The Hero's Journey...

Happy Snow Day!

I'll admit I broke down and bought a 5.99 copy of the Director's Cut of Daredevil a few days ago with an unexpected store credit at Disc Replay.  Ah, the treasures of secondhand retailers!

Watching the movie got me thinking about Matt Mourdock's origins and then Bruce Banner's in the "Incredible Hulk".  Upon further review I feel that in some way these movies missed the mark of what made these characters heroes to begin with.

Stan Lee's vision for Daredevil & Hulk were that they were heroes before they were imbued with unearthly powers.  Matt Mourdock saved an old man from getting hit by a car and was blinded by a radioactive isotope.  While Banner saved Rick Jones from the gamma rays that ultimately turned Banner into the Hulk.

Ultimately the choices made in these films cheapened the underlying heroism of the protagonist.

In "Incredible Hulk" the script called for Banner to inject himself with the eponymous super soldier serum and then get bombarded with gamma rays at the urging of Gen. Thunderbolt Ross.  This versus the sacrifice of the original origin.

In "Daredevil" Matt Mourdock throws a hissy fit because his father is working as a leg-breaker for a local mobster and runs into the spray from an industrial accident.

I'm not sure why these choices have been made and we have seen it more and more.  Script-writers, producers, and even comic companies (cough, cough, New 52) have chosen to make guilt the predominant call to action for their heroes instead of duty and obligation.

This past summer we watched the emo-est Superman of all time at the box office.  He brooded, he screamed, he pondered, he felt guilt pangs over his father's sacrifice, and ultimately he was the Batman-est Superman possible.  While some of that was balanced out by the sacrifice of his reveal it was difficult not to notice that he is not too dissimilar from the New 52 version of the big blue boyscout.

I'm not an old-time traditionalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I long for a return to heroes that choose to be heroes because it is the right thing to do.  I could do with less of the tragic backstory and more of superheroes doing their thing for the common good.

So lets put the hero back in superhero and get back to telling fun stories with the occasional dark turn instead of the other way around.

Until next time...stay warm & stay safe!

-John