Like a Plane in a Lightening Storm

Well, I’m at the goddamn airport. It’s 9:18 pm. My plane was scheduled to leave at 8:30. Now they’re telling us we’ll start boarding at 11:30, but that’s hardly likely now, is it? Lightning is flashing outside. I’m trying to remind myself that there’s no statistical way my parents could lose both their children in freak accidents a month apart. The hangar is packed. All chairs filled, all kids screaming, all men gathered around the few flat screens showing some useless football game.

A woman just came up to me, dumped her bags on my feet, and is now squatting over my flipflops, digging through her shit like I’m not even here. What is it about air travel that destroys people’s sense of personal space? Just who the fuck does she think she is? How can she possibly not anticipate me feeling just as snarky as she does? How does she know I’m not going to wipe that self-important sneer right off her face with my unwashed foot?

Not that I would. I’m nonviolent.

Well, while I have some time to kill, have you ever seen Who Wants To Be a Superhero? The answer is likely no, since it’s on the SciFi Channel, and it takes a real shitpoor timeslot for their programming to win the channel surfing war. Do yourself a favor and pause, though, if you ever happen to flip by and notice a group of grown ass adults dressed in some homemade approximation of a child’s drawing of a superhero costume.

Here’s the premise: ten, or twelve, or who cares how many people are competing to become the star of a new Darkhorse Comic series. Which is cool - who doesn’t want to see the Barbie/Ken version of themselves in cartoon spandex? Unfortunately, that’s the only cool thing about the show. Each contestant has designed his/her own superhero alter ego, none of which are very convincing. There’s Diffuser, whose superpower seems to be bossing people around. There’s Braid who, you guessed it, wears braids. There’s Basura, who you’d think would be covered in trash or at least a sickly green or something, but who just walks around in not much of a shirt looking embarrassed. And then there’s my favorite, the unfortunately named Hygenia. Yes, Hygenia. I’m not sure about her powers, but she seems to have some OCD issues. All of them run around in cardboard and tinfoil, strike sadly alert poses on command, and stand there nodding and staring at their “transmitter watches” while their missions are explained to the viewer by a shrunken and superimposed Stan Lee.

What a waste.

Why not make the show real? Why not put actually talented people in actually tense situations? No need for these hacks to write their own backstories and sew their own outfits. No need to “test” their “warrior hearts” with wind machines and unconvincingly wailing “mothers” of “lost children.” You want heroism? Get an ex-Marine, an acrobat, a lion tamer, a trick roper, a chess grand wizard and an eight-year-old girl genius, put them in a room, throw in a hungry crocodile, and roll camera. I’m sure you could get past the red tape easily enough, just call Steve Irwin’s lawyer.

Come on, SciFi Channel, this shit ain’t hard.