Heroes

I finally ordered Heroes a few weeks ago. I’d wanted to get it because I’d heard good things on both Television Without Pity and Pajiba but then when it was actually released, I waited to get it because I didn’t want to jump on the bandwagon, and I’d heard the second season wasn’t quite as good. Once I heard that Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars!) was in the second season, though, I had to check the show out.

It was as good as everyone says; a bit corny at first, but that’s probably due to the fact that it’s very much like a comic book. In and of itself, it wasn’t exactly original and followed many of the formulas – the villain that had at one point been friendly with the good guys before turning to the dark side, a conspiracy theory with a sinister organization, etc. Like X-Men (I’m only familiar with the movies; actually I’m only familiar with the movie adaptations of any comic), the powers were a result of genetic mutations and the next step in evolution, and there’s a large slew of superheroes with different powers. When it comes down to it, it’s probably nearly impossible to be creative when it comes to superheroes and superpowers. After so many years and different creations, it’s not easy to come up with a new superpower, especially when series like X-Men or The 4400 have such a large variety of characters, and they all have to have slightly different abilities. The characters in Heroes had most of the usual powers: flight, telekinesis, ability to see the future, telepathy, super-strength, etc. Nothing too original, but it’s not like any of these ideas have been new recently. The Greeks had Icarus and Daedalus for flight (even if one of them failed), Hercules for extra human strength, and Teiresias, the seer, to tell the future as well as the Oracle. I can’t remember the Epic of Gilgamesh that well but I’m sure it, too, had some of those powers, and whatever stories and folklore preceded The Gilgamesh probably also contained those types of characters. I guess those ideas have always fascinated human kind, and the only new powers are a result and a reflection of changing cultures and new scientific discoveries (as an example, the kid in Heroes that can “talk” to machines and the man who was basically a walking nuclear bomb).