RE. HEROES

Now that's what I call an anti-hero.

"OK. Last things first. Heroes...

Loved this piece. And, interestingly, it tallies with something I've been turning over in my head recently, for different reasons. (And let's leave aside my unfamiliarity with FIREFLY for the time being - I got your general point anyway.)

Cyphers. Yes. Absolutely. To a point. Let me extrapolate that one a bit. The older school of Heroes are very much cyphers, and the most malleable and protean of them all is undoubtedly Batman. This character, more than any other, is open to more and varied and equally valid interpretations than any other. From the pop-art, primary colours & high camp of Adam West, to the dysfunctional introvert adrift in a gothic nightmare in Tim Burton's iterations to the brutal engine of vengeance in Nolan's triptych. And that's before you even begin to dig into over seventy years of monthly comics. Crucially, Batman is the character, not Bruce Wayne. Same with Superman. Last son of a dying planet. Superman is a mask, as is Clark Kent. Kal-El is the "real" person, and he doesn't really exist. He's certainly not someone we are particularly interested in. But Superman is. A force of good, an alien devoted to protecting the people of his adoptive home. I'll come back to the benevolent alien thing in a bit...

But move forward to the post-war arrival of Marvel, and the "cypher" thing starts to float away. The "secret identity", the men behind the masks are more important than the masks themselves. You can flip it. It isn't a radioactive spider-bite that makes Spider-Man, it's who Peter Parker is that makes Spider-Man. It's not a high-tech suit of armour that makes Iron Man, it's who Tony Stark fundamentally is who makes Iron Man. Their hopes, fears, moral compass, personal code, whatever lead them to the point of becoming "heroes". Peter Parker is relatable. A high school kid, an orphan, always worrying about how he's going to pay the rent. We get that. Billionaire Bruce Wayne and Alien Kal-El are way outside our frame of reference.

But I'm drifting off-topic. You were talking about heroes, not specifically the spandex-brand of superheroes. OK. Good. That's where I was heading anyway. It's interesting to me that this year there's a new James Bond film out, the first in quite a few years. People love James Bond the world over. People are excited about it. He was a symbol of the UK the world over as part of the Olympic opening ceremony. To many, he is their "hero". But, know what? Not much of a hero to me. I was never a kid who grew up lusting after those cars, those girls, those gadgets, those quips, those guns, those bombs. He's a thug in a suit. A legally-sanctioned killer. Who gets paid for it. Meh. Not "my" hero, that's for sure. I've always felt that it says something (not particularly nice) about people who idolise Bond.

But but but. It is ALSO the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who next year. (A compassionate alien I can get behind). The first time a non-US TV show ever appeared on the cover of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY in the States last week was for Doctor Who. It's the biggest show on British TV in terms of global reach of a homegrown show. It's huge now. Bigger than its ever been. But it used to be an industry joke. The cheesy show with the wobbly cardboard walls and rubber monsters and races down corridors or through rock quarries in Wales. And then it was cancelled and it could have just been this nostalgic thing where people said: "Remember that show?"

And here's a hero who doesn't use a gun, he has a screwdriver. And he isn't about "winning" or "beating" someone. Sometimes he runs away, because it's tactically wise. He thinks the best of everyone, until he has reason not to. And, above all, he uses his BRAIN. Not his fists, or a weapon. Bond wears a tux and his world is splashed with brand labels. The Doctor thinks bow ties are cool, and cricket whites, and crushed-velvet jackets, and jelly babies and unfeasibly long scarves. And I'm hard-pressed to see how he could be wrong. Staring death in the face is the greatest adventure ever. A lark and a game. But, more than that, I suspect that the reason the Doctor is MY hero, is that he just doesn't really give a shit what anybody makes of him...

Oh, I've lost my point somewhere here. But, circling back, we all need heroes. We evidently don't all agree on what or who is heroic. I'll take a Spider-Man over a Batman, and a Doctor over a Bond. And I do love the fact that, unlike all the other iconic long-running almost mythical heroes in pop culture, the Doctor has never been rebooted. No BATMAN BEGINS or CASINO ROYALE. It's almost one continuous narrative - the ongoing adventures of one man, the same man (different faces, but...) with the whole of time and space as his playground. I love that."

All hail!