Where are all the heroes?

As a good friend of mine once said in response to my earlier post on villains: 'I'm more of a heroes man, myself'.

My thanks to Steve Parker for this one, as it launches me into a blog post on this very subject - heroes. Which is quite fitting given that tonight is the season three launch of one of my favourite shows, Heroes, on BBC2.

Anyway, it feels only natural to do a counter-point to all the bad-asses out there with a post about, err... well, more bad-asses (just of a more morally grey to white persuasion).

Heroes are important. While the villains allow us, as readers/viewers, to experience cathartically, even vicariously, what it might be like to be bad; heroes do something more - they give us something to look up, an icon, a symbol, a way of aspiring and of wanting to be.

The world can be a bleak place sometimes and the idea, even the notion of heroes, of the potential to do the right thing and be heroic is pretty uplifting. I guess for me that is what heroes represent. Whereas villains articulate the nadir of human potential, heroes show us the apex of our often selfish/insular breed.

Heroes want the ideal, some of them reach for the impossible and end up being bitterly disappointed. They embody virtue, selflessness, courage and host of other laudable characteristics. Without villains there can be no heroes, but without heroes there can be no villains, just a bland sort of dystopia. One cannot exist without the other.

When referring to literature or visual media, there is a veritable cornucopia of heroic figures to pin your vote on. As I'm an SF and Fantasy author who likes graphic novels, I'll try and stick to these characters (but if I do, please forgive the occasional slip).

More so than villains, I think heroes deserve some pretty in-depth analysis. After all, with the exception of some 'bad guys', the villain's motivation for doing what he does is easy: power, financial gain, the causation of carnage and pain - it's pretty easy to understand (looking at the whole carnage and pain thing from a twisted, sadistic viewpoint...). Heroes on the other hand are a totally different stripe. Why risk life and limb fighting for no gain? What does the hero get out of it? Is feeling good for a deed well done enough?

Take Superman for instance. The boy is red and blue is an alien, so he's defending a race that isn't even his species (despite physical similarities suggesting otherwise). Old Supes has been flying the flag for freedom, truth, justice and all that guff since June 1938 when he was first seen lifting a big old American car on the front of Action Comics. So what makes him do it? He's wracked by a sense of isolation, of guilt at the hundreds/thousands/millions he cannot save (after all, he's not Superman you know... err, well...).


His code, much like the slightly greyer cast of hero that is Batman (and we'll get on to him in a moment), is 'never kill' (though, of course, when push comes to shove, he has). This, even when all of his enemies (many as they are) would not bat a single eyelid in making the Man of Steel seriously dead. But of course, it is this very fact that defines Supes, as it does a lot of other heroes. He acts in this way because it is right. By making the right choice, by doing the morally right thing and acting above pettiness, vengeance, putting the needs of others above your own and, perhaps most importantly, believing in the possibility of redemption he embodies all that it is to be a true hero.

It's nothing to do with using super-strength or speed or flight - it's making the tough choices, shouldering the heaviest burden, even when you don't want to. That's the stuff of heroes, and I guess that makes them pretty darn cool.

Batman, as anyone who knows me will attest, is my favourite hero of all time. He fights injustice, but he does it in such a way that circumvents read-tape, bureaucracy and all that nonsense so that the guilty can be punished, and so that the punishment fits the crime (well, perhaps not always the case, but then Batman obeys the code of 'must not kill', too).

The Dark Knight's motivation could perhaps be construed as vengeance, but it's not vengeance - far from it. It's simply the mission to ensure that no innocent ever suffers like he suffered, all those years ago in Crime Alley, so that the muggers and the lunatics and the murderers fear to prey on the weak.

He does this in a way that the police cannot, could never do, and he does it without having any super powers at all. I guess this is what makes him such a hero in my opinion - when all is said and done, he is just a man. Yes, okay, so he does have gadgets, training, vast resources and the time and freedom to exploit/indulge them but when the bullets start flying and the freeze-rays, exploding cards, killer plants etc are a hair's breadth from taking your head off, he is just flesh and blood. No power ring, no invulnerability, just kevlar.

