truth = transparency

A while ago - almost three months ago - I posted about my desire to have a superhero-like 'cause.' I realized what my cause SHOULD be - no doubt about it in my mind. But acknowledging this cause is merely a first step towards championing it. What I really need to begin doing is defining my cause, and then following through with it.

There are not - usually - masked crusaders darting between shadows and downing mutant foes in today's world. That doesn't mean there aren't superheroes though. I don't think I'm making too big a leap as to say that besides super powers, superheroes are also known for a strict moral code, and for trying to do good things to help society. I would say that a real-life superhero is someone who heroically and admirably adheres to a strict moral code. If I'm right in my assumption that people like Harry Potter and Superman do not exist, then I would think that admirable and heroic do-gooders are all we're left with. And yes, it's very rare, but they are superheroes after all - they're supposed to be exceptional. In fact, their status as "exceptional" is literally unattainable, because it's to the extreme, and that's the point. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it. Real-life superheroes, like fictional superheroes, and like Howard Roark, are there to set an example for us to strive towards.

And so? So I shall strive! But what should I strive for? What is worth fighting for? What is a cause can I strive to champion? What 'cause' do I genuinely believe in?

This is not a light topic. I can't imagine dedicating my life to something unless it was something I absolutely believed in. I don't think I could deal with dedicating my life to fighting for something and then failing. Failing is scary! Everyone knows that! And well, while there's plenty of worthy things to fight for, I've always been more interested in improving the life of myself and my friends as opposed to crusading for a cause. I've always been "too cool" to care. But I've come around, or close to. I've realized I've never been too cool for anything, if ever cool at all, and my days of pretending to not care, or being too afraid to care, have, I hope, come and passed.

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In other news, I've made the decision to go out and try to be a television news reporter. It's something I believe in, and something I believe I will enjoy doing. In the past couple years, I've learned a lot about what goes into the making of a good reporter, a good journalist. Much of that education has been observational - I've been watching some of the very best in the business at work - and I believe it's time I begin more doing.

On a simple plane, my experience has been an "ask and report" exercise. I've learned to press and pressure and schmooze and beg and plead and express empathy and excitement all for a bit of information, maybe to get a good sound bite or to attain a piece of knowledge over the phone. This I've learned during my time on the assignment desk, and it has been invaluable. From the reporters though, I've learned something more dynamic. There's the ability to determine fact from fiction from sources, and there's fairness and balance to keep in mind. Then, there's the entertainment factor, the art of storytelling, and this can not be overlooked.

I've learned a good reporter knows something about everything, is quick and always curious, can talk and make friends with anyone, and is courageous.

Atop a journalist's moral code should be a relentless striving for truth. Honesty and accuracy are the cornerstone of a reporter's reputation, and reputation is everything.

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As previously mentioned, a quality of superheroes is that they take their moral code to an unattainable extreme. If a reporter was a superhero, and we took a reporter's moral code to the extreme, where would that lead? The relentless strive for truth -- to the extreme? Where does that take us? What does that even mean? Are we left left with total transparency? Complete clarity and utter lack of mystery?

And is truth subjective? It's more of an existential concept that I've always toyed with in my mind, though I don't think of it as my personal theory towards things - maybe just something I've always wanted to believe. I certainly think it sounds the "coolest" and most progressive, in part because it's the most accepting theory of truth, and I'd like to think of myself as an accepting person. I suppose though that the subjectivity of truth would infer that truth is based on individuality, and to me that seems the most ideal.

Despite my interest in this topic, I know this is not actually how the world functions. Opinions are individual and subjective, but not facts, and people try to push personal agendas and shape views, but there is a 'truth,' even if we don't know what it is.

If truth was subjective, then there could never be complete transparency, because transparency requires that there be 'one' clear truth.

I don't know if the meaning of 'truth' is complete transparency, and I don't know if complete transparency is even a good thing. I would imagine it would be truth, to the extreme. I know, now, that truth will be my extreme cause.

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The irony of all this is that Clark Kent used the facade of being a reporter as a disguise. One of Superman's great traits was his fight for what was 'right,' but he was at his most dishonest when he was pretending to be a reporter.

If The Cape Fits...

"If you were a super hero, what super power would you want to have?"

A fun question to ask someone. Fellow Gentleman Jason Heat used to ask this question to any guest he had on-air in the WMUC University of Maryland Radio station.

Recently though, I found myself asking a similar sounding but far different question:

"If you were a super hero, what would your cause be?"

Anytime someone mentions superheroes, I think back to Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. No, not a comic or a graphic novel, but rather the famous novel from 1943. It was the first time I realized what it takes to actually be a superhero. The Fountainhead is about characters who are media moguls and architects - none of whom have super powers - but what they did posses were convictions far beyond the norm.

