Heroes & Villains

When the word “hero” comes up, what first springs to my mind are the superheroes – Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Aquaman, Iron Man, X-Men, insert-name-of-whatever-you-can-think-of-man. But what does the word “hero” really mean, though? Google to the rescue.

HERO – A person, typically a man, who is admired for courage or noble qualities.

See, even Google insists on the “man.” No wonder all the superheroes with the “man” in their name. LOL.

Anyway, courage and noble qualities. One superhero springs into mind, and he doesn’t have the word “man” in his name – CAPTAIN AMERICA.

My own words in my movie review blog about Captain America: The First Avenger, explains why.

Captain America may just be the most “heroic” Avenger out of the bunch. I know he’s not as powerful as Iron Man and Thor but I’m referring to his attitude. His selflessness was the reason why he was chosen to take the serum that transformed him from a scrawny little guy to an Olympian hulk.

As Dr Erskine put it: “The serum amplifies everything that is inside. So, good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength. And knows compassion. Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.”

And he did just that. Selfless to the very end. He always put others before himself – when he threw himself on top of a grenade to save his fellow soldiers, when he stole into an enemy camp to save his best friend and 400 other soldiers, and the biggest sacrifice of all – when he crash-landed the plane he was on so it would not kill other people, even though it meant he might never be able to get back to the first woman who ever liked (or as Col Phillips put it, “had a crush” on) him. The plane was lodged so deep into the ocean, in fact, that he was not discovered until 70 years later.

He is noble, a truly inspirational hero that everyone can truly look up to, completely deserving of his superhero name.

The Cap is the most “heroic” of all the superheroes even though he may not have the best powers because he is the bravest and the noblest of them all, as this quote points out:

“Superman isn’t brave. He is indestructible; indestructible people can’t be brave. It’s normal people who know that they can be crushed, but do it anyway, who are truly brave.”

No offense to Superman fans, I too am a huge fan of the guy!

Meanwhile… villain. I don’t really have a favorite villain. Why should I? I hate all villains. I wish they didn’t exist. But they have to, don’t they, because as Jim Moriarty put it in BBC Sherlock:

Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain. You need me or you’re nothing.

And you know what, maybe Jim is my favorite villain. Not favorite because I like him best, but because I loathe him most of all! He gives me the serious creeps! Look at those eyes. @__@

The guy is really evil – a consulting criminal, the spider at the center of a huge web of crime. But what really creeps me out about him is what a complete whack job he is! When he got bored about being too good at being bad, he sought out Sherlock, who was a good detective at par with him, and ruined poor Sherlock’s reputation by making it appear as though Sherlock was a fake. And then, just to make sure that Sherlock really lost, he forced Sherlock to jump from the building but not before killing himself first, to ensure that Sherlock had no way out. You can’t get more twisted than killing yourself just to make sure your evil plans succeed.

Okay I’m probably making no sense at all unless you’ve watched BBC Sherlock, so go watch it!

This entry is part of a blogfest. You may check out what the others have to say about the same topic by clicking on their blog links below. Apologies to my fellow participants if I can’t read your posts today. When I signed up for the challenge, I completely forgot that I was set to fly off on vacation on this very day and will have intermittent access to the internet for the next couple of weeks. I promise to check out your posts when I come back!