Tag Archives: heroes

The Nature of a Hero in “Flashpoint”

Screenshot of Flashpoint coverI’m not one to watch much television. Really, I’m not (I feel defensive considering what I’m about to write). I’m certainly not one to watch more than two episodes of anything in a night, and definitely not one to blow through a season of a program on Netflix in a week.

Seriously, I’m not.

So, here’s how this went down.

Just before moving into our new apartment, Karen and I sat down late one night too tired to do anything productive, and looking for something mindless to watch for a bit. She asked what I was in the mood for, and, being a sucker for police procedural dramas, I rattled off a couple of old standbys, none of which had anything available, or at least nothing current. So, Karen did some quick exploration, and asked about a program neither of us had ever heard of called Flashpoint.
Sure, I said, it looked good. It was only for an hour, after all,  and then we were going to bed. Except we were on the edges of our seats for that hour. And the next hour. And the next.

And now, a few weeks later, I only have a few episodes left of the last season available for streaming, and I’ve lost way too much sleep to this show.

Why? Because, seriously, this is out of character for me.

It’s not just the realistic and excellently choreographed action sequences. There’s some deep character development going on here, as well. And, while I’ll be the first to point out that the screenwriters have been slacking on the dialogue quality in this most recent season, there’s explorations of things that we all consider, things with which we all struggle. In short, there’s a lot to be said about the human condition in this program.

I’ve written before about how police programs…realistic ones, at least…tend to present the nature of a hero in the most accessible way, the way in which we all desire to be the hero and the way in which we most realistically could reach this desire. These are the heroes that are not bound to the pages of fiction or graphic novels, but that run toward the real violence and danger that lurks near us to hold it at bay while the rest of us run away. As police programs go, SWAT teams are perhaps the most interesting choice for this type of exploration, because they are the heroes for the heroes, the best of the best who are called upon to handle the worst of the worst. When these teams arrive, the last resort has already been reached.

Flashpoint presents realistic heroes in this profession. They struggle with the ramifications of violent actions. They fight to push down their own instincts and desires to protect the lives that they are sworn to protect, and they don’t always win that fight. They are there, as the characters proclaim more than once, to “keep the peace,” but, moreover, to “respect, connect, protect.”

This isn’t a program where every episode ends with violent action (although there does seem to be more violent resolutions in the most recent season), but rather violent solutions occur only in a realistic number of situations. While a level of seemingly callous separation is seen in the characters (when one of the snipers has a clear shot at a suspect, the radio call is, “I have the solution”), this is balanced with the characters attempting to deal with the aftermath when they do take a life to protect someone innocent.

What’s most fascinating about this program, however, is played out in the premise. What makes the “Strategic Response Unit” upon which the show is based different from any other SWAT team is their training in psychology and negotiations. They don’t simply arrive and attempt to talk down a subject while waiting in the wings to respond with force. They dig into what’s happening in the individual’s life. The writers continuously do an excellent job of bringing out the perceived villain as an everyman character, someone who represents an extreme response to situations that would bring frustration or anger to any of us. At the end, the viewer finds themselves condemning the person’s response to the situation, but understanding how they feel.

This attempt to understand leads to not only many peaceful resolutions for the Strategic Response Unit, but discoveries of other victims that may not have otherwise been made (frequently, the perpetrator is a victim), as well as forcing them to make serious examinations of their own lives.

I think that Flashpoint exhibits yet another aspect of the nature of a hero, that of seeking to understand the villain. In short, empathy. Even those who perpetrate the most heinous of acts did not arrive at the point at which they were capable of those acts in a vacuum. We are who we are, and we do what we do, for a reason. The hero understands that there is a thin line separating them from the villain (think Batman and Catwoman), and that only the choice of how to handle a particular event marks which side of that line one is on. In short, the hero recognizes human fallibility, understands that we all make mistakes, and sees every person, both those that they protect and the villains that they fight, as worthy of mercy and redemption.

A Review of Shazam! The Conclusion

The New 52’s introduction to Shazam! concludes in Justice League #21 this month, and, unlike it’s previous installments which have ran as extra stories in the backs of Justice League issues, this takes the entire issue. This, after all, is Shazam’s “last stand,” or so the cover proclaims, and it’s only worthy of it taking the entire book.

