I was a huge proponent of the anti-hero when I was approaching puberty, and I largely suspect that had a lot to do with my raging hormones and the torment that came with being the tallest kid in the entire school and my inner desire to seek revenge on my nemesis, Tommy Jacobs, for ruthlessly teasing me from first grade all the way until fifth grade when I finally realized I could use my then immense stature to physically pummel the living sh_t out of him whenever I felt it would be necessary; not that I did, of course, I was too shy and too scared of the repercussions to ever start a fight with him, but I did get my "mean stare" and "imposing stance" down so well that I never got bothered again. It was one of those rare childhood moments when, through the fog of youth, you're able to say with some certainty that you've figured something out, and I had finally come to grips with my freakishly large size that had plagued me, literally, since kindergarten. All because of my obsession with comic books, and my love for characters like Wolverine, Batman, The Punisher and, oddly, Spider-Man.
In my mind I could take over the identity of my favorite heroes to serve whatever purpose needed serving at the time. If I was in a tense situation that needed a joke to break the atmosphere a little, I would immediately pull out one of Spider-Man's patented zingers. If I needed to look brooding and intimidating to fend off a coming round of insults from the omnipresent bullies of the schoolyard I would, naturally, take on the contemplative craziness of Batman and give them "the look" as a way of saying (without fighting) "back off, not today, gentleman, Jimbolaya's got other things on his mind." For the rare occasion when physicality was unavoidable, I would, without fail go into full on Wolverine berserker mode so convincingly that nary a punch would be thrown before my rivals would run away awash in uncontrollable terror. It was the best of times and it was, as the saying goes, the worst of times, because I was completely unaware of reality as you know it. I was so wrapped up in my own fantasy realm that for almost an entire school year I forgot who I was 90% of the time and acted, as best as I could, like one hero or another without ever acting heroically.
It wouldn't be until the summer between fifth and sixth grade that I realized for all my mimicry and all my posturing I was, in fact, not a hero at all because I failed to protect one single innocent person from coming into harm's way, so I made it that summer's mission to be "the good guy" to my rural neighborhoods stable of "jerks" and "bullies" and "guys I just didn't like because they had Super Nintendo and I really wanted it at the time." Still, because I was so caught up in the world of anti-heroes that traipsed the line of good and bad to serve their own means, I had no clue how a true hero would act. [Note: Spider-Man is, in fact, a real hero, but to me he represented the space between "just having fun with it" and "taking it too seriously" that I needed in order to see the whole brevity angle of heroing.] So, in order to realize my true potential I went back to my local comic book dispensary and hunted down the not so well concealed morality tales of past issues of Superman and Captain America. It was there, cleverly concealed in the back issue rack of the store I lived in for weekends at a time, that I came to understand the true nature of heroism as told by the golden era comic book craftsmen.
In those old pages I learned there was, at one point in time, a very definitive standard of "right" and "wrong" which I hadn't been able to come to grips with leafing through the pages of the modern era heroes who "lived by their own set of rules" in order to save people from themselves. I was both thrilled and dismayed by the DC Comics, "golden age" Superman and his Marvel Universe counterpart Captain America, because I saw in them the archetypal protectors of goodness, justice and (good grief) the "American way" that was largely absent from the books of the heroes I followed so closely at the time. It was a hard type of lesson, one that I wasn't eager to accept, and one that would ultimately lead me down a much more confusing path of enlightenment than I had hoped for.
