WHAT WE LOOK FOR WHEN WE’RE LOOKING UP

A brief and inconclusive consideration about the superhumans of the new millennium

As many others before me, I too have felt the urgence to reply to the much discussed speech made by Galileo during his podcast Herowatch, aired last week.

For those who didn’t listened to it, here’s a short recap: on the last 20th November, we all watched the event that set the SPIRITs from London against the freshly debuted New Souls  (Rouge Rogers, Jackob Livingston, George Taylor, Teo Triscele and Karl Pregers, under the sponsorship of Leslie “Nextdoor Girl” Lancaster, former leader of the recently disbanded old group).
During the fight, Pregers (aka Eskimo) mistakenly (?) revealed the identity of the secret leader of the SPIRITs, Yuliana Fenin, causing the group to disband and kickstarting yet another debate on the connection between reality and fiction in superhumans’ - I’m sorry, “individual with special abilities” - Tours during what we now openly call the Fan Age of the superheroes.

As expected, Galileo barged in with his opinion, grist to his mill for his “Guards”. Here’s his podcast:

It took a while for me to reply, I needed to weigh every word. Because I can’t deny there’s truth, even in his faux-liberal rant every word.
I’ll maybe push away a few readers, but I agree with the fact that the Show Business of the Supertours is getting out of control, overwhelming the audience with infinite crossovers, staged dimensional journey and time travel, forcing the aficionados to follow more than one supergroup to understand what’s happening, and alienating new watchers with the sheer amount of different stuff they have to get on board with.

And yes, it probably turned the involved superhumans in narcissistic divas, freeing them once and for all from the guilt of feeling “superior”. Not everyone, I’m certain, but surely quite a few.
More so for the youngest of them, who didn’t live the years of the Fights, when we desperately needed superhumans, or better yet, “superheroes”.
The new generations don’t know what to do with their powers, that’s true.
Also true, is the fact that the private schools for the individuals with special abilities (the various Academies and Institutes) advertise the Supertours as the first job opportunity.

Let me take a moment here:

• I don’t expect anything different from young kids who get offered the options to either become a superstar or a volunteer for the Peace (and I really hope to be contradicted)
• Galileo seems to forgot the alternatives to the Private Schools for superhumans, like the scarcely known School of Powers (from which, oddly enough, all of the members of New Souls come from), that are actively trying to present a new idea of the superhero to the young supertalents that enroll. You can download HERE their informational pampleth and enrollment form for the next academic year.

But it’s not by staying still in opinion such as these that I get to my point.

Is dragging the superhuman to our own level the only option we have? Do we have to scatter them in the crowd, in the traffic? Do we really want them to be “individuals with special abilities”? Or, even worse, with entuhsiast and naive voice, tell ourselves that we all are a bit special?
In short, using the most rhetoric and overdone of the questions: are we really sure we don’t need superheroes anymore?

It’s true, that’s not exactly what Galileo means with his program Herowatch. But creating a controlling authority, as democratic as it can be, would mean to push the superhumans even lower than our own level. And we can fully expect a civil war, if their manifest should ever come in fruition and take a few steps forward.

I don’t know what a young superhuman is supposed to do with his powers.
And, as crazy and disarming as it may sound, I think he should do whatever the hell he want with them, hoping that someone (the school system, parents, uncles or whatever) instilled in him the idea, even a vague one, of responsibility.

As for the Tours, there’s still some good in them, even among multinarrative plots and convoluted scenic stunts. We can still find well crafted events, engaging as they are “deep”, and heroes with a strong will and a heart of gold, and I always try to bring the attention of the public to such things. It’s superhumans as the Iron Kids, or the now disbanded Key boys, that let me think that we may still need to look up.

If the still green New Souls are one of those groups, that’s still too soon to say.
They may prove themselves during their next event, on December 5th, when they’ll face the CMYKnights.