Hero Worship: My Life and Maturation As Told Through 5 Fictional Champions
Slap on your power armor — it’s about to get sentimental.
My mom loves to use family gatherings and holiday dinners to share a charming bit of insight into my cognitive development.
Namely, that for my first years, I never said a word. She eventually got worried about this little snag, and took me to see doctors and speech therapists. They all said I was healthy, and that I’d speak when I wanted to.
“You were about 3 or so,” she says, “and then you just started talking one day. And you haven’t shut up since.”
So, just how did I communicate for that time prior to my verbal awakening? Through my older brother, who’d interpret my nonverbal cues and grunts for juice or nap-time. From the very earliest part of my existence, I filtered the world through another person. The way I shared thoughts and feelings and ideas was sent into him, distilled accordingly, and disseminated to the world.
I’ve held on to this habit even in my early 30s. Except now my translator and communicative strainer is pop culture. It’s not uncommon for a childless, Peter Pan-type like myself to rely so heavily on books, movies, TV, comics, and music for crafting parts of an external identity. In fact, it’s the M.O. of the majority of my friends and generation as a whole to communicate and understand the world through their most beloved characters and media franchises. Using these characters as a means of cultivating friendships, exploring their beliefs, and as a psychic steam valve of sorts. Only, my usage seems to go deeper still.
I’ve so often wanted to be these characters, to drape their skin over mine and live and breathe and share fragments of my brain through their mouths and hands. It’s not just about finding some commonality among action heroes and comic book good guys; being them perhaps meant I could enter a new world. One where my own thoughts seemed cooler and more interesting. Where I could forget my problems or shortcomings and pick up their more stylized versions instead. There comes a time when most children stop playing this depressive level of dress up, and I totally missed the opening bell for that festival of maturation.
If nothing else, I’m fully aware of my tendency to daydream to the point I’ve shifted my brain to an entirely new dimension. By recognizing this habit, I think there’s something to learn. Through tracing the trajectory of my hero obsession, I can figure out important truths about who I was and the slow, weird journey to who I’ll someday become. Can I intervene and protect my personal well-being; to steer the ship toward something resembling normalcy? Who knows. But if I don’t speak up for myself, I’ll never grab that sippy cup. Err, much-needed sense of perspective and personal insight.
Ages 5–10: Batman
That’s a fairly obvious choice; every little boy dreams of being a superhero. When you can’t see over the kitchen counter, it only makes sense that you’d look to someone with real power. Explains why so many wee tykes look up to a character archetype like Superman: He’s the most obvious source of authority in the comic universe, a juggernaut able to bend the rules of physics with his bare hands. That kind of strength always seemed boring, and clearly may have been some form of prepubescent overcompensation. To me, Batman seemed more approachable — a man who became something bigger than himself not just cause of ample money and rocket cars, but he believed that he could ascend to the level of world-saving hero.
His wit and intelligence guided him to some sublime form of transcendence as a crime-fighter. As a small boy with twig-like arms, who felt emotionally and intellectually out of touch with his peer group, wanting to be Batman seemed to be the best way to divert key emotional resources. Plus, all that darkness really resonated. Whereas Superman represented alien ideals of nobility and decency, Batman hung around in the shadows of anger and vengeance. It matched my own perceptions of the world — my parents’ divorce and my own self esteem issues made hiding in the shadows a much more effective coping mechanism. Coming from a place of darkness was pure strategy, a way to hide my own insecurities and help control the many shadowy things creeping inside my brain.
But it wasn’t just that Batman was dark and frightening out of some gaudy self-pity; he accepted who he was. He knew he could never operate like Superman, so he used those darker sentiments to define himself and be of real value. If you’re a young dude and you feel those same inadequacies, you want to seek out people who are just as flawed, but have pivoted that weakness into their greatest source of strength. That’s what Batman’s all about — turning cowardice and fear and rage into weapons for good. He could never smash robot giants with his fists, but he pulled himself out of a personal abyss and made himself something bigger in the process. As much chaos as his parent’s death may have introduced, he was able to spin that into something hugely positive for the DC Universe. I love my parents endlessly, but between their passive aggressive statements and in-fighting, I almost wished I could have been brave enough to be without them sometimes.
