Comic books
Christopher Tower
1. Comic book heroes always need a motivation to do their good deeds. They call it: "upholding the good." I
didn't know it existed in palpable form. Isn't it just a myth--"the good"--to make sure people behave?
All male heroes have motives. Often the male hero suffers a horrible tragedy. He watches his
parents gunned down; he fails to stop the thief who kills his uncle, his surrogate father; he watches his wife
and children slaughtered by mobsters and bears the guilt of surviving the ordeal. Other heroes just wish to
use their powers for the common good because of their true-blue, all-American upbringing in rural Kansas.
"With great power comes great responsibility." But some heroes have the right motivation. They perform
their good acts for fame or for money. Some of the other heroes think this is odd.
2. I used to examine myself everyday to see if I had super powers yet. Everyday I checked to see if I could
cling to the walls. I would splay my hands out, press them hard against the plaster and paint, and then
try to pull myself off the floor. I always fell. Or I would launch myself off roofs hoping to soar off in flight. Or I
would practice moving fast, hoping my metabolism had speeded up, and I could suddenly break Mach One.
Any indetectable powers were good. If I could move objects with my mind, turn myself invisible, or
slip between the minutes, slide out through the seconds, in between time, then I could perform all my good
deeds undetected. I wouldn't have to make a costume, which was my biggest fear, since I couldn't sew.
Powers that could take me into outer space were the best. A power ring with a built in force field
with which I could fly faster than light itself would be ideal for galaxy hopping. I figured I would feel more at
home in outer space, on other planets, circling other stars where I would be super strong, super fast. Again I
could avoid creating a costume because I could move too fast for people to see.
I guess this is why I stopped going to church. I always prayed really, really hard for super powers.
But God never gave me any. So far.
3. There is always violence in comic books, but it never infected me. The violence never seemed real. And
anyway, the heroes always managed to have great sex after a good day of defeating bad guys and wanton
destruction of property. My favorite was rolling villains up in the road as if it were a sheet of paper, or lifting
a whole building off its foundations and dropping it on some evil-doer. Since I couldn't roll up roads or lift
buildings, I figured I'd leave the violence and the crime fighting to those who could.
didn't know it existed in palpable form. Isn't it just a myth--"the good"--to make sure people behave?
All male heroes have motives. Often the male hero suffers a horrible tragedy. He watches his
parents gunned down; he fails to stop the thief who kills his uncle, his surrogate father; he watches his wife
and children slaughtered by mobsters and bears the guilt of surviving the ordeal. Other heroes just wish to
use their powers for the common good because of their true-blue, all-American upbringing in rural Kansas.
"With great power comes great responsibility." But some heroes have the right motivation. They perform
their good acts for fame or for money. Some of the other heroes think this is odd.
2. I used to examine myself everyday to see if I had super powers yet. Everyday I checked to see if I could
cling to the walls. I would splay my hands out, press them hard against the plaster and paint, and then
try to pull myself off the floor. I always fell. Or I would launch myself off roofs hoping to soar off in flight. Or I
would practice moving fast, hoping my metabolism had speeded up, and I could suddenly break Mach One.
Any indetectable powers were good. If I could move objects with my mind, turn myself invisible, or
slip between the minutes, slide out through the seconds, in between time, then I could perform all my good
deeds undetected. I wouldn't have to make a costume, which was my biggest fear, since I couldn't sew.
Powers that could take me into outer space were the best. A power ring with a built in force field
with which I could fly faster than light itself would be ideal for galaxy hopping. I figured I would feel more at
home in outer space, on other planets, circling other stars where I would be super strong, super fast. Again I
could avoid creating a costume because I could move too fast for people to see.
I guess this is why I stopped going to church. I always prayed really, really hard for super powers.
But God never gave me any. So far.
3. There is always violence in comic books, but it never infected me. The violence never seemed real. And
anyway, the heroes always managed to have great sex after a good day of defeating bad guys and wanton
destruction of property. My favorite was rolling villains up in the road as if it were a sheet of paper, or lifting
a whole building off its foundations and dropping it on some evil-doer. Since I couldn't roll up roads or lift
buildings, I figured I'd leave the violence and the crime fighting to those who could.
4. There are always women with large breasts, long legs, and skin-tight costumes in comic books. Often the
women have long hair and strut about provocatively as they kick in some villian's teeth. I used to set the
comic against my ear. Listen for the rustling of their discreet breasts under their costumes. Listen for the
costume rustling discreetly over their breasts. Always the discretion though, over everything like a shroud, a
curtain which sways as people move, revealing only random fragments of what hides behind it. But there are
the sounds: the labored breathing of the women as they lift Mack trucks overhead or bind criminals in their
magic lassoes, the satiny sheen of their costumes brushing together with the same soughing sound of bed
sheets and linen, and the words in between their words, siren calls which glide over my skin like a hand, long
with fingernails, the light scraping that makes dull, white lines in the skin.
5. My friends and I would play super heroes in our backyards or on playgrounds. The hardest thing
was picking people to be the heroes. Everyone always wanted to be the villains. The villains were more
interesting. And in most games, the heroes began to act like villains. The heroes would betray one another,
steal and kill in a vain effort to do the right thing, or decide that they had enough power to run everything, to
be more than just a leader, to decide who lived and who died.
I always tried to bind together all the different things that were happening. I always tried to make
the story come to a satisfying ending. But you know what? All the games ended the same. The heroes were
all dead, and the villains ruled the world. And one hero was being flogged, punished for being such a do-gooder.
We could never understand why the comic books never came out that way.
6. Most people think comics are a boy-thing. Macho fantasies, male aggressive, gender programming. These
are the same people that had the murder scene taken out of the Classics Illustrated version of Crime and
Punishment. But they are not just macho fantasies.
Comic books are about how to get power. Killing and so on and winning and so on. In regular comic
books, men get the women. This goes along with getting power. It's a perk. If you get power, you get women.
But I always saw the empowered women first. As a young boy, in my own comic stories, Batman
was always enslaved by the Catwoman. She always used some love potion or powerful hypnosis to make the
caped crusader do her bidding. She seduced him when it suited her. Then she tossed him aside like luggage
on an airport conveyor belt. NEXT!
And I was always attracted to the un-heroes, anti-heroes. The heroes who were very reluctant to
be heroes. Those that accidentally became swept up in events, forced to make tough choices. Or the real
bad heroes, those that were almost as mean as villains. Those that were not nice people. Those that made
mistakes or cheated in high school.
women have long hair and strut about provocatively as they kick in some villian's teeth. I used to set the
comic against my ear. Listen for the rustling of their discreet breasts under their costumes. Listen for the
costume rustling discreetly over their breasts. Always the discretion though, over everything like a shroud, a
curtain which sways as people move, revealing only random fragments of what hides behind it. But there are
the sounds: the labored breathing of the women as they lift Mack trucks overhead or bind criminals in their
magic lassoes, the satiny sheen of their costumes brushing together with the same soughing sound of bed
sheets and linen, and the words in between their words, siren calls which glide over my skin like a hand, long
with fingernails, the light scraping that makes dull, white lines in the skin.
5. My friends and I would play super heroes in our backyards or on playgrounds. The hardest thing
was picking people to be the heroes. Everyone always wanted to be the villains. The villains were more
interesting. And in most games, the heroes began to act like villains. The heroes would betray one another,
steal and kill in a vain effort to do the right thing, or decide that they had enough power to run everything, to
be more than just a leader, to decide who lived and who died.
I always tried to bind together all the different things that were happening. I always tried to make
the story come to a satisfying ending. But you know what? All the games ended the same. The heroes were
all dead, and the villains ruled the world. And one hero was being flogged, punished for being such a do-gooder.
We could never understand why the comic books never came out that way.
6. Most people think comics are a boy-thing. Macho fantasies, male aggressive, gender programming. These
are the same people that had the murder scene taken out of the Classics Illustrated version of Crime and
Punishment. But they are not just macho fantasies.
Comic books are about how to get power. Killing and so on and winning and so on. In regular comic
books, men get the women. This goes along with getting power. It's a perk. If you get power, you get women.
But I always saw the empowered women first. As a young boy, in my own comic stories, Batman
was always enslaved by the Catwoman. She always used some love potion or powerful hypnosis to make the
caped crusader do her bidding. She seduced him when it suited her. Then she tossed him aside like luggage
on an airport conveyor belt. NEXT!
And I was always attracted to the un-heroes, anti-heroes. The heroes who were very reluctant to
be heroes. Those that accidentally became swept up in events, forced to make tough choices. Or the real
bad heroes, those that were almost as mean as villains. Those that were not nice people. Those that made
mistakes or cheated in high school.
7. I have seen galaxies crumble...and new suns a'borning! But never have I glimpsed the answer...to the riddle
of the universe! This is the kind of sentence I go mad for. I would like to able to write such sentences without
embarrassment. I would like to be able to read them without embarrassment. If I could do these two things, I
could pass my time on earth, like a smug butterfly wrapped in a cocoon.
8. Strength gone...super powers...gone...only seconds left before Lois dies! I could understand this scene even
without the pictures. I have lived this scene countless times. The weakness that infects every cell of your
body. The young ingenue arching her back, suffocating in Lex Luthor's Kill-Lois-Gizmo. Her full, round lips,
the curve of her spine, her eyes on me, begging me, begging me.
of the universe! This is the kind of sentence I go mad for. I would like to able to write such sentences without
embarrassment. I would like to be able to read them without embarrassment. If I could do these two things, I
could pass my time on earth, like a smug butterfly wrapped in a cocoon.
8. Strength gone...super powers...gone...only seconds left before Lois dies! I could understand this scene even
without the pictures. I have lived this scene countless times. The weakness that infects every cell of your
body. The young ingenue arching her back, suffocating in Lex Luthor's Kill-Lois-Gizmo. Her full, round lips,
the curve of her spine, her eyes on me, begging me, begging me.