The World's Greatest Super Heroes

Sometimes it’s hard to be a super-hero. It takes a lot of effort to save the world from an endless stream of egomaniacal geniuses and swarms of planet marauding alien armadas! But what about the daily problems of human existence—hunger, disease, poverty, and equality? Shouldn’t super-heroes put some effort into confronting these problems as well?

It’s not like there’s no one on Earth “Prime” trying to take on these issues. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending TEDxChange 2010 at Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. At this event, some of the top thinkers about the human condition were discussing the progress of the Millennium Development Goals—eight pressing issues facing humanity that need to be solved. The goals include ending poverty and hunger, ensuring universal education, promoting gender equality, improving child health, and combating HIV/Aids. These are the real problems that need real heroes. So, why don’t the super-heroes of legend ever try to tackle these more pedestrian, but equally important issues?

That’s the question posed in the recently released The World’s Greatest Heroes graphic novel from DC Comics. This collection of stories take the all stars of the DC Universe—Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman and the Justice League of America—and ask them to deal with some of the real issues of being human.

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The Spirit Movie

The holiday break was crazy busy for me, but I spent as much time with my family as possible, as evidenced by the fact that I saw a movie about a midievil talking mouse rather than a dead guy with a red tie. I went snow tubing with the kids, which I had never done before–it was a blas–and I’m still icing my thumb from playing too much Batman Lego on the Wii with the wife.

But tonight I finally did get to see Frank Miller’s The Spirit (the aforementioned dead guy with the red tie) and loved it. Yes, I’ve seen the negative reviews, and even the disappointed comments from my friends, so, maybe I went in with low expectations. But like the pulp comic that spawned it, this movie was something ridiculously fun, with the emphasis on ridiculous.

If you are going to see it, don’t expect Batman: The Dark Night or even the Tim Burton Batman. This is not X-Men or Iron Man or like any other comic book hero brought to the silver screen. The closest comparison is Miller’s own Sin City, but, even though he uses a similar styles, The Spirit goes for wry humor over angsty violence.

There are laugh-out loud moments, smirking moments and even some great groan moments. If you look at The Spirit as a movie to have fun with watching, it’s a fun movie to watch.