Retro Heroes
by Tyler Woods on Oct. 14, 2009, under Life
I have a bird that loves to watch TV. In her room sits an old TV that she finds quite entertaining. She will let you know, in no uncertain terms, when there is something on she does not like. The other day I was feeding her some crackers (she loves goldfish crackers), and I looked at what was catching her eye on the TV. It was The Power Rangers. I caught myself mildly entertained by the cheesy filming and “plot” line. Millions of little kids love these guys, and I felt sorry for them because these Power Rangers were not at all like the real TV heroes we grew up with. Well as you know, this got me thinking….
As a child, I was raised on television. (Perhaps that is why I do not watch much of it as an adult.) I would sit in the front room of our ranch house listening to the words, “There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here.” Yes, back in my day we had animals and rodents for our superheroes. We had Super Chicken, Mighty Mouse, Thundercats, Rocky the Squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose, Adam Ant, The Bionic Bunny, even Howard the Duck. Though all animated, these heroes came to life, and they did more than kick butt, they entertained. These days we do not have same kind of superheroes that I grew up with. There is no Mighty Mouse to save the day or Super Chicken to battle crime with his assistant Fred the lion.
Growing up I watched the superheroes or read the comic books
. These manly superheroes were the manliest of all men. I knew the world would be safe with these great superheroes. They, unlike the Power Rangers, kicked villains butts without all the acrobatics. Don’t be fooled either. Just because they wore spandex tights and were light on their feet did not mean they were frilly heroes. Heavens no. They were filled with so much manly testosterone that their oozing muscles took perfect form in their spandex suits almost spilling out. There was Batman, not to be confused with Birdman, Superman, Aquaman, Ironman, Hawkman, Action Man, Radioactive Man, and Plasticman.
Of course these super testosterone male heroes did not always need to have the word man attached to their name. Some of the heroes had a little more creativity and used names like The Thing, Captain Action, Thundar, The Hulk, Flash Gordon, Captain America, you get the gist.
Not to leave the ladies out, us women had super heroes too. In fact, we had super-dooper heroes because we had both girl and woman heroes like Batwoman as well as Batgirl, Cat Woman and Cat Girl, Wonder Woman as well as, you guessed it, Wonder Girl and to top it off we had Super Woman and Super Girl.
We do not have any superheroes of the past any longer. Oh sure, TV Land and old comic books but the truth is, we just don’t create these superheroes anymore, and if you ask me, we live in a world where these old retro-heroes could stand and make a return anytime!
