Human scale heroes
Oct. 2nd, 2005 08:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethDreamed about Flash, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle hanging out (and hiding out actually) at the house where I was a teenager. Beetle was in the bath. He'd strained his abs with a new workout routine. He showed me.
it being one of my dreams it was actually wierder and lamer than that. I just put the cool bits in here.
Am left with an urge to write a big long post on Why Beetle Is Best. Specifically, why the Ted Kord Blue Beetle is best. Better than scarab power, better than Batman. Yup, better. Batman couldn't invent his way to destroying Starbreaker (who, okay, appears to be less than completely destroyed at the moment, but hey, that happens. A lot.). Batman is Lone!Grim!Gritty!Bats! Batman has unhealthy co-dependent relationships with teenage boys. Beetle just eats too much. As dark secrets go, this is one more people can live with.
Super powers are kind of cool, but if you aren't born with them you're pretty much stuck. Arrow family, Bat family, Blue Beetle - all made themselves. So did Booster Gold actually, just his version involved 'steal cool gadgets' rather than 'build cool gadgets'. I prefer the one where they invent them themselves. But once Booster partnered with Beetle, BB built them and BG used them. BB was brains and bouncy acrobatics, BG was brawn and being built like a tank. Worked out nicely.
Beetle is just a guy doing a regular job, as scared or bored or goofy as most people would be, but doing whatever it takes anyway. He has range, and depth, and you can drop him in to anything from a heartbreaking vampire story to a space opera to a high school reunion and still have story come out of it, with him in character all the time. And *useful* all the time. Beetle was not some fifth wheel in the JLI era. He was central and essential. Retcon that away and they dismiss the ability of regular people to stand up and help. Which is cheap and insulting. Don't got to be 'gods' to help humans.
*hugs Beetle*
(did I mention, also cute? Also, cute.)
it being one of my dreams it was actually wierder and lamer than that. I just put the cool bits in here.
Am left with an urge to write a big long post on Why Beetle Is Best. Specifically, why the Ted Kord Blue Beetle is best. Better than scarab power, better than Batman. Yup, better. Batman couldn't invent his way to destroying Starbreaker (who, okay, appears to be less than completely destroyed at the moment, but hey, that happens. A lot.). Batman is Lone!Grim!Gritty!Bats! Batman has unhealthy co-dependent relationships with teenage boys. Beetle just eats too much. As dark secrets go, this is one more people can live with.
Super powers are kind of cool, but if you aren't born with them you're pretty much stuck. Arrow family, Bat family, Blue Beetle - all made themselves. So did Booster Gold actually, just his version involved 'steal cool gadgets' rather than 'build cool gadgets'. I prefer the one where they invent them themselves. But once Booster partnered with Beetle, BB built them and BG used them. BB was brains and bouncy acrobatics, BG was brawn and being built like a tank. Worked out nicely.
Beetle is just a guy doing a regular job, as scared or bored or goofy as most people would be, but doing whatever it takes anyway. He has range, and depth, and you can drop him in to anything from a heartbreaking vampire story to a space opera to a high school reunion and still have story come out of it, with him in character all the time. And *useful* all the time. Beetle was not some fifth wheel in the JLI era. He was central and essential. Retcon that away and they dismiss the ability of regular people to stand up and help. Which is cheap and insulting. Don't got to be 'gods' to help humans.
*hugs Beetle*
(did I mention, also cute? Also, cute.)