• Free write on 'Roids

    Super heroes; we love them, we watch them, we idolize them. You ask a child who they want to be when they grow up and are answered with a volley of “spiderman”, “superman!” “Batman!” and “the Hulk!”

    This is strange when looked at closely; the idolization of those faster, stronger, smarted. This hero worship has been with us since the dawn of time, at the start of oral tales: Hercules, a man stronger then any other doing impossible feats; Atlas, who held the whole world on his shoulders.

    but why? Why the fascination with being more then a man? The Cult of super heroes consists of males as devote as any priest, and rarely females. Just as you always hear of Steroid scandals being made up of predominantly male abusers. Why?

    And why the Scandal, is it because we long to hear of people who do super human things, like have a 703 home run record, be a natural occurrence? Or maybe we want o think of them as Batman; people who just worked really really hard. As if we expect these ridiculous feats of strength and speed to be just innate in people.

    If you think about it, Spiderman was just nerdy Peter Parker till he was bitten. Should he be taken in front of a jury of his peers and tried for abuse of radioactive genetically modifying spiders? Same for the Hulk, with his shocking mood swinging gamma induced rages hat allow him to throw tanks at Helicopters.

    Superman, the only hero that was born the way he was, short of most of the Xmen, is that who we expect our Athletes to be?

    Well... our Ice skaters do wear the tights for it.