Batman, of course, is a much darker cast than Supes, not quite an anti-hero I don't think, but definitely very grey. That is appealing - for some of the reasons that make villains so cool (doesn't have to compromise, can enact unlawful desires - even if that is just to assault the causers of injustice); but also for some of the reasons that make heroes so cool, too. He's a vigilante but he has a code and a mission that grounds him and stops him from slipping into the abyss.

Which leads me on nicely to Exhibit C - The Punisher. The name says it all really. Frank Castle aka The Punisher is your archetypal anti-hero. He does kill, he does torture and he does it all, if we're being honest, in the name of vengeance. Even still, I think that on the blackest shade of grey The Punisher is a great hero.

He's dark with a capital 'D', the likelihood being that if he wasn't offing bad guys he'd probably top himself due to a mixture of survivor guilt and bone-gnawing grief. Like the Bat, he's just a man and that makes him more heroic for the self-same reasons; unlike the Bat, he'll kill and carries a small arsenal that would make most private armies jealous. 'Army of One' was one of the recent story titles associated with the character, and how apt an appellation.

There is a certain hollowness to The Punisher that stands in the way of him being in any way inspirational or rather, aspirational. He in the same way as Batman embodies the attraction of both hero and villain (in fact, in his first Marvel comics appearance he was a villain, charged with destroying Spider-man!).

In a world where the realities of crime are painfully close to home, it's easy to see why a character like The Punisher can generate such appeal. He's actually not that complex a character, a troubled one, yes, but more like a force of nature really.

I guess where all this is leading is that heroes can be bland, as an author the trick really is how to make your heroes stand out without giving them a dark side or some dubious/ridiculous trait or predilection. Making them heroic; that's the thing. But how to do it? It isn't, just like in the case of Superman, beating up hordes of bad guys and saving the day, it's about overcoming hardship and making the tough decisions that no one else can/will make. A measure of a hero is in his mind, it's in his moral fibre and the ability and determination to do what's right. It's about sacrifice. And it's also about flaws. The most compelling heroes are the ones with weakness, the ones that seem more real because of it.

Batman can't relate to others, even his lifelong butler, Alfred. He's forced to wear the mask of Bruce Wayne to hide his true face. He will never be free of the obligation he made to his parents and will never lead a normal life, or have a normal relationship. It doesn't get much more sacrificial than that.

Superman will forever be isolated, forever the outcast on a planet that isn't his own. He will never be able to truly connect with another human being (how could he?). He will be forever haunted by the screams and pleas for help of those he is powerless to save. He will be forever dogged by the question, 'What if I'm not strong enough, this time?'

The Punisher is a wreck, he's a man with nothing to love for except revenge. Every single night, he's a step away from swallowing a bullet. His life is pain and death and suffering. Sounds an awful lot like waking purgatory to me...

These heroes have depth, they have flaws, embody sacrifice and pursue a strong rationale. They couldn't be more different. It's these things, I think, as well as the other themes I've touched on, that makes them so memorable. I think, having to except The Punisher as he's just a little too dark and possibly self-serving to be a true hero, that these characters really show what it means to be a hero.

And finally... There are a lot of heroes I could have mentioned in this blog post. I could have been here all week listing their virtues, analysing what makes them tick and what defines them as heroes, but I won't. What I will do is offering a parting nod to Hiro Nakamura, the affable, unassuming time-shifter in Heroes. I'm very much looking forward to some more of his adventures in approximately an hour's time. Here is a character that loves being a hero, and one that doesn't see his powers as a burden, who doesn't long for a normal life (another defining characteristic of the hero: his resentment of herodom and desire to join the faceless masses and blend into obscurity, where the weight of the world falls on someone else's shoulders).

He has a strong moral code, and seems bereft of the darker edge that a lot of heroes possess and wrestle with. He is a pure hero in many senses, but, in the form of his future-self, shades of jadedness and loss of innocence come through.

Is it the fate of all heroes to become so disillusioned? Is there's ultimately a losing battle against their own sense of futility?