Wow—I so need to catch up on posts. I’ve been on jury duty this week and have been teabagging Ann Coulter during my off hours. I picked up the new issue of Radar today so I’d have something to flip through while ignoring the proceedings from the jury box, and found this interesting piece on the phenom of real-life capes. Some are joking. Some aren’t. Read on to see which camp Squeegeeman belongs to. The article wasn’t posted online, so I’ve typed it for you below. Enjoy!
Men in tights
A new breed of self-styled superheroes is out to save the world. (But first they have to check with their mothers.)
BY HOWARD HALLE, Radar, March/April 2007, http://radaronline.com/
Is it a bird? A plane? Well, no, actually. It’s a schmo with a cape and a complex.
Blame it on the hit NBC show Heroes, or the never-ending ink-to-screen comic book revival. But suddenly dozens of real-life caped crusaders are popping up all over the country, determined to save mankind.
Geared-out in ill-fitting leotards and homemade masks, these would-be crime-fighters don’t exactly inspire confidence (neither did Peter Parker, but at least Spider-Man could pull off a pair of tights). Still, in an increasingly chaotic world, we’ll take whatever help we can get.
Having found one another via MySpace, they have created a sort of Justice League of their own. Dark Guardian sees himself as an amped-up version of a guardian angel, “trying to effect social change and giving kids better role models than rappers.” Squeegeeman “fights grime and crime” on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, often accompanied by his pal Captain Obvious. Though he peppers his speech with phrases like “Squeegee-rific!” he stubbornly sticks to his talking points. “I’m not a character, I’m Squeegeeman!” he proclaims, his dignified tone somewhat undercut by his windshield-cleaning “weapon.”
Still, he can be plenty intimidating when he needs to be.
“There was this group of thugs beating up a homeless guy once, and for a second I thought, What if they have a knife? But then I just said, ‘Stop, evildoers, I’m Squeegeeman!’ They ran away.”
Like their comic book counterparts, real-life superheroes often struggle with psychological issues. Cloud Starchaser’s Blog of Truth chronicles bouts with psychosis that have complicated his purported goal: “Altering the f***ng landscape of the entire world culture and permanently changing human history for all time.”
And then there’s his mom, who has been less than fully supportive.
“She’s not down with the seriousness of it,” says Starchaser in a somber tone. “Like, when I tell her I’d like to go to Darfur or something, she really worries.”
