain, at essence good. Their goals are for a just and merciful society. The powers of the superheroes—when so endowed—are the powers of the Catholic and Orthodox saints. They can levitate, bi-locate, teleport, and see visions of the past, future, and into other realms. Should we be surprised? The Greeks and Romans had their gods, demi-gods, and heroes. The medievals had God and His saints. Consequently, we moderns, no matter how sophisticated we believe ourselves to be, have our new demi-gods and heroes.
I think there’s a lot of truth to the idea that “superheroes are our mythos” in the way stories about Hercules or others were for previous cultures.
I wonder, though, what it says that increasingly few people get to do the “big things” – whereas in the past there were Explorers and Generals and Pioneers of Medicine and such. (Then again – there were also lots of Farmers and Charwomen and Streetsweepers, so maybe most people have always had rather hum-drum lives without a chance to do anything “great.”)