Get in on the John

Okay, so they've been advertising the show for ages now on what seemed like every channel on television, and although it looked really, really terrible, I thought I would pop over to the SciFi channel and check out the premier of the reality show Who Wants to be a Super Hero?.

Big mistake.

It turns out that my superhuman tolerance of stupidity in the name of humor has a limit, and this show found that limit, death-punched it, and ruthlessly pushed past it until I was clutching my head and screaming for mercy. This is my kryptonite.

Granted, I laughed until tears came out of my eyes during the first ten minutes of the show. I mean, the guy in red spandex soberly telling us that as a busy exotic dancer he regretted missing out on his daughter's life, and he hoped that appearing on this show would make tight spandex clad Dad her hero; this also after presenting himself with cheesy one-liners and wince-inducing super hero poses. Comedy gold. It was funny how these grown men and women really, seriously, believed that they were comicbook-style super heroes.

But you know how when you were a kid you would play make-believe, and it would start out as fun and games, but gradually you got more and more serious about it until someone got really pissed because you can't actually have a force field, that's stupid, you're a cowboy, I'm an Indian, and my arrow hit you in the heart you jerk, and suddenly the game isn't so much fun anymore?


The first time Stan Lee, legendary (and apparently senile) comic book creator, developer, and/or writer of Spider-man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Daredevil, the X-Men, and others appeared on screen, his first words were to gruffly berate the show's contestants for having an impromptu party, telling them that "Superheroes don't act like that. You've got to take this seriously!".

And Stan Lee certainly does, and they do, and it is really, really too serious. Come on. The first guy Mr. Lee ousted was because of a remark the contestant made in passing when a double agent/mole asked him if, as an action figure maker, he would make an action figure of himself if he won. The contestant said something along the lines of: "Yeah, I guess.", and Stan Lee told him he was a greedy jerk and told him to put his costume in the trash can. The guy who was evicted was also the only gay superhero of the bunch, and as such, Stan Lee can't help but look a little bigoted. I'm just saying.

And then the contests were a joke, loosely organized, with everyone wandering around waiting to get a call from S.L. telling them to find a secluded place to change into their costumes, and then race to a random archway in the park, no markers or rules or anything, the key to the challenge was that unbeknownst to the contestants, on the way to the archway there was a little actor girl making terrible fake sobs and crying for help, and if the superhero didn't help the little girl, they failed the challenge.

This is a stupid test of people's inner "hero", as Stan Lee liked to think of it. First of all, it relies not on the contestant's moral integrity, but on their attention to detail. People get focused in a race, and don't notice things. Stupid.

And then in the elimination ceremony on the top of a roof, Stan Lee was still gruff and angry seeming, and even the Vin Diesel lookalike bouncer was shaking and near to tears when he came close to being eliminated. That was kinda funny.

And for all these eliminations Stan Lee is the sole judge and executor, something which lends a sort of unfairness to the whole thing. The old boy doesn't like your face? (Vin Diesel lookalike, you're toast.) Too bad for you, you are outta here. Stan Lee should just get it over with and announce the winner, seeing as how he seemingly has his mind made up already.

It would spare everyone involved a lot of pain.