What Kick-Ass did, both in comic and film form, was ask the question – with all of us reading comics about ordinary people who don costumes and fight crime, why do none of us ever do it? Well, what you may or may not know is that ordinary people out there do dress up and fight crime – at least to a certain extent.
Those of you who have seen the movie Confessions Of A Super Hero know that a group of people regularly dress up as our favorite heroes and walk along Hollywood Blvd, taking pictures and signing autographs with and for kids. Recently, however, the LAPD have been cracking down on these folks fairly hardcore, and this can even be seen in the aforementioned movie. In the wake of the recent “blitzkrieg assault” on these guys, the website Ranker has provided a list of The 12 Greatest Real-Life Superheroes Of All Time, focusing on several men and women who have donned costumes in order to help their cities.
Now, the idea of real life superheroes has always been exciting to me ever since I first heard about it. While I myself will probably not be putting on a costume any time soon, I applaud the notion that people are so inspired by the stories they’ve read that they to help out. It’s exciting on a number of levels, but my general hope with this is two things. 1, I hope that these heroes are using appropriate caution, because if they’re going to be fighting against gang violence and crime like in the comics, there’s a high risk of them possibly getting shot, and the last thing I think any of them want or any of us want to read is that they were taken down worse than Dave Lizewski. My other hope is that no one out there gets the idea that for every Batman, we need a Joker, because last thing I think we need is an “ordinary citizen” painting his face white and holding boats full of people hostage while forcing one of the heroes to make a choice.
For more information on real life superheroes, be sure to check out The Real Life Super Hero Project for a list of all your local heroes, and be sure to check out Ranker’s list as well for a look at the lifestyle these vigilante crimefighters lead.