It’s not about orphan-worshiping, because that would be asinine. Rather, it was believing that my own sadness needed some catalyst in order to become more than a pile of whimpering feelings. That great men are forged under the crucible of life’s worst tragedies, and that without suffering you can’t ever become who you were meant to be. I realize I’m informing a lot of this in the hindsight of 20-plus years, but I recall being a kid and feeling these balls of sadness and anger inside me, and wishing I could so something with them. A force might explode them from within and at last I’d have the ability to act upon all those heavy thoughts in my head. Like wanting to scream out for answers or share just how much the world was a muddled mess. Nothing ever came of it, and in many ways, I still feel those knots. For a while, though, I hid them behind an old towel and my best gravelly voice.
Ages 10–15: The Punisher
Puberty may be the best and worst thing to happen to anyone, especially young dudes. This monster of testosterone and confidence awakens within you, and you see the world a little different. You want to establish yourself for the first time in your young life, to become this force of nature who demands respect and awe. Only, guys who are 13-15-ish are not exactly the most intimidating of specimens. Between the acne, vocals cracks, and endless parade of awkward boners, it’s hard to strike fear in the heart of anyone. I felt more awkward then I ever had before. It was around this period that I became extra aware of my awkward frame, and how weak and unaccomplished I felt physically. Add in mean-spirited teens and girls who never reciprocated my deepest feelings, and life as a teen boy felt like the worst sort of prison.
My love for Batman remained, but he felt too muted for my needs thanks to his self-imposed limits. If I learned nothing else in my early teen years, it’s that rules (of dealing with people, presenting yourself, etc.) had only made me into a joke among friends and pretty ladies. That’s where The Punisher comes in. Frank Castle has no rules; he’d burn down an entire bar just to off one mobster. He spits in the face of conventions and laughs at people who try to stop him. If you’re an awkward kid who yells “Pause!” during a football game in P.E., that kind of cavalier attitude can be appealing. It wasn’t that I craved his unfettered violence — if anything, that raw destructiveness seemed too much for even an angsty adolescent. Instead, my love for Punisher and his rule-breaking mentality was much more philosophical in nature. He built his own world as he saw fit, pulling from laws and morality and culture and beyond to create his own system of ethics and code of conduct. A man in love with decency as well as the raw power of .50 cal rifles.
It’s no wonder that around this same time I also fell into punk rock — both Punisher and bands like The Clash were all about creation and doing things your own way. There was a certain comfort in being young and dumb and trying to make something from your brain and guts that made more sense than the rules permitted. What that was precisely for The Punisher changed all the time, like who he’d kill or those he’d spare. It wasn’t about inconsistency, but the value of context. In my early teens I devoured books about physics and history and pop culture, and my perceptions expanded as my mind swelled with new facts and theory. To be stagnant on how I saw the world seemed like I’d avoided using the best weapon I had — my brain. Castle adapted to things as he deemed it necessary, and I think that spoke to me at a most elemental level. I didn’t want to just use my feelings to change myself a la Bruce Wayne; I wanted the whole world to shift because of what I said and did. To tinker with my world until I got it right. Or, close enough for something that wasn’t so damned unfair. Being a teen sucks, but ultimately your sense of rebellion and fighting spirit are all you have to cope.
Ages 15–20: The Crow
Luckily, I never went through a Goth phase. (My punk phase, however, featured shitty black hair and smelly ol’ wristbands.) For a brief period pre-20s, I came close enough with a profound love of The Crow. (The sequels are terrible in the best way.) For a flick that was so very much of the early ’90s, it still resonated to me in the mid-2000s. For the first chunk of my life, I looked up to Batman and Punisher, and while they’re self-assured and capable, they’re not without flaws. Namely, they’re very dire characters, and the mission is all that has any meaning. Yes, they were saving cities and fighting off violent psychopaths, but where’s the humor, the sense of irony of it all? You spend so much time trying to fight off your demons — internal or those wearing clown makeup — that you forget just how bizarre the world is.
You can walk around feeling so detached from the world, you don’t realize just how sad and isolated the rest of us feel. That’s why Eric Draven meant so much to me. Here was this guy who had this absolutely terrible thing happen, and he still made jokes about it. He injected flair into everything he did, like that scene where he dispatched Funboy. Yet he never was any less serious about his pursuit of vengeance for himself and his beloved Shelley. This is a man who has seen what the world has to offer, all that pain and all that joy, and he never let it change him. I went through so much of my early life thinking good things were good and the rest was all bad. You learn more and begin to gain some independence, and suddenly those barriers begin to dissolve. The world isn’t a good or bad place; it’s both at the same time. Where a beautiful moment can go sour in a flash, and even then there’s something life-affirming to be found within that instance.
