Keeping Score

What Hero Are You?

So evidently there's some sort of cosmic unplanned "what kind of superhero would I like to be?" day today, seeing as friends Jack and Tim posted something to that effect on the same day.

While Tim's is less superheroic and more about just being a cyborg, Jack's raises the question [slightly paraphrased] would you take basic superpowers (flight, near invulnerability, super strength, etc.) if you had to look the way you look now for the rest of your life? Same hair, same body build, same clothes, makeup, etc. The only thing that would change is that you would still age normally.

My answer was an unwavering yes. I mean, I'm going to look like this anyway, so I might as well have the ability to kick ass with it. Or rather, the ability to kick exponentially more ass than I can now. Right. Anyway.

But I think the question is slightly important, because we as a geek (and "normal") society have been idolizing the wrong body types for too long. What made Unbreakable so convincing to me was that here's this guy, David Dunn (Bruce Willis), who's got a decent build to him, but a bit of a gut, and all of a sudden he realizes that he's got super-powers. He's human. He's not ripped. He doesn't wear tights, or a cape, or even a mask (actually, this remains to be seen as there's supposedly two more Unbreakable sequels that may or not be made, but I digress). He has personal and family problems. He's the guy next door.

I want to see more heroes like that. I want to see more comics or movies made (that aren't comedies) that involve normal average people who are definitively not average.

So what kind of superhero would you be, if someone granted you (reasonable, not planet-eating) powers?

I think I'd want the super-speed power, with some invulnerability (because holy christ would stopping instantly from a 600mph run suck for a normal human), only maybe without that ravenous appetite drawback.