Reel Life Superheroism

Even when we were much younger, we used to make fun of comicbook heroes. After all, to a large extent, the world before 1990 (or at least, before 1986-7's Watchmen) was full of colourful jokers who had largely optimistic worldviews. Even the death of Jean Grey changed little in terms of perky colours. That's not to say that pre-Watchmen superheroism was all goodness and light; there has always been some darkness in the derring-do, even the deepest derring-do contained some... do.

But the irritating thing about the last few days of my personal space-time continuum is that I can't get a few things out of my head with respect (or regard) to superheroes and the media. For one thing, I keep dreaming of a really bleak superhero movie called...

Fantastic Fear: The Rise of the Civil Service, in which four rather ordinary humans have been irradiated by some sort of cosmic radiation and are now fearsomely powerful and out-of-control administrative officers. They have to deal with a faceless entity who keeps reflecting every form of question, interrogation, probe or investigation back at the originators. This entity might destroy their world – which might not be such a bad thing.

Urgh. And that's not all...

The Leak of Extraordinary Scholars, Officers and Gentlemen, in which a shadowy figure recruits a dark cabal of unusual and semi-fictional characters to examine the strange disappearance of local talent in recent years from an institution of the utmost quality and prestige. Plenty of back-stabbing and betrayal from invisible sources, a few explosions, and tantalising sequelae involving monstrous abominations and gold medals (or is that Tiger Beer advertising?)

Help. My dream-life is being invaded by unhealthy cynicism. Not good.

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Note: No confusion should arise from cross-dimensional leakage between this post and movie exhibits A and B, which you may examine at your leisure.