You hit your late teens and the world is not as rose colored as you once believed. You can either let the world smother you, or you can get in on the joke. And that’s what a guy like Draven did — if the world was going to knock him around, he’d return the favor with a smile. The world doesn’t care, and it doesn’t not; it’s up to us to find some kind of meaning in the sheer absurdity of it all. For some people, it’s as simple as righting a few wrongs. In my case, it was about recognizing the world’s true face and trying to pick out the important moments. Like learning and loving a nice girl and trying to find a place in this world to do any lick of good. The Crow was my guide for a very brief time. But rather than finding any degree of absolution from my problems, I grew to accept them. To move through the world more as it was then and not simply how I wanted it to be. Fighting back against the world’s wickedness is crucial, but at the end of the day, what burns brightest is whatever light you hold within.
Ages 20–25: Guyver
For those unaware, Guyver is a manga from the late ’80s about a guy who finds alien armor and uses it to fight off hordes of intergalactic baddies. (A common fictional event and larger commentary on the irresponsibility of generic evil empires.) Once more, I was more interested in the early ’90s low-budget film version, the one with Mark Hamill as an actual villain. While the film lacks the comic’s nuance, it did impart a valuable lesson about rebellion. Having raged in my youth thanks to punk-ish influence, I learned in my 20s that insurgency isn’t as valuable as it seems. As I was earning a journalism degree, I began to recognize how important it was to be within the system.
Whereas guys like Batman and The Punisher sought to build their own system, and The Crow wanted nothing to do with such morality systems, I began to understand that I wouldn’t have such freedom. Punk music and those heroes had long taught me that independence is essential, but that’s only a good message for fiction or people who want to impede themselves. You have to play the game, as it were, and Guyver exemplified that ideal. Though it’s rooted out more in the manga, the Guyver armor is the creation of the series’ main antagonists, the Zoanoids. To wear the armor and fight against them is to literally use their own weapon against these mutant fiends. The main character, Sean, had no chance against these mega monsters, and so he happily accepted the armor. Maybe he did so before knowing what it meant, but that didn’t stop him in the end. It’s a nice lesson — use a tool for evil in the pursuit of good — but it’s so much more than that for me.
Had I been the Guyver, I’d have rubbed their ugly alien faces in my victory. Mostly because I was a little shit at 21–22, but also because it had to be done. To show them, or anyone that wasn’t a Zoanoid for that matter, that everything they did or believed was absurd. That their words or actions could be flipped on them by the virtues and fortitude of one dude. All that’s the same self-actualizing mumbo-jumbo experienced by people who adore, like, Atlas Shrugged, but as you come into yourself as a man with a destiny, these kinds of power fantasies are essential. I’d stopped feeling so inadequate or scared and I wanted to believe in my own strength and abilities.
To be like the Guyver and return everything they (the world, not creepy aliens) tossed at me. To make weapons out of their ideas for the pursuit or protection of my own ideals. To be unaffected by people because I wore an armor that could counter them at every stop. Not one of alien technology, but concepts and feelings that had been calibrated to counter the world’s many whims. A weapon of the very best kind, forged to fight for personal decency, truth, and transparency, and to overcome the desires of weak-willed monsters. Belief is as powerful a tool as one can ever access, and though it took me more time to recognize than others, I learned to put my faith in something else. Not necessarily God or some frilly ideas of a loving Universe, but my own abilities to be a good person and counter wickedness wherever I detected it.
Ages 25–30(-ish): Harvey Pekar
From a young age, Harvey Pekar (the fictionalized version, at least) recognized the absurdity of larger-than-life heroes. Turns out, he was a man far ahead of his time, and there comes a moment where most of us arrive upon this scary realization. I’d spent so much of my life mirroring my own feelings and perceptions based on how I thought my biggest heroes would have done the same. And it got me nothing but heartache and professional disappointments. More than likely, those weren’t the failings of my beloved idols, but issues within myself. (Maybe, for instance, putting stock into The Punisher as a moral signpost. Who knows?!)
