Quotations

If you go to my LibraryThing catalog, you'll see that I read a lot (too much?) of comic books. A recent read is a hard cover compilation volume titled "The World's Greatest Super-Heroes". Probably not an inviting title for people who read classics and technical books, but you should see the artwork. It's done by Alex Ross (remember this name). He always render his pages in gouache painting and make these victional characters look alive. (Perhaps he tries too hard to preserve the conventional look of the characters, but his rendering more than makes up for it, I think.)
But it is not the only strength of this volume.

Let me introduce another name: Paul Dini. He did the text; and this entry is a list of quotations from the text. The book is a compilation of a number of stories:

• Superman: Peace on Earth
• The Batman: War on Crime
• Shazam: Power of Hope
• Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth
• Justice League of America: Secret Origins
• Liberty and Justice

Again, probably the titles of individual stories turn off people even more. Admittedly, they do sound so typically ignorant and cheesy. So I'd better get into the good stuff--the quotations.
They come up slowly to take the food and then move back, pale and silent as ghosts.
Only one little boy speaks. He looks at what I've given him, then at me, and asks, "Will you come back tomorrow?"
I look away.
This is a narration by the superhero who started it all: Superman. Even with his god-like powers, he cannot solve all problems in the world on his own. I think this is an important realization for every person toward maturity. As Stephen Covey puts it, first we become independent. The next step is realizing that we are all inter-dependent and embrace this concept.
Similar narrations:

• I can't overcome their generations of fear any more than I can force them to accept what I've brought.
• In other countries I am reviled as a political activist, a usurper, or a fraud. They don't want me there regardless of what I'm bringing or whom it could help.
• It was never my intention to turn human beings into a desperate, unthinking mob.
• My mission ends here, incomplete and in failure.

Next is the Batman.

• What kind of man would I have become if things had been different?If, instead of using my fortune as a means to fight crime, I allowed myself to be ruled by it and all its temptations.
  If I truly became what I appeared to be to others [as Bruce Wayne]?
• I try to imagine what my life would have been like as a poor child on the street, my family gone, no one to look after me.
  Stripped of those sources, would I still have tried to fight crime however Icould, or would I have turned my anger back on society as so many others have done?

I'm no billionaire, but there are times that I think of these questions myself. "What if I were born on 'the other side'?" I think it is crucial to understand our "self" better than anyone else can tell/teach us.

Finally, there is this quotation that I really like. It was written at the beginning of Superman's story and repeated at the end. The important point is that in the beginning, it was his Pa's belief; in the end, it was his.

• He knew not every seed would make it, but Pa wanted to give each one the chance to grow.
• I tell them not every seed will make it--
  --but all of them deserve the chance to grow.

I grew up in a society in which a definition of success is more or less dictated from parents to children. Further, kids are expected to succeed. Any less, it is a shame for your parents. Of course I'm lucky enough that my parents are understanding, but undeniably there was a time in which I felt the most worthlessest kid because I found myself to at the long tail of kids. That I didn't deserve a good life because I failed.
But somehow I slowly figured that because I'm alive, I deserve to live and am responsible to live.
The "seed" in that last quotation symbolizes so many things in life that I strangely attracted to it even though it is probably so straightforward and meaningless to others.
Anyway, I'm not good at explaining things and right now I'm not sure if I understand why I like this quotation, so I'll stop here. Let me finish with a wish.
Often times, I overhear people saying more-or-less in the tone of "super hero stories are for kids". Even the word "super hero" itself seems to be... "not for grown-ups". Well, this is true for the older versions of super hero stories. But writings always blow up a theme, a concept larger than life. Recent super hero stories do this to individuals. They blow up individuals to tell our struggle to fit in, our conflict (internal and external).
Well, there are stories that really are for kids; but it's unfair to label a large class using a label of a smaller subclass.
Guess what I wish is like anyone else's wish in this ever niche-going society: please show a little more appreciation to my little niche interest.