Thursday, August 20, 2009

Q&A: What is the hardest part of being a superhero?

Q&A time!

Q: What is the hardest part of being a superhero?

A: That part is easy: it's the fact that, even with super powers, I still can't do it all.

I have been gifted with amazing powers. As someone who believes in God, I believe that I've been given these powers for a reason. That reason seems to be to use my powers to help stop those who use their powers for evil. Each person I battle is different, so each time I face a new villain, I have to learn as quickly as possible what their power is and what I need to do to stop them.

Many times I figure out what I need to do very quickly. It helps a lot to study those superhumans that the U.S. Dept. of Superhuman Studies has in custody. It's through them that I learn what super powers can actually do and what powers can't do. But sometimes it takes longer for me to figure out their power before they cause harm to others or even death - especially if it's someone with powers that I've never encountered before.

I'll share a secret with you: when my failure ends in the death of others, I take it hard. Most of the time I'll just bury the pain, but sometimes I break down and cry. That kind of failure hurts that bad. The superhuman psychiatrists that the DSS has will tell me that I can't do it all. They theorize that people like me have a harder time accepting that basic fact because we can do so much more than the average human. Despite that, we have limits.

Because of our super abilities, we also often suffer delusions of grandeur more than regular humans do. That delusion can also take the form of heroes expecting to do it all, and how a given hero reacts to failure will state how they will develop psychologically as their role as a superhero expands.

Their reaction to failure can either result in a crushing guilt that they can't escape, or it can lead to them learning to be a better hero by learning from their mistakes. I'm trying very hard to live up to that second option. Time will tell on how well I do

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