I’ve been so impressed with where Johns and Frank have taken this character in the New 52, and I was excited to see an entire issue devoted to it this month. We begin where the previous chapter ended, with Black Adam holding Billy’s friends and adopted family, Mary and Freddy, on the edge of death if Billy does not capitulate and give over his magic to Adam. Billy must make a decision…and, I won’t spoil the story for you, but I will reveal to long-time comics readers that we see Mary Marvel in this issue.

What Johns has done with this story arc is to tie heroism to family, a good counterpoint to the image of the hero standing alone that often dominates super-hero mythology. Adam tells Billy that they are as connected as family because both have been bestowed with the magic lightning, yet Billy realizes the power in accepting the second chance offered to him by his new, adoptive family. When confronted with this act of grace, he chooses a potentially self-sacrificial path to defeat Adam in the end, realizing his true nature as a hero and overcoming his natural childhood fear.

The art in this issue is outstanding, especially in the way Frank has captured the character’s facial expressions: Billy’s childhood emotions dominating the face of a strong adult hero, Adam’s face twisted with centuries of anger, Mary’s face confused but determined. The action sequences are expertly drawn, and I’m particularly fond of a splash page in which Mary is duking it out with the demonic giant representing the Seven Deadly Sins and attacking the city. Just as striking is a beautifully drawn series of panels in which Shazam stands in the snow beneath a sign reading “No Child Should Be Alone at Xmas.” The character details, as well as the story, are illustrated with poetic, if crisp, clarity in this issue.

There were moments, though…albeit fewer of them on my second reading…that felt anticlimactic after such an excellent series. Perhaps the story was stretched to fit the full issue, I’m not certain, but there were moments…especially with the tiger (again, I’m trying to keep away from spoilers)…that felt contrived and almost as though they were filler to me. And, while I understand how Johns is tying his familial theme together, the ending fell a bit flat after such thorough character development previously.

Perhaps I’m reading this story arc slightly off its center. Perhaps it’s meant as a child’s story, a coming-of-age hero’s tale of a YA vane. If so, I’ll soften that final critique. Whichever way you want to read it, though, this issue is certainly worth picking up as the conclusion to a well-written story arc re-introducing a fascinating character for a wider audience. I’m very interested to see how Shazam (I’m still struggling with not calling him Captain Marvel, by the way) will fit into the larger universe of the New 52.

How to be a Hero?

School has finished, and the career change that was a part of my New Year’s resolutions is underway. I begin a brand new position this week, and, in the transition time between being a full-time student and re-joining the world of the 9-5, I was enjoying a long weekend.

Monday evening, some errands drew me to a local shopping mall. I’m no fan of malls, mind you, but certain things (such as needing to pick up something from the Apple Store) are enough to motivate me to go there. I had our daughter with me, but Karen was otherwise engaged, so I was trying to do what any reasonable parent would do when going solo with their child to the mall: get in, get what you need, and get out.

Let me set the scene a bit by saying that the early part of this week held an event that I was convinced I would never see in New England: warmth. That is, my definition of warmth, not the definition of those who break out summer clothes at 60 degrees here. I was finally able to comfortably wear shorts and a t-shirt for a couple of days (it went away by Tuesday, just for the record). While I was walking into the mall, I noticed a girl walking through the parking lot toward the same entrance. I say that I noticed her because she was attractive, and was dressed according to the weather. I noticed her in the way that any warm-blooded guy would notice an attractive girl, and I went on with life.

I suppose it was coincidence that resulted in her walking back out to her vehicle at the same time that I was making my escape from the mall. She was on the other side of the lane of traffic, but I noticed her again, mostly out of recognition that I had seen her previously this time. That’s when it happened.

