Being a Superhero in the Modern Era

I want to apologize right away for the title of this piece of writing. It was late, I was tired, and I thought it would make me sound smart if the title looked like it belonged on a master's thesis. If to you it does look like it should be a master's thesis, I would really like to know what college you attended. That, however, is not the thrust of my discussion.

The majority of the well-known superheroes that we see in modern media were conceived from ideas in the '60's (Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four), the '40's (Captain America) and as early as the '30's (Superman). Needless to say, we live in a substantially different world from the one in which they were originally leaping tall buildings in a single bound (little-known fact: Superman couldn't fly originally. He could just jump really high and far. Seriously.) As such, I thought that it would be appropriate to put together some pointers for the heroes that have to live in this goofy, mixed-up world of ours and still want to maintain a secret identity.

Wear a full-body costume. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had it right when they created Spider-Man back in the '60s: Make sure that there is not a single part of your body showing. Not only does it help you keep warm (you think Wonder Woman does a significant portion of her work in the Arctic?), but it also helps you keep from leaving any evidence behind. After all, how many shows do we watch today in which someone is discovered due to the DNA evidence that they left behind at some scene that eventually finds them out?

Wear at least bullet-proof vest. Back when most of the heroes were created, most of the arch-villains were merely interested in getting rich through crime or, at worst, taking over the world. Our intrepid heroes would come out of the woodwork and stop them at the last minute from escaping with the cash bag or successfully turning all of the world's dry cleaning supplies in to gelatin with carrots so that all of the leaders of the free world couldn't dress for the job and they couldn't even eat the gelatin because it was spoiled with carrots. (Seriously, who does that to a dessert?) In the modern world, however, we find that a large portion of the villains are interested in death and destruction and have no interest in gelatin whatsoever. Even the useless gelatin. In fact, some of the "heroes" seem to have death and destruction follow them around (I'm looking at you Punisher and Spawn). Therefore, I believe it to be necessary for the modern hero to attire themselves in something appropriate for what they will be facing (i.e. bullets, claws, blades, etc.) The appropriate attire is Kevlar. Just make sure that it's not white Kevlar after labor day.

Don't tell anyone. We live in a culture that is connected. Someone is strange if they don't have a cell phone that can instantly connect them with any one of a huge amount of telephone numbers stored right in their phone. That same phone can snap pictures at the drop of a hat that can instantly be posted up to a blog. This especially applies to girlfriends. Sure, back in the day, Gwen Stacy was probably keeping a diary that talked about how groovy it was that her boyfriend, that way out Peter Parker, was also secretly Spider-Man. Now, she'd probably post something in her blog about it, and let's face it: That just isn't private. As an aside, I find it interesting that people post their innermost thoughts about life, their job and their relationships on the Internet for anyone to see. Then they wonder why they lose their job and their significant other and why their parents won't talk to them anymore. Bringing it back around, this makes me wonder what a blog done by Bruce Banner would sound like. "Today's mood: angry. I smashed some tanks today because they were infringing on my leap across the desert. Why won't they just leave me alone when I'm angry? By now they know that they don't like me when I'm angry. *Sigh.* I have a date with Betty tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be a little more mellow. I don't want to have to buy her a replacement pill-box hat again. The last one was white and didn't go well with red wine."

Wear something different. This is also related to the Hulk. You see, early in his career, Bruce Banner bought a large number of the same suit to simplify things in his life. Here's the problem with this theory: All of the suits were a very distinctive purple. Bad move when you might randomly turn into a rampaging green behemoth that is naked except for, thankfully, the purple pants. Now, I'm sure that this was originally intended to simplify the workload on the artists and colorists. You don't have to keep track of exactly what Banner was wearing when he had a hissy-fit two or three issues ago because he was wearing the same thing that he was wearing twenty issues ago. However, as previously mentioned, a large portion of the population carry devices that can take pictures in a format that can instantly be uploaded to any number of different websites for all to see. All it would take is for someone who knows Banner to see it and apply the barest-minimum of deductive reasoning. "Hey, the Hulk wears goofy-looking purple pants. You know who else wears purple pants like that? Bruce Banner. He's also currently in Nevada working at a top secret base doing something with radiation. Funny how small of a world it is, huh?" Now that I think of it, though, General Ross should have come up with that thought the first time he saw the Hulk in his purple pants. I guess Banner is lucky that I wasn't a general in the US Army when he was created. Or something like that.

Don't have a family. This is probably one of the biggest pieces of advice that I can give to any superhero in the modern world. Sure, there were villains back in the day that were out for blood, but a good portion were in it for the money or thought they had the best interest of the world in mind by taking it over. Now, most of the arch-nemesi are in it to simply ruin the lives of the heroes. Look at what happened to Daredevil when the Kingpin found out who he really was: He made it his mission to completely break apart Matt Murdock's world. A hero's spouse and kids will always be the first thing that a villain attacks on finding out the secret identity of the hero. My recommendation: vasectomy.