Captain America was created during the height of World War II as a way to rally the common man against the Nazi hordes that were trying to take over the world, and Superman was brought about in a much similar way; except good ol' Supes was (originally) created to fight crime on a much less global scale (fun fact: Superman couldn't fly in his earliest form, he could jump about a quarter of a mile, though; which is still pretty awesome) and would go after corrupt political bosses, the mafia or small time, recurring crooks that were plaguing the American psyche of the day. This speaks more to the mindset of the masses that needed a fictional hero to remind them of the work that needs to be done to stop evil in it's tracks; which is why the original incarnation of Superman was far less powerful than his present self, and Captain America was a soldier who was seen as unfit for military service, but then allowed to participate in the "super soldier" program that granted him his "powers," so to speak. They were the embodiments of ordinary people doing things far beyond their own capabilities. Still, to my mind at the time, they were painfully boring examples of a bygone era that didn't suit the current atmosphere and needed to be ramped up in order to be affective. Hence in the 80's both characters saw themselves becoming darker, more ruthless versions of their past selves while still retaining their impossible to live up to code of morality that had governed over their heroism for decades. Once I made my way into the then modern era of Superman and Captain America (pushing past the overly comedic undertones of the late 60's and 70's, because that sh_t was just terrible) I started to gain a modicum of respect for the two heroes I'd made a concerted effort to blatantly ignore. I felt a rewarding sense of self empowerment as I detailed my own moral code that would help guide me during my summer of heroism. I remember it extremely well, it went like this:
1- I will, under no circumstance, willfully harm someone if it can be helped.
2- Using weapons is a cheat, and has to be avoided.
3- Stop what you can, and know when to call for help.
4- You can't be everywhere at once, so pick your battles.
5- Hide your identity as much as you can. Work under the cover of night.
It was a simple, five-point bullet list of my meager understanding of what it takes to really be a hero. So, with only a few weeks ahead of me before my annual trek to sleep over summer camp, I decided I would spend every waking moment getting in shape, creating an origin story and figuring out what to call myself. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that as always summer camp would be riddled with bullies without parental supervision and that the camp counselors were powerless to stop them because they were too busy counseling campers about how to make the best boondoggle bracelet possible and not teaching them right from wrong; which I understood to be my duty at the time. I bought several books about Karate that I would read through and practice daily. I did push-ups and sit-ups and played basketball with the big kids to toughen me up. I would ask my next door neighbor and best friend at the time, John, to act like one super villain or another and hide out in the woods behind our homes so I could hunt him down and dispense justice as I saw fit. Unfortunately, this usually involved his younger brother Robbie in some terrible way that until this very moment I haven't felt bad about. (Robbie, if you're out there, sorry about that time John-Boy hid you in the bales of hay in your barn for an afternoon when you were a little boy, that was my idea, and that one time he tied you up in our "fort" when it was raining, that was my idea too.) I felt, on the night before my trip to sleep-away camp, that I was more than ready to take on all comers that fought for the forces of evil, and that there was no way I wouldn't be as successful, if not more successful than all my favorite heroes had ever been.
As for my origin story, I decided to call myself "The Hyena" ( I didn't know it was the name of a villain in the DC Universe at the time) after John told me my laugh was "loud and crazy like a Hyena's," and so it went from there. My back-story went like this: my biological mother died during childbirth leaving me in the care of my eccentric South African father who, when I was 3-months old, could no longer handle the emotional pain of my existence, and decided taking care of me reminded him too much of his lost love and left me for dead in the African wilderness at which point I was taken in by a pack of wild Hyenas. After a time I was imbued with the spirit of the Hyena Demon that roamed the plains nightly, feeding on the evil of the land and was granted special powers that gave me a heightened sense of smell, hearing, stronger bones, muscles and eyesight. Later, I had a vision that told me of my true nature to be the ultimate protector of those that need my protecting, the innocents of the world, and so the legend of "The Hyena" was born. Yes, that's terrible, but for a 12 year old boy it's pretty good, right?
The night before my trip to sleep-away camp I slipped my costume into my duffel bag while my mother wasn't looking. It consisted of black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt with no mask, because after all my tinkering I decided that, since I would be working at night, a mask would only limit my ability to see what was going on, and since I was a good guy, hiding my face seemed foolish. I spent the entire hour and a half long car ride to camp thinking of all the crime I would stop and all the wonderful adventures I'd find myself taking part in and how, by the time the two weeks were over, the campers and counselors would be pleading with me to stay and help them. I thought of catchphrases I could shout out at opportune times like "The Hyena Laughs Last" and "You've been spotted, by the Hyena!" I wondered how Spider-Man had the wherewithal to inject his zingers in the middle of a brawl, but thought it would be better not to plan that out ahead of time, since you never knew what you'd be up against.
And then we got to camp. I was signed in and given my cabin assignment with the usual rush and fake enthusiasm I was used to and, while the other campers were getting to know each other and finding their bunks, I was silently stalking the grounds looking for "the bad apples" that would "ruin the bunch." I was obsessed with making my presence know as soon as possible, but, as is the case with the heroes I idolized, I thought it best to wait until after dark to introduce my new self to the world at large. Unfortunately, I wasn't given that much time to settle in before the first fight broke out in my cabin, and true to form, "The Hyena" made his first, unmasked, uncostumed appearance.
I vividly remember the fight being between a lanky black child named Arthur and a small-ish, toe headed moppet named Brian who had the hottest temper I'd ever seen at the time. It all started after the parents left and the counselors were leaving us to get to know each other. Arthur, it turned out, didn't sleep so well in bunk beds as he had a fear of the top bunk falling on him, so there was one non-bunk bed in the cabin that Brian had already called for his own and Arthur was trying his best to settle the situation diplomatically, but unfortunately for him Brian was not the diplomatic sort and without much warning at all, threw a punch that landed square on Arthur's chin. Before I could let out a catchphrase they were on the ground flailing at each other. Like a pack of wolves the entirety of my bunkmates encircled the grappling duo with enthusiastic glee, egging them to keep up the fight and start really giving it to each other. I realized that I was far and away the largest boy in the cabin and that all my training would make this the easiest thing in the world for "The Hyena" to stop, so I trudged over with grim determination to settle the dispute by merely pulling the boys apart and holding them away from each other until they cooled down.
As I reached into the pile of arms, legs and hair with the intention of easily pulling both boys out one by one, the skirmish shifted violently into my own legs which sent me to the floor and, ultimately, made me an unwitting participant in the scrum itself. I was mortified as I took cover and tried desperately to avoid taking a punch to the face or stomach; which was all for naught as I, the supposed hero, took more punches to the face and stomach than I would have if I started the fight myself, all because I decided to get in the way of a brawl that wasn't mine to begin with. As I lay there in the fetal position, choking back tears I thought "this is not what 'The Hyena' would do," and so I started laughing hysterically and loudly amid the chaos of stray kicks and punches that were being thrown with reckless abandon. The pitch of my laughter reached manic heights and with all my strength I rose up from the bottom of the pile, still laughing crazily, and shrugged off the boys easily.
Laughing and reeling from the myriad fists and feet that had found their way to various points on my body I tried in vane to use my size to separate Arthur and Brian from each other, but with all the midget fury his body could muster Brian came at me as hard as he could and kicked me right smack dab in the nuts. I keeled over instantly, the laughing stopped, and I vomited profusely all over the floor of the cabin. To my chagrin, Arthur, the boy I was protecting, kicked me while I was down... twice, before my cabin's designated counselor came into the loony bin and, with nary more than a glance, managed to calm the room down and stop the fight. I was ushered off to the infirmary where I was given several ice packs and a cup of juice for my trouble. My parent's were called and told of what happened to which my mother, in all her wisdom, said simply of the news her son had it handed to him while trying to break up a fight, "good, that should teach him," and it did.
"The Hyena" died that day along with a lot of my pride and the new found sense of security I had cultivated over the past year or so while coming to grips with my overwhelming size (at the time). After that, I decided it would be best to leave the heroism to the comic books and never again interfere where I didn't belong. I got into a few more fights growing up that were largely unavoidable. I won some and I lost some, but never under the moniker of "The Hyena" ever again. Real heroes (like soldiers, policemen, etc.) it turns out, are incredibly hard to come by.
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