It’s All Been Done Before

Apparently everyone is watching this new show called Heroes on NBC. I don’t have much time for TV, especially at night, so I don’t watch all that many shows. But apparently all those normal people who do have time for prime time television tune in every Monday at 9pm to watch. So this week I flipped over to watch part of the show, in between quarters of Monday Night Football, to see what it was all about.

My first impression: I think someone owes Stan Lee some money. The story revolves around regular, everyday people who turn out to have extraordinary powers that they use in an effort to stop some future calamity. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that same storyline before. I could be that it’s been done several times in the Uncanny X-Men which originally appeared back in September of 1963 (and yes, I am that big of a nerd). It’s nice to see that Hollywood writers are being so original these days.

Let’s take a quick look at the characters of this Heroes show. One has the ability to spontaneously heal, just like Wolverine. One guy can enter into a precognitive trance and is capable of revealing the future. That sounds like Destiny. One guy can phase through solid objects just like Shadow Cat (also known as Kitty Pride). There’s a chick that can psychically get people to do her bidding just by talking to them. Heck, Professor Xavier could do that without having to talk. Oh and there’s a guy who can temporarily copy the powers of any other super powered being he is around. Yeah, that was Mimic, who enjoyed a very brief stint with the original mutant X-Men (even though he wasn’t a mutant himself, his mimicry powers were gained in a chemical accident).

Now I know that the X-Men have enjoyed a rather long career in popular culture, and I’m sure it would be hard to come up with a superhero that Marvel hasn’t already covered. But seriously, what did the writers do when they originally came up with this show? Did they get high, read a few comic books and think, “Hey, let’s have a show with superheroes!” Because, honestly, that’s how I pictured this whole thing happening.

And kudos to all of you viewers out there that are tuning in every week to make Heroes such a popular show. I mean, it’s not as if mainstream culture has looked down upon comic books as not only childish, but also as a contributor to juvenile delinquency and a factor in crimes committed by minors. Yes, comic books are destroying the minds of your children. But it’s perfectly acceptable to have the exact same storyline and themes in a television show. I don’t see any hypocrisy there. Nope. None at all.

There is one thing that is really bothering me about this show. This whole “Save the cheerleader, save the world,” line is totally uncalled for. I know that cheerleaders are very popular in this country and yes, we all love them. But when is it ever possible that the fate of the entire planet hinges on a cheerleader? I’m sorry, but I just cannot accept that. The studio execs are feeding on the baser instincts of their viewers by offering up this cheerleader style fantasy. I’m pretty sure this sort of thing in comic books is deemed unacceptable by the populace.

Oh, and the cheerleader, the one with the Wolverine-like healing factor, she’s supposed to be a high school kid who’s only about 17 years old. She’s also one of the few powered females of the cast, and apparently, the most important one. So they’ve dressed up a 17 year old girl and put her in a cheerleading outfit so she can prance around during a timeslot reserved for an older, more mature audience. I’ll like to congratulate NBC for turning out quality TV for pedophiles everywhere. Good job.

I think that the X-Men comics were a much better entertainment venue than this TV show. Mainly, I believe that the Uncanny X-Men were a much deeper and socially motivated enterprise than Heroes. See, the original X-Men comic book debuted in 1963, as I noted earlier, and coincided with the civil rights movement. Even though the original cast of the X-Men was a strikingly homogeneous mix of white protestant types, the relations of mutants to normal humans in the comic bore an intense similarity to the race relations of the day. The hatred and animosity that many normal humans had towards mutants is an artistic symbolism to the civil rights movement and to the plight of minorities in general. The comic series is intended mainly for entertainment value but it obviously includes much deeper social motifs. The TV show “Heroes,” however, is merely exploiting the superhero archetype in order to gain viewers.

I’d also like to point out one other quick reason why X-Men is a better franchise. Colossus could easily kick the crap out of all of the characters on Heroes. Heck, he could probably take them all at once. Not only was he the only mutant capable of standing up to the Unstoppable Juggernaut (whose powers were demonic, not mutant), but he also had a kickin’ Russian accent. This is why he is the coolest mutant ever, not Wolverine. Yes, I know that Wolverine is the big favorite and all, but really, he’s just overrated.

I mean, Wolverine is from Canada for crying out loud (or as I like to call it, American Jr.). Heck, I’m surprised that Department H never used the samples of his blood so they could recreate his healing factor in all Canadians as a part of their nationalized healthcare. Honestly, that would save the taxpayers millions of dollars every year and probably also provide superior healthcare. Hey, that kind of progressive healthcare plan worked wonders for Deadpool, it cured up his cancer real quick.

I do have to say one good thing about Heroes. It comes on right before my favorite show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip at 10pm. This show has everything: great acting, good original story, and most importantly, amazing writing. It is intelligent, quick paced, and very funny. The show is an entire hour long but I think it’s far too short and doesn’t do the show justice. Hey, it may not have any superheroes or 17 year old cheerleaders, but trust me on this one, I was 17 once, and those high school cheerleaders are totally not worth it.