Super Me?

Greetings, WYMOP fans!

So with all the uproar over the impending Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice movie, I’ve decided to embrace my inner spaz, and blather on about a topic that will look really familiar to most—if not all—of the men out there. No, it’s not who do I think will win; I don’t want to be accused of spoiling the film for some comic book fan a year from now when I turn out to be right. Instead I want to look at something most men out there have already discussed: what super power would I really want?

And I’m not talking about childhood discussions, here; I don’t know about you, ladies, but the men in your lives, no matter how old they are, would most likely launch themselves balls-to-the-wall into this discussion if given half a chance, and without a thought.

Now, for the purposes of this blog, I’ve lined up five of the biggies, the ones that have probably been discussed again and again. But this is me, my opinions and my thoughts, on what super power I would want, from my current, aged, wrinkly perspective.

1) Invisibility:

Photo courtesy of
               the Huffington Post

Okay, look: one of the things I loved about my Jeep was the room that it gave me—not cargo, or passenger room, mind, but my own personal space—and the height it allowed me for stepping in and out of the vehicle. Sometimes, when I mentioned all the glorious personal space the vehicle gave me, friends would give me somewhat funny looks, as I am pretty average in the height and build department; it wasn’t like Shaquille O’Neil was trying to squeeze behind the steering wheel or anything.

I would always answer those looks in the same way: truthfully.

“I may not be big, but I’m damn clumsy.”

I am prone to missteps and whacking myself on things. In the summertime, in shorts, I have the legs of a toddler, with their constantly scraped knees and bruised shins, and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve walked around with a cut or bruise on my otherwise smooth and shiny head, simply because I forgot to duck. And this is when I can see myself.

Were I to lose my visibility, my already pitiful ability to gauge the position of my hands and feet and everything in between would be seriously compromised. Misfortune would leap upon me with all the swift savagery of a puppy attacking an unshod foot, happily gnawing with growling, drooling abandon on the big toe of my fate. I’d give it a week—at the outside—before I was found, invisible and unconscious (and naked, don’t forget that! I’m into the classics!) at the foot of the stairs, having bashed myself into amnesia with a misstep, leaving the police no choice but to make the rounds with an ID photo showing naught but a visibly empty bed.

Invisibility: no.

2) Super Strength:

I once mentioned, in a review I wrote of the film WolfCop, that, were I to suddenly gain greater-than-human strength “ . . . when I was fourteen, I would have been right down at the park, whoopin’ ass in a neighborhood football game. I’m forty-six, and if I got super strength and speed today, then tomorrow you’d find me hanging at the local park, football in hand, waiting for the locals to start choosing up sides.”  I stand by that declaration.

However . . .

If I were getting to plan ahead and chooses power, I’m not sure I’d go with the ability to bench-press Kanye West’s ego. I believe I’ve explained that I am not the most graceful of persons (see above). I’m not even in the top 25%. I’m more in the Oh, that looked painful category.

If you’ve ever seen The Incredibles, you may remember the scene where Mr.

Incredible (who has super strength) accidentally breaks his car a bit (if you don’t, click HERE). That was just thirty seconds of his life, but it probably cost him hundreds of dollars in auto repair. In just thirty seconds. If I suddenly gained Mighty Muscles, or Samson Strength, or whatever cool name you want to put on it, I give myself a week before I’d need: a new car, a new computer, new doors throughout the house, a new toilet, and (this is the icky one, folks) a new puppy for my son—and that’s just off the top of my head. For me, super strength equals financial ruin.

Super Strength: no.

3) Super Speed:

A mailman with super speed. Hardy-har-har, I can hear the jokes now. Cartoons of a turtle wearing a jetpack. Copies of the movie Turbo being randomly left where I could find

them. But it wouldn’t be a joke: if I had increased speed, and my bosses ever found out about it, everyone in my office would be let go so I could deliver the entire town. Every day.

That, my friends, is no fantasy—it’s how upper management in the Postal Service thinks. Someone would get a bonus for coming up with the idea (and you can bet your sweet sitting-parts that no bonus would be coming my way), and I’d be doing the entire town myself. Thirty-five people would lose their jobs, and I’d be the most hated man in the Postal Service. That super speed sure would come in handy when some of the union hit-men—excuse me, I meant representatives—came after me to . . . to talk, yeah, that’s it. Talk. Super Speed would mean being hated and despised, and doing a lot more work for no more money.

Super Speed: no

4) Flight:

We’ve all had that dream, haven’t we? Winging through the air like a bird, looking down upon roof-and-treetops, swooping and diving, then climbing up, up, up, until we punch through the clouds into the brilliant sunshine above, all about us columns and planes of visible vapor, as we soar above a beautiful white landscape in the sky . . .

One problem with that beautiful dream: that would be my nightmare. I’m afraid of heights. I don’t do roller coasters. I avoid the window seat when I fly. It’s a white-knuckle trip every year when I get on the ladder to put up the Christmas lights—which might explain why it takes me so long to get them down again. The one time I tried to do a ferris wheel with my son, just to show the tyke (this was quite a while ago) there was nothing to be afraid of, he wound up asking why Daddy was crying.

It ain’t pretty.

So if I were to choose flight as my super power, the best thing I could say about it would be that I wouldn’t need a nemesis, or one of those arch-enemies the comic book heroes are always spouting off about: all I’d have to do is fly too high, and I’d wet myself to death long before the sun got to melt my wings of wax.

Flight: oh, hell no!

5) Super Brain:

Hmm . . . the Super Brain. I decided to call it the Super Brain rather than Super Intelligence, because there are several different facets to it. Oh, sure, Tony Stark requires some serious intelligence to create the Iron Man suit, just as Reed Richards does for his inventions, and Green Arrow for his trick arrows, Batman and his bat-everything, Lex Luthor and his evil plans . . . but does it only take intelligence? Each of the above mentioned characters has a huge amount of creative genius—the ability to think outside the box, to look at things in a new and different way—not just sheer knowledge. And Batman’s greatest power, arguably, is his inductive ability: he’s DC’s version of the world’s greatest detective.

So, let’s see: is there a downside to brains as a super power?

Well, people might call me a nerd.

Oh, wait, they do that anyway.

People might start making fun of me for my sense of humor, if I start finding stuff funny that they just don’t get.

Oh, hang on. I already love puns. Damn.

I’d probably lose my social skills. I mean, if I had any social skills.

Well, it’s not a downside, but I’d probably start trying to make a living using my brain, rather than walking my route every day . . . like, oh, I don’t know, writing or something.

Waitaminute!

People call me a nerd because half the time they don’t understand what I’m talking about, I have the social skills of a hermit crab with jock itch, I laugh at things people don’t find funny on an hourly basis, and I’m trying to make a go of doing something with my brain that requires at least marginal intelligence and mondo creativity . . .

  . . . holy shit! I’m a superhero!

Sweet!

Talk to you later!