There are big, popular movies about superheroes these days,
but they’re just fighting against villains trying to conquer the Earth or
terrorists or whatever. That’s yesterday’s threat! What about the superheroes
we need for today, and the corresponding super villains we need them to fight
against?
When I watch the news (American news, that is), I see
offensive comments and apologies over such things getting way more airtime than terrorism, murder, rape, assault, robbery,
fraud, carjacking, and all other crimes combined. And so, seeing as how hurtful
words are seen as a far greater evil than actual crimes, isn’t it about time
our comic books and superheroes reflected this cultural shift?
It used to be parents would teach their kids to say: “Sticks
and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” And then the
bullies would break their bones. But then and only then would Superman step in
to help, because he figured defenseless people could at least handle words
without needing his help. But Superman is just a jerk using tough love to harm
everyone these days, so we need someone who truly cares about people’s feelings!
(Up yours, Superman! Go bully some weak criminals, why don’t you, you bully?)
So here are some new superheroes to help us battle today’s supreme
evil of offensive comments, the worst crimes imaginable today, and the new
super villains to perpetrate these most horrific of crimes:
The Offender: He
knows how to offend everyone, making them all angry with offensive comments and
jokes. But there’s one hero who knows how to deal with such a dastardly
villain:
The Apologizer:
He has super-hearing, and he is finely attuned to hear all offensive comments
and jokes. And, using his psionic abilities, he can force anyone to see the
error of their ways through forced empathy, and then he forces them to
apologize. Surely the greatest hero America has ever known! But, can he stop
the evil powers of:
The Controversial
Commenter (the super villain) before he strikes and hurts everyone’s
feelings? Why, to stop such a nasty naughtiness, you need the super-predictive
superpowers of:
The Muzzler: He
can use his psychic powers to predict who is going to say offensive,
controversial comments and stop them before they can be said with his Massive
Mouth Muzzler powers! And then, having been silenced, the villain can be
slapped into a soundproof prison to protect society from comments that might
harm their sensibilities!
But it’s not only words that can hurt feelings and draw ire,
because there’s also another super villain for offensiveness:
The Cultural
Appropriator: He offends at every turn, dressing up as an offensive mock
version of whatever culture he’s around so as to ridicule them, he’s The
Cultural Appropriator: mocker and maligner of borrowed cultural stereotypes!
His super power is the ability to instantly transform himself into an insulting
stereotype of whatever ethnic group he is around, becoming a walking, breathing
pejorative statement (!). There’s only one
superhero who can counter his offensive offense, it’s:
The Political
Corrector: hero of tolerance and, well, actually political correctness is a
system of intolerance all its own, but it’s for the sake of tolerance, I guess,
so never mind! So anyway, this most necessary hero of our time corrects
everyone whose views and speech are viewed as incorrect, using psychic
brainwashing, and physical force if necessary. But whenever anyone crosses the
line into incorrect thinking and speech, the Political Corrector corrects them,
but good!
Yes, America, with this new gang of superheroes to defeat
the newest incarnation of evil, surely we will triumph over controversial
comments and (hopefully) hurt feelings once and for all! (Until foreign enemies
begin to use insults as military attacks!)
