Heroes

Have you ever been to a place and think to yourself, “I must be crazy, but if by chance I am not, then everyone else most certainly is”? Comic-con would certainly put you in that mindset.

To explain a bit of our sub-culture that you may not have experience with, Comic-con is short for comic convention. San Diego would be the Mecca of the conventions, where many Hollywood stars attend to promote sci-fi, fantasy, and comic based movies and television shows.

I attended my first Comic-con recently, although it was one of the ‘satellite’ conventions with a little less fan-fare and support from the big companies. I began to appreciate comics and superheroes at a young age just like many people do. My Saturday mornings consisted of Superfriends, Scooby Doo, and even Hong Kong Phooey. It is what kids did on Saturdays.

With the release of the Marvel movies, my kids have become fans as well. One of the few television shows I watch is based on one of my favorite superheroes, the Flash. My youngest, Cooper, will climb into my recliner with me and watch and talk during the hour it is showcased on the flat screen.

While watching all the people at the Comic-con, many cosplaying, in other words dressing up as their favorite characters, I felt like I was at a Halloween party in mid-November.

But, I realized it may not have been all that weird, especially for the younger once attending. While I occasionally donned a bath towel flapping off my back being held by a safety pin around my neck when I was little, I also dressed and played as other heroes.

For instance I had a brown coat with tassels hanging from the pockets, a coon skin hat, and a lever action bb gun. While this image may not strike a bit of resemblance with kids of today, most of you in your late 30’s and older will easily picture Davy Crockett.

The King of the Wild Frontier had the image and lore to inspire motion pictures and television shows to carry on his legacy for many generations. While being a state leader and politician as well as a hero who died fighting at the Alamo, he was a frontiersman, hunter, and trapper that knew the ways of the outdoors. While today’s movies try to develop our comic hero’s characters and traits, Crockett has a real backstory.

Daniel Boone was yet another hero immortalized from legend thanks to Disney expanding on his life and times. While the legend of Boone even spread to Europe during the 1800’s, our knowledge of both true and embellished events in his life are known mainly by the tales our generations have been able to see.

Another outdoorsman who played a huge part in expanding the frontier of a young United States, Boone readily acknowledged much of the lore was simply to make him bigger than what he was. He was humble, a man of few words, and claimed to be a simple man. That is saying a lot about someone who was said to have ‘grinned a bear to death’ while in the Appalachians. Let’s see Superman do that.

I’ve often wished a major movie studio would once again take on sharing stories of people like these so our kids, and their kids, could learn and admire them.

Of course, I always wished for a Lone Ranger movie to hit the silver screen for the same reasons, and yet we got Johnny Depp in a crow hat instead.