William the super hero

I didn't get to see much of William this week. I had school and he went to his biological father's over the weekend. It was great having time alone with my girlfriend, and a much needed break, but it sadly means that any antics he may have gotten in are lost to me. Do not be discouraged though, for the blog will go on! I will use this as an excuse to draw William as comic book characters, and as such the blog post will be rather short, but with plenty of pictures.

Being a parent is much harder than I thought. Discipline, rewards, morals, ethics, intelligence, thirst for knowledge, etc, each of these are things I have to do, or wish to pass on, to William. The trouble is I've seen what our modern world is. I've seen the alabaster hero turned into many shades of gray. This has amazingly close ties with modern thinking as well as where America is in it's consciousness. When you research the changes in popular culture, as far as heroes go, you will find a trend of making pure heroes tainted, villains who are actually heroes, and anti heroes who steal the stage. I do not complain about this. I love the shades of gray. Hellboy is my favorite "superhero" because he lives his life in gray, his destiny is black, but in the end I love him because his heart is white. I use these terms as descriptives, much like light and dark side, it is the easiest way of discussing complex moral sides briefly.

So what is my problem? I do not think myself a hypocrite for liking the very thing I said I had trouble with, and that is because of my upbringing and my age. I grew up with the purists, when spiderman would never make a deal with the devil, when superman would never kill, when Dead Pool was a bad guy, when super heroes were paragons, symbols of humanities greatest strengths and of the American way. I will raise William with the purists. The paragons. The heroes. When he reaches a certain age where his critical thinking is high enough to understand moral dilemmas I will push him towards Hellboy and Wolverine, but until he reaches the stage where he can read between the lines I want him to learn about the light side. I want each superhero to teach him the lessons they taught me, so that one day he can learn to be a superhero in how he acts, how he talks, and how he lives.

I want him to read Spiderman so he can learn that with great power comes great responsibility.

I want him to read Batman so he can learn that you don't need superpowers to be a hero.

I want him to read Green Lantern to learn that imagination can take you anywhere.

I want him to read Superman to learn that you should always stand by your morals.

I want him to read Captain America so he can learn that freedom and justice are important.

I want him to read X-Men to learn that being different doesn't mean you can't help people.

I want him to read about these so that he can learn that you don't need to kill to win. I want him to read these so he can learn what a good guy is. What the light side is, so he can find it in everything he does.

When he is older I will introduce him to my other favorites, my new heroes, who make me think, who make me question what the light side is, and that sometimes the hardest choice is the right one, and that making that choice still makes these anti heroes good guys.

I want him to read Hellboy to learn that what other people tell you who you are is not important, and what is important is how you define yourself. I want him to learn that fate cannot hold the strong willed.

I want him to read Wolverine to learn that no matter what we do in the past, we can still be redeemed as a hero. (Yes I know Wolverine is an x-man, but the wolverine comics are quite different than the x-men comics.)

I want him to read Dead Pool to learn that humor is in all things, and that sometimes we need a little push to be a hero.

I want him to read comics because they are the human condition. They are who we should strive to emulate when times get tough. They are our morals and trials played out in epic scale.