Heroes

I have recently begun rekindling an interest in comic books, stories and television that all have heroes. Who knows, is it a 40 something thing (my 40th BDay is coming up), or is it the cognisance of evil in our time that propels us to believe in fictional people that surpass the bad to allow good to triumph. By the way I can’t wait until the movie "Kick- Ass" comes out. The heroes whom I look to for moral guidance are Dr Who, Captain America, Frank Black (TV series “Millennium”), Inspector Adam Dalgleish, and Inspector Foyle (played by Michael Knight). There you see, not all heroes have to have capes and a super power. I think heroes tend to be not above reproach and in some way or another represent a certain aspect of ourselves that we either wish we are, or parts of us that already exist and are buried until required. I tend to think that heroes who think to solve problems and defeat evil are my favourite; this is where I and Henry Rollins can agree that the world problems can only be solved by our brains and not our bombs. Unfortunately, I do not feel that we have achieved that level of erudition ( Iused that word for my best lady Jane) to say goodbye to war. Imagine if world problems were solved over a game of chess or a multi-player HALO adventure (my son would win the Victoria Cross for sure). On the flip side I also like to think of my heroes using brute strength to conquer evil bastards that deserve a good solid shield to the kanoodle to end their reign of terror; hence we have gentlemen like Captain America. So a good solid balance of hero-ship is good, capeless people with intelligence and wit to solve the strategic issues and the hard chargers to solve the individual evils.