Underwear Heroes: What's the Appeal?

I have a love/hate (but mostly hate) relationship with Underwear Heroes in general. The majority of comic books produced in the world and in the America are stories featuring superhumans running around with their underwear outside of their pants ... HELLO HUMANS THAT IS NOT NORMAL! It is creepy for the most part, like watching a Shakespearian play where all the women parts are played by men with men parts, and realizing the men playing the women parts are more attractive than your wife. Not my wife, though, I like Ilsa's little moustache!

The important question on this here, though, is what the heck is the big deal about these underwear heroes in the first place at all? There are some comics that treat haivng supernatural extreme powers in a realistic, adult manner and, though I find it shocking, they end up making perfect sense. Like Identity Crisis manages to take the ludicrously inane concept of underwear hero drama and turn it into an engaging, perfect mystery with a conclusion that rivets and rocked a group of heroes and forced them to question their very morals! It felt like what I have to do, day after day, in my own life of dramatic choices. Except the clothes were different. So, why does Identity Crisis make for a perfect Underwear Hero book where all others fail?

The answer is, of course, relatability to other humans. Science fiction concepts make sense to people because they are based on the realness of science, coupled with the emotions that we all understand.

Some underwear comics capture this and some characters personify it in their character pepole. There are many of the comics that I've waxed and waned with that some, yes, have appeal. I understand Cyclops as a character, very well, having warn glasses all my life. There are times where I've been so 'angry' that I felt like if I took my glassess off that I would blast someone in the face with optic rays. Once that actually happened to me. I got so angry that I took off my glasses and hit someone in the face with an optic blast. Except it wasn't red laser beams, it was spit. And the spit came out of my mouth, not my eyes. Otherwise it was exactly the same as shooting someone with laser eyes. Then I got punched in the ear.

But it all made sense with the ruby laser beams because I could relate to it! This is where most underwear hero books come out stupid. Superman is the worst idea ever for a character because he is fake science-fiction. For one, his personality makes no sense. For another, his powers come with barely any restraints. He is never in any danger, and the one thing that does seem dangerous to him is a glowing green rock. THAT IS STUPID AND UNRELATABLE! Also, there are no adult life lessons to learn in stories about a guy in his long-johns flying around who's afraid of glowing green rocks, except for, hey, if you meet a guy in blue underwear who says, "Get that rock away from me!" it's a good time to find that guy a home. So, that's Superman, a guy who should be in a home for the mentally crippled.

Identity Crisis, however, offers something relatable. Now, unless you have had your head stuck up your own butt for the last few years, you've probably seen or read about this comic. Let me sum it up. Some stupid guy who's like Plastics Guy (who's name is Elonging Man) has a wife who ends up burned up in a mystery. The mystery is so complicated and has so many twists and turns that Batman (who is supposedly a great world detective) can't figure it out what happened and how Elonging Man's wife died. There are funerals, then it gets into real world territory. It turns out Elonging Man's wife had been raped by a criminal. As a husband, I know that knowing something like that would devastate me. It was good to see a story that dealt with how a man would have to deal with a his woman's rape. We've seen the stories about how women deal with it, blah blah blah, but what about the man's feelings in this kind of situation?

Then it turns out that Atom Man (a guy who shrinks) has a crazy wife, and his crazy wife is the one who killed the other one. The crazy Atom Man's wife shrank, jumped into the Elonging Man's wife's brain, then killed her on accident, then burned her up with a flamethrower that she brought with her. The reason why none of the men could figure it out? Simple--none of it makes any sense! The reason none of it makes any sense? BECAUSE A WOMAN DID IT! WOMEN DO NOT MAKE ANY KIND OF BRAIN SENSE! So, here's another real world life lesson, for men in the real world, women are constantly doing things that make no sense, which is why we do not understand them.

This comic helped me realize that the problems I've had with my wife were because of this simple fact sinking in again, thanks to this comic. She does not make sense because she is a woman, and they do not make sense. Identity Crisis is all about women doing things that do not make sense, from erasing people's mind brains to bringing flame throwers with them everywhere, to other things that do not make sense. It helps remind us that women really are creatures with a different way of thinking from the men.

If only all comic books about underwear hereos had such great, emotional and real themes, then maybe they'd all be worth reading. If you know of any underwear hero books that might be worth reading, I MIGHT be willing to check it out. But it had better have something real and adult in it without any phoney baloney, or it's just more moron crap.

Zoombaboom Babies!

Dwight R. Vlahos