One thing I've learned from TheseGentlemen is that superheroes aren't just about cool super powers like flying, x-ray vision or super speed. What makes the traditional superhero characters of comics so incredible in the characteristics of their personalities.

I've been realizing that the most interesting characters in any story - whether it be film, literature, theatre or otherwise - are ones that represent ideals. Ideals are extreme perspectives; there's no compromise in ideals (unless the ideal is total compromise - a concept I believe to be bred from extreme collectivism and no individualism and will probably fail). Pitting extreme characters against each other is really pitting ideals against each other, and I find it to be much more interesting that way.

When these ideals came in the form of superheroes though, I wasn't able to see past the super powers. Who cares what Superman or Batman or Spiderman or the X-men actually stand for and represent when it's cool just to see them in action? It's not a direct parallel, but not until I read about lead character Howard Roark of The Fountainhead did I realize that it doesn't take super powers to be a superhero.

But I don't mean in the same sense that firefighters are heroes. Roark isn't a firefighter, and Roark doesn't save lives. Roark lives for himself, and he lives for it in the name of integrity, in the name of art, and in the name of what he believes in - the excellence and potential of man-kind.

It took me a long time to understand, but Roark is the superhero, the Superman of The Fountainhead - and Dominique is not just Lois Lane, she is the rest of us, those who try to live up to Roark and become the change we wish to see in the world.

So what does it take to be a superhero? Well, it appears I've already decided that supernatural powers doesn't have to be on the list. What seems to be more relevant is motivation, and a strong moral code. Secret identities, costumes and a high-tech works for kid stories, but I'm looking to make being a superhero a reality here. Fighting for something meaningful, and fighting for it with the right intentions might just be all it takes. What is that ideal? Is it a pure sense of responsibility? A hatred for crime or a true belief in the justice system? How about belief in humanitarian service? Or in the case of Roark, a belief in the integrity of self-expression?

What I learned is that one can live for ones-self and still live for an ideal. It has always seemed contradictory that one could live for ones-self and still be a superhero, but I'm realizing now that fighting for a cause can both serve society and be self-serving.

It's been almost a year since I read that book. I guess it's about time I started putting those lessons to practice. What's more, I think I've identified my answer to the question: "If you were a super hero, what would your cause be?" I'll tackle that in my next post.

A History of Justice - Superman

SUPERMAN
(Clark Kent)

The Story: You've all heard it before, but it bears repeating - the last son of a doomed world who instead becomes the champion of another.

When his warnings about planetary instability go unheeded by a political machine too old to change, Scientist Jor-El (and possibly Al Gore) creates a rocketship to save his infant son from certain destruction. As the planet smoked and crackled around him he sent Kal-El to Earth - and in moments, after an entire world of people died in a sizzling heartbeat, Kal-El became the last son of Krypton.

Landing on Earth in the middle of the American heartland he was found by Jonathan and Martha Kent - a young couple who had once been told they would never conceive a child of their own. Instead of reacting with fear and hate to this alien baby crawling from the wreckage of the stars, they took the boy as their son and raised him. They named him Clark Kent.

Clark grew up in Smallville hiding his incredible gifts from the world - his body stores and converts yellow sunlight like a solar battery, giving him amazing powers of flight and speed. The different density of Earth hardens his muscles, and gives him incredible strength beyond those of normal men. But his heart grows up human, a gift from the Kents, and one that will be his greatest strength and greatest weakness.

Eventually Clark moves to the gleaming city of Metropolis where he becomes a reporter for the Daily Planet. When a plane is about to crash down, Clark is forced to act in public for the first time, bearing a costume sewn by his mother with a cape made of the very blanket he was sent to Earth in. It was at that moment a young reporter named Lois Lane would first name him Superman, and give voice to the hopes of an entire populace - truly now, men could fly.

Disguising himself with a pair of glasses, and an entire shift of posture, physique, and tone - bumbling Clark Kent fell in love with Lois Lane, who in turn only had eyes for Superman, creating one of the classic love triangles in modern fiction - until they instead became one of comics' most formidable teams and an enduring marriage in a time when the idea of aging seems anathema to most publishers.

What Makes Him Cool - Here's what makes Superman so cool - his weakness. And not Kryptonite. His capacity and willingness to love.

Imagine having absolute, infinite power and instead of choosing to live like a God, instead you chose to live like a man. Instead of using this incredible power for any kind of selfish gain, instead of ruling over the world with even a benevolent fist, instead you used your power to become a champion of justice and one of utter selflessness. Superman is pure good, the beacon in darkness that guides us to what is right. Cool may go in and out of style but Superman is timeless. His is the ultimate story of nature vs. nurture - would anyone else with these powers act the way he does? Is it his genetics or his being brought up by two such wonderful and loving parents?

