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Villains, Eternally Those Expecting Others to Sacrifice Due Course

Passion without desperation is no form of intimacy, it’s mind-fuckery. To be a passionate fan of something be it person place or thing, is to engage a foreplay without reach-around, and a foreplay without end. For this reason are my testes called Sirhan and Sirhan.

I obsess over the idea of heroes because I have seen no evidence of their existence in the world of my lifetime. Self-styled or rewarded with the label either one, all are more likely to insure a desirable persuasion holds power over some other, when heroic acts are to guarantee that none hold power over another. The opposite of marketing.

Film and television versions of Marvel and DC comic book-inspired “cape” properties face increasing stumbling blocks, not for reasons widely theorized at. I think audiences too often fail to find the words to express their unease, when repetition is conflated with reaction. But marketing and in-story references of superhero actually regard the non-synonymous super-powered, as respective characters commit heroic acts far less often than indulging their own wish-fulfillment.

They still replicate the modern comics in this though, by characterizations of idealized forms of the writers and artists responsible as opposed to heroic ideals anyone might follow. When everyone has to be the coolest kid in school, nobody truly advances anything. I think it’s purposeful branding, as IRL it’s taking the context of heroism away from self-sacrificing and gifting it to the self-serving. Might making right or ends justifying means always entail the sacrifice by others, no differently from celebrity couture. In reality and in compelling fiction both, real examples of heroes rarely if ever see personal benefit from their own actions. I feel people on some level are aware of this, but marketing keeps insisting that demand meet supply.

I’d even argue the Superman character never really came back to life after meeting his Doomsday in the 90s. Some of the blame falls on the creatives involved, and some on their decision-makers including the long-running editor barred from conventions over serial harassment of women. Voices seem lost in handling a friend-to-all. Stories have rationalized his killing of others, and stories have given him a startup family so as to more easily avoid wrestling the unfamiliarity of lacking self-interest even if resorting to the mundane. The character is no longer who all others look up to for standards set, its impulses gone as neurotic as the personalities listed in the credits box. The cinematic version of recent years had the power, but never did a thing ethically or morally to earn the respect which carried the IP for so many decades.

As IRL, the followers of Christ today would by and large very painfully be at odds with their man were they to ever meet. They see that on some level, so fan-fic a version more appealing to their own immediate wish-fulfillment while openly disregarding the character’s history. Power not corrupting is the most fanciful element to the Superman character, as well as to any other Christ analogy. That is the appeal setting it apart, missed by those preferring capitalization. The impending Black Adam movie, a super-man who frequently kills, is not at all what society or culture needs now or ever. Heroes save lives, and there are lives needing saving more than they need bloody vengeance vicarious or otherwise. The most impactful heroes in history and in our fictions never justify any ego. We’ve missed that for years, all of culture. Gandhi put hunger strike in the public lexicon. Peace Pilgrim crisscrossed the country on foot nonstop for decades, and she did so without battling fellow activists or fighting to maintain or expand her entitlements. But the only people today regarded as heroes are those willing and able to fuck shit sideways for everyone you dislike. That’s not the self-sacrifice that is textbook heroism, that’s sadomasochism to get your rocks off. Self-sacrifice is killing only the biggest ego one might know, in service to those who cannot, or will not. The world is somewhat larger than your hundreds of clicks per day, and the reflection you insist on being met with captures so little of it.

IRL and in fiction, tales of heroism may encompass power fantasies if advancing an ideal guaranteeing none lose their livelihood or well-being. But accounts of heroism cannot depend on power fantasies because by themselves power fantasies involve someone else losing self-control. None have the right to deny that of others. But the underlying messaging to modern tales of protagonism IRL and in fiction propel the notion that being barred from control over others is a crime or sin, being unadored for diminishing the life and liberty of others somehow evil. Even when no life is under threat.