City - Seat-un-vil State - EL-UH-NOY Country - United States
About
Those of you who have already read this... move along... For those of you who are lucky enough to NOT be on my late night email list, well... here is one of those late night ramblings:
I was ten maybe eleven years old when I first saw the Iron Man comics. Superman had been around forever in my young mind. Batman had hit the airwaves and was for me a comic-comic book hero. I now realize the first comics of Batman were dark, moody---haunting. But the Adam West TV show gave me, a member of the uninitiated, Batman as a caricature, a spoof on the genre. Of course I knew about Superman and Batman and Spiderman---but for me…well, I was and to this day still am, an Iron Man fan. Tony Stark was the man behind the mask. Jimmie was his wide-eyed supporter. Ok, that brings this up. Tony Stark was not really behind a mask. Batman had a mask. Spiderman had a mask. Superman had Clark Kent’s glasses. That was a nice twist, the regular bloke was in disguise and the superhero naked to the world. But Iron Man did not have a mask---Tony was encased in a suit of armor. Tony was not disguised---he was hidden. Ohhhh…now I am gonna sit here and in a very relaxed non-professional way think about something. Even at the age of 10 or 11, why did I latch onto Iron Man? Why would I lock my sights on a hero that was obviously second rate compared to the ones who come to mind so quickly when characters of this type are discussed? How early in our lives do we set up permanent attitudes? Hmmmm…let me rephrase that. At what age do our adult conceptions take root? How early on do we set opinions in our minds and, no matter how uninformed, hold on to them for ages? I guess I mean something even a bit deeper---even when we are conscious and make what seems to be a free will choice, how much of that choice is coming from a place deep inside we do not commune with on a regular basis? Iron Man became my favorite comic when I was 10 or 11, and to this day remains my favorite---why? Iron Man was covered by a suit of flexible iron. Yeah, he could fly. Yes he was stronger than the average superhero…yes…he had some weapons he could fire from within the safety of his covering. Yes he was known as the “Invincible” Iron Man. He had all this going for him and from the vantage point of a 10 or 11 year old all that would seem the way to go. But was there more to it? Even at that young age…was there something more behind the choice of Iron Man over Thor or Spiderman or Daredevil? I sit here now at the age of 44+ and have this thought…..Did I like the iron suit Tony Stark (aka..little Jimmy) wore because it made him invincible? Did this covering allow him to move forward and fight the evils of the world and therefore give me a sense of social righteousness? Did the suit give him powers for good and without saying, balance the evils of the world and thereby make me happy? Or did the full body “invincible” flexible armor protect his fragile ego, his temporal body---did the suit mask his vulnerabilities and allow him to hide from things he could not face while naked (in the un-suited way) to the world? Oooohhhh---HA! Ya didn’t expect that now did ya? Jimmy chin-chin admitting his failings…showing a flaw in the façade---a chink in the armor, if ya will. Yeah…did I as a young lad, e’en then, realize my shortcomings and latch onto a figure that gave me the false impression of protection? Did wee 10 or 11 year oldE Jimmy know, just know, deep inside, even if the words or thoughts or writings were not at hand to spell it out, did I just know that Iron Man was not a hero I could look to and emulate because of a sense of right, but rather, the man hidden by the iron, was a way to protect myself from all? Or when I was 10 or 11 and a wide-eyed tyke---did I just like the color of his armor? Red and gold is pretty dang cool.
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