I was going through the process of getting my daughter out of her stroller and into the car seat, which also involves moving the backpack-diaper-bag into the car, moving the stroller to the back of the car, collapsing said stroller (I use a big stroller, complete with coffee-cup-holders…no little equipment for me), loading it into the back of the car, closing everything up and then getting in myself. Yes, it’s a long process. There was a car that spotted me going through this process and, recognizing that I was about to leave, turned on its signal to claim my parking spot, valuable real estate in a packed lot. I didn’t realize until the attractive girl walked by this car on the opposite side that there were three guys in the car. They noticed the girl, as well, except they decided to let her…and the world…know about, in the form of “cat calls,” whistles, and comments that I couldn’t completely understand but that I’m sure were suggestive and demeaning. The girl kept her head up, ignored the jerks in the car, and kept walking to her own car. The look on her face, though, grabbed my attention. She was steady, but humiliated, and wanted to vanish right there. She made it to her car, and got in.

I wanted… I so wanted…to get involved in this. I wanted to tell the three of those men to quit embarrassing our gender and respect a lady. I wanted to ask them if that approach had ever seriously worked for them, and when they planned to finish elementary school. I wanted to stand up for that girl who was humiliated and hurt, because she needed someone in her corner. And, honestly, with three of them in the car and one of me, it likely wouldn’t have gone well, but she needed it and I felt that it was what a real man…as opposed to the three boys in the car…should have done. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not advocating that anyone should have escalated this to violence, but someone needed to tell them to grow up.

But, I had a 19-month-old child with me. That sort of rules out anything that could turn even remotely confrontational on someone else’s behalf.

What did I do? I used a passive-aggressive approach, slowly and methodically stretching out the process of returning my daughter and her gear to the car into a nearly five-minute-long process, until the    car with the immature trio moved on in frustration. The girl squealed her tires on her way out of the lot in her one sign of defiance to her insulters.

I wish that I could have done more. These are the moments in which every one of us have a chance to be a hero to someone around us, and I couldn’t find a way to act on it. What’s more, I want my daughter to see me stand up to this sort of thing, because she needs to know that a real man would never treat her that way, and that an honorable man stands against those sorts of actions. I just have no idea how to do that with her tiny little life in my care.

So, I want to hear from you. How should I have handled this situation? What could I have done differently that would have been the right thing for everyone involved? I want to hear your thoughts, because this is the stuff of a real world in need of heroes.

A Review of Shazam! Chapter Eleven

The word “family” can mean something a bit different to each of us depending on our childhoods. It’s always held a positive meaning for me, because I am blessed enough to have a strong and cohesive family unit, even larger now that Karen and I are married. That said, it still gets messy sometimes, because we’re all…remember this word…mortals. Still, family can be a great source of strength to conquer the obstacles, challenges, and even the evils that we face at moments in our lives.

Family has been a sort of through-line to DC Comics’ New 52 re-boot of Captain Marvel, now going under the name Shazam, which has been appearing as an additional story line in the back of Justice League. I’ve written before how DC is winning me over with their story, and how they’re capturing the struggle with the nature of a hero that any human would face, and certainly a child…a struggle that is perfectly portrayed in the character of Shazam.

Chapter eleven of the story (and I’m a bit late in reviewing this, as it’s almost two weeks old now), picks up with young Billy Batson running underground in his attempt to find the wizard, where he intends to plead for the removal of his powers. Billy is convinced that he is no hero and that his powers were granted to him by mistake, and is terrified of transforming himself back into Shazam, because then the evil Black Adam will turn his terror of the city above on his intended target…young Billy.

There is wonderful moment when some of his young brothers and sisters from his adopted family…friends who are standing by him even though he was quite mean to them initially…doubt Billy’s mental well being when he commands an abandoned subway to take them to the wizard. That is, all save one of the youngest members of the family, who believes in magic. Then, when Billy encounters the enchanted Francesca, the mystical face in the mirror, on an iPad screen, a voice that none of his young companions can hear, another member of the group insists that everyone believe that “Billy can see and hear things we don’t.”

“Magic things!” replies the youngest, and wonders aloud why they can’t see and hear these things, as well. Francesca asks Billy to communicate to his young sister that this is because she has not established a connection to magic, a cryptic statement at first. This, though becomes quite important…and emphasizes the theme of family…when Mary, the oldest sister, hears Francesca speak a single word: “Family.” Has a connection to magic through the bond of family began for Mary (long-time comic book readers know where this is going, I think)?

