Super Heros, a short rant

When I was growing up, reading comic books was frowned upon. The thought was that the sooner you graduated to real books, the better.

I remember coming across a stash of The Hulk, and marveled (no pun intended) at the simplicity of a life where smashing something or someone was the solution.

There was the Superman TV show, the one from the 50's that I watched in reruns as a child. I remember a scene where Superman is turning over a miscreant to a police officer. Except the police officer hadn't witnessed the crime, and had only Superman's word that this was the guy. I always wondered how that worked out in court. Did Superman have to testify?

Lately the movies are full of various super-heros. Hollywood fails at making a movie of a comic book. You disagree? Then why do they keep rebooting the series? And why do the super-heros resemble overgrown children? Answer is, they are. If we can't invent a plausible super-hero, why does anyone think we can create a plausible god?

But my biggest objection is that the whole idea of super-heros combatting enemies, bringing justice, and all that, is that it infantilizes us. It teaches us that we can't cope ourselves, and that's simply not true. We can, if we work at it. But the powers that be know this, and use it. That myth makes us susceptible to the strong leader making choices for us, for our own good. Has anyone seen what Harper is up to lately?