His is also the ultimate immigrant story, which makes perfect sense for two young Jewish boys in the 1930s. He is a stanger from a strange land who lands in America - where he hides out because of the fear of being different, but also has the opportunity to become the best of us. Superman represents the 'invisible minority' - the Jew, or Catholic, or anyone else who's differences reach their core but aren't readily apparent skin deep. He was adopted by a kindly couple in Kansas - that basic metaphor for American values (the Wizard of Oz used Kansas to create the All-Ameerican Girl too). And in what I think is an incredibly poignant twist, the only physical object that can harm him are pieces of his former home, now radioactive, acting as a metaphor for the way America wants us to abandon our past in order to be a part of something new.

But what makes Superman so incredibly cool? His is a love story that defies description. He chooses to love someone he has to know he'll outlive. He puts himself in a situation where there can be nothing but future pain but does so with abandon, because that love is all-consuming. Everyone he knows will one day die and leave him here on Earth alone and yet he gives a piece of himself to all of them just the same. What kind of toll does that take on a man, not knowing if you're ever going to die? And his love is his greatest weakness - by caring about people he can be made vulnerable, simply because they are. If he were hard, or cold, he would be unstoppable - but he wouldn't be human. And make no mistake, powers or not, Superman is Clark Kent first and foremost. Not the bumbling fool he masquerades to be, but the Clark Kent that grew up in Smallville - a lonely outcast that found a group of incredible friends in the 30th century where every kid could fly.

Superman is the shining light of optimism, the best the Super-Hero community has to offer. He is the image of the Justice League. My favorite image is the one at the top of this post - Superman just sitting on a cloud, pefectly relaxed, watching the world. No muscles rippling, no great effort. He doesn't need to. He's Superman - why worry? Things are going to be okay.

And so we don't have to worry either.

Reccomended Reading:

JLA - American Dream (W-Grant Morrison, A-Howard Porter): Including possibly my favorite Superman moment of all time - after single handedly pulling the moon back into orbit, Superman returns to Earth as it's under siege by the Bull-Host of Heaven. The rogue angel Asmodel has decided to succeed where Lucifer failed and overthrow God himself. J'onn J'onzz stands there, charred and tattered, refusing to give way, when Superman puts a hand on his shoulder and says "You've done enough, old friend. Stand down. I'll take over now." And charges into battle.

The Flash puts it best when he says "This is the guy who said he couldn't live up to his myth? He's wrestling an angel..."

All-Star Superman (W-Grant Morrison, A-Frank Quitely): Quite possibly the single greatest Superman story of all time. In 12 issues of award winning work two masters of the craft show us just how amazing Superman is. When Superman is finally about to die, he is charged with 12 labors to accomplish before he can pass on. From Lois refusing to believe that Superman is Clark because she just can't accept having been right for years and being lied to, to Lex drawing on his eyebrows out of vanity, to Jimmy Olsen turning into Doomsday, this book is everything you ever need to know about Superman and those he cared about.


Final Crisis: Superman Beyond, and Final Crisis #7 (W-Grant Morrison, A-Doug Mankhe): Where Lois lies dying in a hospital bed and the only way to save her is for Superman to lead a team of upermen from across the multiverse on a suicide mission against a vampire God. Where he makes the ultimate sacrifice in a moment dubbed "Hate Crime, Meet Selfless Act" - and where he contains the cure for Lois, a liquid no one but Gods can ever contain inside a single kiss because "Nothing can hold or contain Bleed, they said. They were wrong. Superman can."


And finally he saves all of existence just by wishing for a happy ending.


Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (W-Alan Moore, A-Curt Swan): After the Crisis of Infinite Earths, Superman was being rebooted. And so Alan Moore and legendary Superman artist Curt Swan got to tell the definitive ending to everything Superman had been up until that point, and it was beautiful. It's been done to death now, but at the time, seeing Superman alone in the Fortress of Solitude crying with Krypto at his side was one of the most heartbreaking moments I experienced as a young adult. And it had quite possibly the single best intro to any comic ever -

"This is an IMAGINARY STORY

(which may never happen, but then again may)

about a perfect man who came from the sky and did only good.

It tells of his twilight, when the great battles were over and the great miracles long since performed;

of how his enemies conspired against him and of that final war in the snowblind wastes beneath the Northern Lights;

of the women he loved and the choice he made between them;

of how he broke his most sacred oath, and how finally all the things he had were taken from him save one.

It ends with a wink.

It begins in a quiet midwestern town, one summer afternoon in the quiet midwestern future.

Away in the big city, people still sometimes glance up hopefully from the sidewalks, glimpsing a distant speck in the sky... but no: it's only a bird, only a plane - Superman died ten years ago.

This is an IMAGINARY STORY...

Aren't they all?"

Aren't they?