Francesca’s encouragement to Billy is inspiring, though it falls initially on ears finding it suspect. It is in overcoming the fears and challenges that we face, she insists, that we become “more than mortals.” There’s an odd bit of philosophical dualism injected into the story here, as Francesca explains to Billy that, his bond to the magic lightning that has made him Shazam being irreversible, he and Black Adam, the only other champion now bound with the lightning, are “forever connected.”  Writer Geoff Johns fleshes this out a bit later though, as Francesca begins to explain…

(Permit me to pause and give you fair warning that everything that follows will contain massive spoilers, in case you want to read this issue and haven’t already)

…Black Adam’s origin, one of tragic isolation and loss of childhood innocence paralleling, and indeed exceeding, Billy’s own. Artist Gary Frank does a masterful job of revealing Billy’s shock and horror at this connection, as he realizes how alike he and his evil rival terrorizing the streets above them are.

This realization changes Billy in a moment, as he embraces the fact that he suddenly views Black Adam as someone who can be saved, and himself as the person who can reason with Black Adam. In this pivotal moment for his character, Billy rushes out of the subway to confront Black Adam, not with the power of Shazam, but with the appeal of one orphan to another…the appeal for Black Adam to choose good as Billy has.

The ending…well, I won’t spoil everything here, but this issue is a great portrayal of the nature of a hero as Billy chooses to overcome his fear and place himself at risk in order to not even necessarily defeat, but to save his adversary. Billy chooses the ultimate good, the good that will make Shazam a centerpiece of the DC universe, and a good to which all of us reading can aspire. In Francesca’s words, this is the good that makes us “more than mortal.” Again, this is why superhero mythology carries such huge philosophical and theological …even spiritual…importance.

I can’t wait for next month’s issue…more to come!

The Nature of a Hero in the Eyes of a Child

I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical when DC Comics began releasing it’s New 52 version of Captain Marvel, and announced that he would be called Shazam from here forward. For those of you who don’t know, Captain Marvel, a powerful but lesser known hero in the DC Universe, is a boy named Billy Batson who was gifted with amazing powers by the wizard Shazam in order to do good and protect the weak. In order to summon his power and transform himself into Captain Marvel, Billy calls out, “Shazam!” DC reasoned, apparently, that the word that invoked his power was better known to their new target audience, and opted to re-name the hero.

They made what was likely a wise choice, given the doubtless hesitancy of many like myself, and began releasing the first story arc of Billy Batson as extra back-up stories in issues of the Justice League, one of their flagship and best-selling titles. That made it easy to read each issue, as it was packaged with a title that I was buying every month, anyway.

Initially, I feared that my skepticism was well-founded. I found Batson to be arrogant and childish in his newfound identity as (I’m trying to bring myself to say it…) Shazam, acting in the immature way that a child would when given amazing abilities. I wasn’t buying it, but I was reading it because I wasn’t buying it, or at least not explicitly. This origin story-arc follows Batson as a fifteen-year-old child, bounced into yet another foster home, through his meeting of the wizard and becoming (it’s not getting any easier to say…) Shazam. And, so the misadventures continued.

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised with the story as it progressed in the most recent issue of the Justice League. Black Adam is proving a more than formidable opponent for Shazam, and terrorizing both the city and the child within the hero. Billy’s friends from his foster home find him having changed back into his childhood self, and hiding in fear because he knows that Black Adam cannot find him as long as he is not in his identity as (oh, fine, I’m getting the hang of it…) Shazam.  The issue ends with Billy attempting to locate the wizard again, insisting that he was given his powers by mistake, and that they need to be taken back by the wizard and given to someone else.

Billy cannot recognize his own ability to be a hero, and cannot recognize the destiny that has been given him. He cannot see beyond his fear, and the reader cannot blame him, because he is, in his own words, “only a kid”, though suddenly entrusted with a man’s responsibility.

Even greater than this, a hero’s responsibility.

Writer Geoff Johns is painting an unexpected component of the nature of a hero, that of a hero who cannot at first find himself worthy, who is attempting to walk through the very human struggle of coming to terms with the tension between courage and terror. I’m fascinated to see how Johns develops (it still hurts…) Shazam, because he is realizing the potential of the character for portraying the process through which a hero overcomes their fear and stands tall to champion those who cannot defend themselves.

Photo Attribution: gualtiero under Creative Commons