Longbox Review

Comic character you feel you are most like (or wish you were).

Clark Kent/Superman. I guess this one I can answer both parts of the challenge (to some degree).

Ok, how to tackle this one. I’ll start with the “wish I was” part. Superman is the epitome to me of the superhero. He was the blueprint. He’s powerful, yet humble. He has a strong moral compass and rarely, if ever, strays from that resolution. He stands up for the weak and meek, the disenfranchised (something I’m very glad DC is bringing back in the relaunch). And those powers! Flight, strength, speed, invulnerability (to a degree), heat vision, x-ray vision, and other senses (forget that super-cold breath thing–that’s just stupid). Who wouldn’t want to have that set of powers? Plus, he had loving, understanding adoptive parents that he could turn to when he needed advice (I am talking, of course, about the John Byrne reboot version of the character and small variations thereafter). He had great friends (both “normal” and “super”), an interesting job, fantastic adventures.

But he was also isolated and different. And what preteen and teenager doesn’t know what that’s like? I certainly did. Like Clark, I was adopted, though just by my father, and never knew my real father. Just as Clark later lost his Pa to a heart attack (in the 2008 Brainiac story), I lost my mother to cancer. Like a young Clark Kent, I always felt I had a greater potential to live up to, to achieve, and he felt the weight of that responsibility (and still does). Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make the grade like ol’ Supes. :) Also like Clark, I could always turn to my parents for their council, and rely upon my friends when I needed them. And when I needed to escape the rigors of everyday life, as Superman did when he went to his Fortress of Solitude, I had comic books to turn to.