When Do Superheroes Do Their Laundry?

Being a superhero isn't as glamourous as it sounds. There are too many people who need to be saved and never enough time to do it. First, a dam is about to burst in the foothills, then a train is about to run off the tracks fifty miles away. Meanwhile, little Johnny is going to be run over by a truck if you aren't there to divert it. Heaven forbid you should fail to rescue Johnny, because then you'll have everyone wailing, "Where was Superman?" No matter how many times you save the day, people only remember the times when you didn't.

There's never any rest for a superhero. Even closing your eyes at night is a guilt trip. As you sleep, the world goes unguarded while tragedies haunt your dreams.

"What sort of monster are you that you could let my child die?"

A super power may sound alluring at first, but once you have it, it can be a curse. The expectations are huge, and even with your special capabilities, there's always a limit to what you can do. You can see now why so many superheroes prefer to go incognito, masquerading as mild mannered reporters or playboy industrialists while saving the world as quietly as possible.

Some of them, in fact, don't even wear a mask or costume. They pretend to be caseworkers, foster parents and mild-mannered attorneys. When they save somebody, they don't necessarily want the world to know about it, because once word of their generosity gets out, then everyone is going to want a piece of it.

Support services for superheroes are woefully lacking. All of them could probably use some counseling, someone to talk to once in a while. Saving the world can be traumatic and lonely. There are many times when you swoop down with good intentions and end up just making matters worse. It turns out that some people in distress don't really want to be saved, and if you try, you risk being sucked into their whole dysfunctional system.

Your super powers, no matter how great, never seem to be a match for all the evil of the world. Others may think you are powerful because you can bend steel in your bare hands, but only you know how little can really be accomplished by this. Bending steel isn't a panacea for anything; it's just another tool that presents another set of dilemmas.

Every intervention has hidden costs. If you save one kid from a runaway truck, then soon every parent expects their child to be saved, and people may stop teaching their children about prudent traffic safety. Sometimes, for the good of everybody, you just got to step back and let it happen. It's a terrible tragedy, but you're not God. You can't protect everybody from everything.

It takes a while to figure all this out. It's not like you get your super powers one day and know how to use them the next. It can take years to grasp the subtleties of your craft. How to use the powers themselves is not really the issue. The main question is when you should use them and when you should not.

Your intervention should be a last resort, and you want to avoid letting people become dependent on you. Ideally, you want people to save themselves. You may not like the way that people regulate their lives—with their crazy beliefs and their wasteful human sacrifices—but you have to turn a blind eye to most of it, because you can't afford to be saving everybody.

You have your own self-regulation to worry about. You have to do your laundry and take a shower from time to time, because no one wants to be saved by a stinky superhero. You have to take time to clip your fingernails, meditate and clean up that pigsty of a cave you live in. If people have to die while you perform these mundane maintenance tasks, so be it.

If you have a gift, then you need to protect it. No one is going to benefit from your super powers if you are burned out. You need to find some "me" time, not necessarily to do something frivolous, but just to oil the machine. Only by keeping the machine in good working order are you capable of saving anyone at all.

—G.C.

10/11/07: Also see my book-in-progress: The Superhero Handbook.

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