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Column:
Letters from the Editor
"Who Wants to be a Superhero?"
By Louis Vitela
Published: 2006-07-28
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For those who like to be surprised and haven't yet watched their Tivoed programs from July 27th, this column contains spoilers about the first episode of Who Wants to be a Superhero.
Who wants to be a superhero? I’m not sure anyone does any more.
Stan Lee is one of my heroes, if for no other reason than he has
arguably changed the world simply by doing something he loves:
creating superhero characters and writing comics. But not every web
Stan slings latches on to a winning idea. Enter Who Wants to be a
Superhero?, the Sci Fi Channel show that is billed as a
“one-hour weekly competition reality series.”
“Reality” might be pushing it. A tiny bit of Googling
reveals that most of the players are professional or aspiring actors.
Chris Watters (Major Victory) is listed on the official
website as being a professional disc jockey, yet The Internet
Movie Database (imdb.com) indicates he’s had significant roles in
several well-watched programs, including a couple of episodes of
CSI. Mary Votava, the athletic and scantily-clad Monkey Woman,
has only the word “investor” as her profession, yet her official website
notes that she’s really an actress and singer. Her site also
sports an ad that reads, “Be sure to catch me on Who Wants to
be a Superhero.” For this show the players’ acting
resumés are played down, to say the least.
In a sense, the show becomes more palatable when one takes into
account that these are all professional actors (though varying in
experience) who have donned costumes. Chris Watters’ Major
Victory was the funniest and most refreshing of the characters. He
was clearly doing two things: first, bucking for the role of Batman
when someone finally reprises the campy Adam West show from the 60s
(to heck with the dark stuff), and second he was having fun.
I’ll admit that just because they have acting experience
doesn’t mean they aren’t all fans of the superhero genre.
It seems to me that they probably really did create their own
characters to win a spot on the show, and that their actions and
responses on the show are genuine.
In the premier episode two players were sent home. The first to
turn in his costume was Levity (played by Tobias Trost), who was
released from the game after revealing that he hoped to make money
selling Levity action figures in the near future. Had he continued, he
would perhaps have become the Booster Gold of the reality TV circuit,
making the world safe for capitalists. Also released was Nitro G,
played by Darren Passarello, who seemed to have been the youngest
member of the cast and the actor with the lightest resumé. He was
released, Stan said, because “he still has some growing up to
do.” Crazy — he’s not grown-up enough to don a
costume and run around town playing a superhero? What’s the
world coming to? Stan says that none of the heroes will be leaping
tall buildings or stopping bullets with their eyeballs. Instead, the
competitions are meant to test their inner virtues as heroes: courage,
integrity, self-sacrifice, compassion, and resourcefulness, ideals
which ironically seem to be the antithesis of most so-called reality
television. When all but one of the heroes have been eliminated (a thought which makes Stan sound a little like Dr. Doom), the remaining hero will be crowned winner and “immortalized” in his or her very own comic.
As a reality show, Who Wants to be a Superhero? is fine.
The actors are handsome, the actresses are beautiful, and to a person,
they each seem committed to their respective role and to the game. As
for its relation to things comicbook, it’s disappointing. In a
single super-swipe it perpetuates and reinforces the most simplistic
perceptions of superhero comics, ignoring the storytelling power of
sequential art and trivializing the astoundingly good comics that have
been written in recent years. But then again, maybe all press is good
press, as they say, and along with X3 and Superman
Returns, Who Wants to be a Superhero? may raise the medium
in the public consciousness and increase sales of comics. In general,
Thursday night summer television isn’t all that compelling, so I
may be back for future episodes, at least until Lemuria is sent home
— she’s hot.
—CCdC—
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