Super Heroes, Super Powers, Etc.

I'm rereading Watchmen. It's a serious rip on superheroes, their theoretical role in society, and how they're fundamentally bad for humanity because their powers take away their humanity. I think Alan Moore got it wrong. It's not that superheroes are inherently more evil or wrong or twisted or "right-wing" than normal people. They just had abilities that kept them at a distance from others.

Being so gifted sets them apart, makes them freaks. One can easily see, given a little imagination, how comic books appeal to nerdy, bookish kids who don't fit in with their peers. Instead of super strength, they have the mental equivalent--intelligence--and they are subsequently unable to completely relate with those not so gifted. It is not pretty, it is not fun, and it can lead to disconnects between the superhero/gifted one and everyone around them.

The Greeks understood this. Achilles was their greatest hero--and a pain in the asterisk. He had that one weakness: his heel. And he had a formidable temper. The worst punishment he could inflict upon his fellow Greeks was to refuse to join in the battle against Troy, and so the army remained in stalemate for 10 years before the city gates. But again, superheroes need not be geeks. They might be athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, or anyone else with exceptional gifts is both celebrated but apart from their fellow men because they can find no peers. Is it any surprise, then, that the heroes and heroines and gods and goddessess pair up with each other and that they seldom stay with mere mortals? The gap is too great. There's a missing link of experience that the gifted can never share except with others similarly blessed...or cursed.

Here are some more thoughts along a similar line: