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Masked Maroons


superhero.JPGI wanted to be a superhero.

No, really. When I was about 7, it was my career ambition. While other kids were playing baseball or other such nonsense, I would wear a cape, fling webs (my mother’s hair net) at evildoers (stuffed animals) and come up with clever catchphrases. If I had been looking for colleges at the time, I would’ve only considered those that offered a superhero major.

My superhero fascination kept me from developing any skill whatsoever at baseball, but maybe I wasn’t all that unusual: Most of today’s cinematic superheroes got into the biz because they had twin urges to a) help their fellow man, and b) wear spandex. There’s another superhero film coming out this Friday (which I shall demurely call “Kick-Fanny” here) predicated on that very premise.

And then there are those real-life caped crusaders I just read about in the New York Post.

“Dark Guardian,” for instance, patrols the dark streets around New York’s Washington Square Park, on the lookout for drug dealers. “We are just people who really care and try to go out and make a difference,” 25-year-old Chris Pollack, a.k.a. Guardian, told the Post. “The idea is to be this drastic example of making change in your community.”  Before you ask, yes, he is engaged … though he admits that it took time to admit to his fiancée that he spends some of his evenings running around in a costume. He sometimes shares superheroing duties with fellow heroes “Life” and—in a particularly apt 21st-century twist—”Cameraman,” whose sole superpower seems to be recording the confrontations for posterity (or, perhaps, YouTube).

There are others, according to the Post. Some don’t battle evildoers as much as raise funds for the good guys: “The Phantom Zero” spends most of his allotted superheroing time donating money to the homeless—which perhaps means the “zero” in his name refers to his bank account.

All these folks were inspired, in some way, by media—be it superhero movies or the comic books from which they sprang. So, on the surface, this might be a tale of media making a positive difference in the lives of others. I mean, you can’t pick on someone—even if they are wearing a cape—for wanting to help their community, can you?

Or can you? I can think of a number of problems our “Dark Guardian” might experience—not the least of which would be an unceremonious death should he pick on the wrong drug dealer. Do you have thoughts on this curious little trend?