Since hero worship is my default state, Pekar seemed like the right choice for this section of my life. He may have been an entertaining sad sack for th angels, but there’s so much more at play influencing Harv. There’s that moment in American Splendor when, upon encountering an old schoolmate, Pekar could have played into her celebrations of his newfound fame as a literary darling. But he only stands there awkwardly and scratches his head, paralyzed in the moment. Does he hate the adulation? Or is it that Pekar knows who he is in life? He’s a lovable loser, not some great man whom deserves to be celebrated. He felt unease with his fame, for anyone distinguishing him as someone to look up to. He’d seen a lot of heartache himself, but even all the praise or TV appearances could reverse his path.
To accept his college friend’s flattering would be to try and deny part of who he was as a human being. To ignore the misery that blanketed his life (divorce, cancer, general grumpy vibes, etc.) is to deny his very essence. Not that I somehow had it any better or worse than the Comic Book Mark Twain, but I found comfort in that dynamic. As much as we want to rise above how we feel about or view the world, it’s so much of who we are as a person and our inherent self-worth. Pain sucks, and I’d prefer only to have happiness and fulfillment, but it’s everything together that colors my experiences and opinions. One sentiment doesn’t enhance or color the other; it’s more that life can be this endless trudge through feelings and ideas that affirm your immortal soul or make you want to chug battery acid. Looking up to Pekar doesn’t make me feel better about my own lot in this planet, but I do appreciate his rather pioneering efforts.
He’s the kind of hero the world genuinely deserves — not one with cool gadgets or super strength, but the ability to stare at world’s many-faced onslaught and not blink. A being of pure intestinal fortitude able to handle everything that life chucked at him perhaps not with grace, but a grin-and-bare-it belief that authenticity and stoicism aren’t always going to be the most delightful of experiences. We want the world to be this big, beautiful fantasy where things can change with a little luck and a lot of skill. But that’s not always the case, and darkness and pain are generally unavoidable. Sure, there’s a beauty in maintaining momentum in the face of such obstacles, but also what choice does one have? Clinging to fantasies may make it all seem easier, but real heroes work with what they have and carve out happiness in absolute spite of it all.
Upon looking at my personal trajectory, I am inclined to weep over the downfall from Batman to Harvey Pekar. In just a few decades, I’ve somehow gone from emulating the world’s greatest detective and savior of justice to a man who actively buys day-old bread. Still, it’s hard for me to not feel entirely depressed — I’m a real actual man now, one who has a really great beard but also sees his own slightly anemic relationship with his father. Perhaps I’ve merely come to accept not only is the world not a great place, but I’m not all that amazing, either. That for every great idea I have or woman I somehow woo, there’s a corresponding point of weakness.
This notion that there’s a plateau for my own development as a person and friend and employee and lover and tax-paying citizen. Try as I may to get better, who I am has a defined path and location just as any migratory bird or party-plane from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. At some point in your life you get to be Batman, because you’re young and dumb and full of darkness and hope. But eventually you’ll land at who you’re meant to be, and that may be a bit of shock. I suppose I could say, then, that the journey is worth it, and there’s true sentimental value to be found in watching myself grow and shift as I engage with the rest of the world. As mostly true as that may be, there’s still that unshakable sense that all that change and personal movement is because of things I’ve done, and what that means as I try to live the rest of my life remains an ongoing mystery.
“Who I am has a defined path and location just as any migratory bird or party-plane from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.”
Lucky for me, there’s a real solid chance my story won’t end here. That I’m not destined to always look and think I’m a Pekar acolyte. Or that I can never get back to feeling like Batman (if I even left that “state” in the first place.) The thing about having heroes is there exists someone not to look up to (but certainly that), but that we have something to measure ourselves. A pillar upon which we place our own lives and attempt to find some greater meaning. Have I done right by this image to which I imbue so much value? Was it even smart of me in the first place to want to be like, say, Daredevil? Who will be my hero in a week or a month or a year or at the very end of it all? Heroes aren’t about saving us from monsters or demons, but gifting us with ideas and emotions to handle our own issues and shortcomings.
It’s fun to think we can be these paladins at any point in our lives, but the truth is no matter how realistic they appear, attaining true Harvey Pekar status is about as donning Batman’s cape and cowl. That leaves us having to spend our time struggling to meet certain ideals and dealing with all the resulting gaps. To struggle is to live (said some Greek philosopher, or maybe Tim Armstrong), and having that ideal is more important than any progress one makes. Life doesn’t seem worth living if we can’t struggle and succeed in varying patterns, and it’s our heroes that both contextualize that journey and keep us from clocking out entirely.
Long may I have a noble hero (or 5) of my own, and may I never keep myself from dreaming of what could be.
