Comics and Combat: Becoming Superman

Growing up in Cincinnati I didn’t have many friends. I had few interests or hobbies. That was up until I got my mom to buy me a comic book one day at Kroger’s. She knew I didn’t have much outside of school to fill my day. Superman was the first series I started reading, and my first taste of “truth, justice and the American way.” Then I started reading about Batman in the Legends of the Dark Knight series. I also started watching G.I. Joe and Transformers after I got home from school. Looking back that was my first example of what an American man should be, tough, honest, and standing up for the weak.

Even though, over time, my heroes fell prey to unbeatable foes and odds (Superman was killed by Doomsday, Batman was paralyzed by Bane, Optimus Prime was killed by Megatron, and Flint was speared by Serpentor) I wanted to be just like them, to face danger and defend the weak. Soon to become a hero, I started working out and fighting bullies at school. Unfortunately I started fighting just about anyone and getting in trouble at school. I stopped reading comics as I slowly turned from wanna-be hero to juvenile delinquent.

I started running with a bad crowd. Drinking, fighting, stealing and drugs became an every day part of my life. By the time I was eighteen I had been arrested and in and out of rehab several times. After I graduated from high school I enlisted in the Marine Corps because I didn’t know what else to do. For the first year I was wondered why I had joined; it was nothing like the commercials said it would be. I didn’t see any of the action I was expecting. While at an airport waiting to fly to Okinawa I bought a comic book. The first one since high-school, as I read it I remembered the hero I wanted to be.

Walking through that city in Iraq I realized, we were the kind of heroes I idolized as a child. We were, as Orwell put it, “Rough men ready to do violence on other’s behalf,” fighting for “truth, justice and the American way” against terrorists who hated our religious freedom, the role women played in our society and our culture. Without that first comic book I might have stayed that fat kid with nothing but school work. I might have earned good grades, gone to college and jealously watched the news wishing to be one of the troops making the world better. That is why I wanted, needed, to be there, those fictional heroes opened my eyes to a world of ideals remembered only fiction, honor, courage, commitment; the core values of the Marines that shaped who I was before I ever wore the uniform.