This American Life - 178: Superpowers

Broadcast on: 23 Feb 2001

When we were weak, we taught ourselves we were strong and sometimes, if we were very weak, we taught ourselves we were very, very strong. I mean, on question and play, I was by far the most loath member of my class, I think, being a pasty, unathletic kid who was weird looking and probably seemed overly eager, so, you know, and I had friends that would come over on the weekends, you know, to play, but then at school they would ignore me and pretend like they didn't know me. And so, when he was little, Chris Ware spent a lot of time thinking about superpowers. He drew superheroes over and over, trying to get them right. He always wondered where somebody could find a radioactive animal, like the one who bit Peter Parker. It turned him into the amazing Spider-Man. Once or twice, he thought he might be developing his own real superpowers. There was one morning where I was standing under the shower and, of course, when you get in immediately because you're so cold, the water is extremely hot by contrast, you know. So, you have the cold water turned up and as you stand in there you get used to it and you turn the cold water down, you know. And I was there for a very long time and I remember turning the cold and it wouldn't go any farther and I thought, well, that's weird, it must be stuck and I turned it more and it wouldn't go any farther and I realized I was standing under completely hot water but I was, it felt fine to me. It actually felt warm, almost cool and the longer I stood there it felt cooler and cooler and the only explanation I could come up with is that I had developed the ability to withstand extraordinary heat. And, of course, we'd just run out of hot water but at that time I didn't know that that happened. I thought hot water was a was an endless commodity. His first crush was Batgirl. Even now he says if he just sees the colors of Batgirl's costume, just the colors, no image at all, just the colors. His heart still skips a bead. He invented his own superhero called the Hurricane who could shoot blasts of wind from his hands and was drawn with huge manly muscles. He made a hurricane costume to wear, a red t-shirt with a black circle with an H on it, a mask that his mom made for him, a yellow cape. There were a few times where I actually came to school with bits of a superhero costume secreted under my school uniform. I guess I don't exactly know why I guess I thought it was going to give me some sense of power or something. But, of course, then I have gym class. You have to change your clothes. I don't know what I was thinking. There was one time I actually, this is sort of a peripherally superhero but I'd actually drawn circuit boards on pieces of paper like the bionic man, the $6 million man and I'd actually, I'd actually taped them on my legs to look like real circuitry exposed as if I had, you know, mechanical legs or something like that. So I guess I vaguely thought that somebody would catch a glimpse of it and think, "Wow, look, he's bionic!"

Some of us, we spend a long, long time hoping that we're more than what the world thinks of us. And so, of course, we're drawn to these stories, of these mild-mannered guys who under their clothes wear a costume in secret with powers nobody suspects. And when we get older, it all seems ridiculous. It all seems really, really dumb. Chris Ware went on to draw cartoons for his living but these cartoons that he draws now are like novels with about real people. And when a Superman type shows up in one of these cartoons, it's always somebody trying to con kids with a costume and a cape. He is always a disappointment. It's just more interesting that way. I think he's more like a real dad that way. I guess the more I draw him, the fatter he gets to and the more bald he gets, I guess. So, I mean, if you were Superman too, you're like, you know, what do you care what you look like? You wouldn't be all handsome and you just, you know, you'd eat whatever you felt like you'd take whatever you wanted and you'd end up looking really terrible after a while, I think. So, if I was a superhero, I think I would probably, I mean, who's gonna who's gonna criticize you? Well, today on our radio program, superpowers for real-life stories about how easy it is to be caught up in the dream of them. At one, the invisible man versus Hawkman. The story of one man, two superpowers and one big question. Question, my friend, that we all can face equally. Act two, Wonder Woman. The story of a kid who decided to take steps to become a superhero. Systematic, thorough steps that took her years well into adulthood. Act three,

Transcription truncated.