When I was reorganizing stuff in my room yesterday morning, I sorted out a comic entitled Kingdom Come. The comic has four books in total [I bought them all, since I knew there would be only four books] and they all have black-classy-cool cover. The comic was published by DC Comics, the story was done by Mark Waid, and the masterpiece drawings were painted by Alex Ross. Alongside the DC logo and the title, there was also another logo, Elseworlds. I don’t really know whether Elseworlds is another publisher or just a division of DC, or just a nickname created by DC to label some of its comics, but at the inner back cover, I found something interesting. It said,
In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places-some that have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.
The story was about a bunch of superheroes [Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Robin, The Flash, Hawkman to name a few, and still a bunch of unfamiliar names], grouped together in a not so distant future where they have aged a little bit [Superman have stylish gray hair, and Batman, well, was rather bald], and the world experienced the booming population of metahuman [or as Marvel put it, mutants]. The world had so many [or perhaps too many] young supermen and superwomen. Unlike their predecessors, these new heroes were no heroes at all. Consumed by arrogance, they played around with their powers, using them to make gangs and battle against each other. The normal people, us, was represented by Reverend Norman McCay, who had almost lost his faith since he was quite sure that Lord himself ignore mankind by letting them to suffer in a world where those with the ability of superheroes were scums. Superman was retiring, after the death of Lois Lane and the explosion of a nuclear bomb in Texas, until Wonder Woman showed him that the world was desperate for a real hero.
Have you ever dream or at least think for a moment, wanting to be a superhero who has the ability of anything you can think of: flying, run faster than sound, ultra-hearing ability, or bulging muscles so that the outfit of your choice can fit perfectly like a second skin [with no fat to be ashamed of]? You can then just hear somebody cried out for help, and flew to the spot, kicked some bad asses, and became the hero of the day, everyday. Well, I think it won’t be as easy as that to be a hero. And I am right, at least that what Spider-Man 2 was all about.
“Spider-Man 2†told us that becoming a hero is not easy. In “Spider-Manâ€, Sam Raimi directed a great story about a skinny geek boy who found himself bitten by a mutated spider and ended up with great muscles and the ability of a superhero. In the sequel, the director continued the story with the hero being stress that he was beginning to lose his power. The hero was stress because in order to safe everyone, he must sacrifice his needs, his time, his job, his college, and his love. Until at one point, the cover of The Daily Bugle read “Spider-Man No Moreâ€, as the hero literally quit, and Peter Parker was living his own life back. But not for long, of course, since Mary Jane was captured by the evil Doc Ock, Peter Parker knew once again, that with a great power comes a great responsibility, and Spidey was swinging his way again through the New York’s buildings and regained some kick-ass action, some cuts and bruises, some love, and some confidence. Expected story of “Spider-Man 3â€: the marriage of Peter Parker and MJ, the rise of Green Goblin II, and perhaps another evil character [the Lizard? since Professor Connor was already mentioned and appeared a bit].
As for the rest of us, the audience of the movie like it or not, the only way to enter a better-alternative-reality, is by making that reality in this one we all live in.