November is upon us, and it seems like every year I see more and more people doing the 30 days of gratitude, which is awesome. I am in no way against the idea of more and more people being grateful for the blessings in their lives, but it got me thinking. How could I tie this idea into the blog? Then it hit me. I could take the month of November to list some characters in film, TV, comics, and books that I am grateful for. So, that’s what I’m doing. This isn’t a list of my 30 favorite characters or a count down, but just a list of 30 characters that mattered to me and a short reason why.
Each post is not going to be very long because I don’t want them to be too time consuming since I am also trying to do NaNoWriMo this month, and most of my writing will need to be focused on that. It will simply be a picture of the character and a short explanation of why they mattered to me. Short. Like under 500 words, so you, dear reader, will also not need to consume too much of your time reading the posts each day. I will be tweeting and instagramming and facebooking the character each day, so be sure to follow me on those social medias and to follow the hashtag #30Days30Characters. Got it? Ok, then let’s start with day number one.
Superman
It is hard for me to really say how much Superman means to me. I know it probably sounds silly to some people, but it’s true. Probably more than any other character, Superman has had an impact on my life. He’s the first character I remember connecting with, and it was at a pretty young age. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Superman when I grew up. And not just for the flying and super strength, although there were plenty of years through middle school and high school where I wished I had those powers.
Why Superman?
Superman has always been more to me than just the powers. A lot of people have a hard time looking past those and seeing the character underneath. I hear all too often that it’s easy to be a superhero and to be Superman when you have all those powers and your basically invincible. There are few arguments that I disagree with more than this one. Look around in the world today. People with power, lots of power, are very rarely not corrupt. Most use that power for their own gain, to exercise dominion over others. What makes Superman truly super is that he has all those powers and chooses to use them for good. He chooses to be good. It’s not easy. It’s hard. Really hard.
What makes Superman so great is that he is really an average guy underneath all those powers. He’s a farm boy from Kansas. His parents taught him right and wrong, and gave him his moral compass. He uses his powers to fight for that cause, to protect people who can’t protect themselves, and he’d do it with or without powers (in the comics, he has). He’d lay down his life to save the people he loves, or a perfect stranger (again, in the comics he has). He just tries to do the right thing whenever he can. He’s not perfect. He makes mistakes, but he does what he can.
Some might say he is outdated, but I feel he is more relevant and more needed today than at any other time in his existence. He is my favorite. Unashamedly, unequivocally, my absolute favorite.
