A dead superhero, an opossum and a carpenter come into a bar. Asks the barmen: “Why’re ya looking so down?”
Answers the super-hero: “My death is only temporary..”
Well, that was not a good joke. In fact, it wasn’t a joke at all. But I needed something to get me started on this week’s column, so I chose a ridiculous set-up to get going. It’s is insane! I mean, what has the carpenter to do with anything?
Anyway, it got me thinking. We, I use this term as a catch-all phrase here, in case you haven’t noticed, are very attached to our super-heroes. To the point, that we will shed a tear or two, when our favorite characters die. But, since those are “just” fictional (I really don’t want to go into the whole debate about “fictional vs. real” people. I think it’s suffice to say, that I think reality is a very fragile subjective construct, thus making a quote-unquote fictional character as real as a quote-unquote real person. All in context of course. Let’s get out of the sub, back into the text), we can turn around much quicker. We know that those characters will be “back”, so we can make jokes about it. There’s no emotional harm done. We can go on and on, about the weather, while Norman gets to be hero. Have you read Dark Reign so far?
Norman is the head-cheese, but apparently not for long anymore. The Siege is coming, and Cap, Thor and a brainless Tony (Zombie reference, anyone? I thought that was subtle enough.) are gonna re-unite to take down the bad guy. I like the idea, but what’s next? We had the Civil War. Then a crazy douche took over office as the top cop. Now, Norman. When they take him down, what will happen? I can only imagine the reaction from the people actually living in the Marvel Universe. This must be hell! There are god-like beings, constantly beating on each other, destroying property left and right, and they, the people, can’t do anything. Because as far as I can tell, putting Norman in charge, was an executive order. Not democratically voted and such. Where’s the democracy in the Marvel U? If we can liberate Iran (oh) via twitter, why can’t we do the same for the Marvel U? I propose a wide-spread online campaign. Get those super-heroes back in their place! What are they doing up there, deciding our lives? We have voices, goddamnit! We need to disrupt things every once in a while! Rage against the Machine and all that!
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So says the guy with an Apple iBook on his lap, surrounded by IKEA furniture, packed with mainstream super-hero comics. And so say we all..
Pete Schueler is currently residing in Berlin, Germany. He’s desperately trying to get his writing career somewhere. Where that is exactly, is not defined yet, but it should be somewhere where it’s visible. He’s been a comic book and pop culture geek all his life, but started reading them funny-books again on a weekly basis just three short years ago. In this time he matured from reading just DC books, to preferring mostly Indie titles. He still has a reverence for the Big Two and superheroes in general, and consumes them at a regular rate. The books, not the heroes. 
Merin on 
