Heroes, Super or Not

After spending about two hours searching for any lousy, quick, semi-inspirational thought to share, I finally found one.

Superheroes - Are they Heroes because they are Super, or are they Super because they are Heroes?

Let's use Superman as our example. He has more superpower than just about anyone else in the business. Even in his original form, he was "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, [and] able to leap over giant buildings in a single bound," and he has only gotten more powerful since, gaining additional powers like flight, laser-vision, super-hearing, and even super-breath. But what I love most about Superman isn't any of that. In fact, for a long time, I've hated how many super-powers he had.

But my prejudice against the unbeatable son of Krypton ended when I learned more about him. He's not just super-human. He's also super good. He's well-known for defending "truth, justice, and the American way," which I didn't know before, but having seen enough episodes of the Justice League cartoons to learn his personality, I'm really impressed with him. I remember one exchange he had with a handful of young kids. One of them had been dared by the others to climb up an electrical tower, and he got stuck up there. After rescuing the boy, Superman had a heart-to-heart with all participants. He taught them about being safe, not hazing each other, and resisting peer pressure. I was impressed, first of all, that Superman took the time to save a single life, but then he took even more time to make sure that that would never happen again, and he did so in a way that was inspirational and decidedly non-violent. Even if he hadn't had any superpowers or done anything particularly "heroic," I'd call him a hero just for that.

We don't have superpowers, but any of us can be heroes. Being a hero isn't about what you can do, it's about doing what you can. The best superheroes are the ones who do as much good as they can, whether they have superhuman abilities or the same abilities as any of us. Superheroes aren't heroes just because they have abilities, in fact, to be a super hero, you don't need to have superhuman abilities at all.