By:  Mike Thurau

12 years ago, a movie titled Mystery Men hit theaters. For a Ben Stiller movie, it wasn’t half bad and it was a pleasant departure from reality into the world of six misfit superheros. It was good mindless fun, but it left me with a lingering sense of “wouldn’t it be cool if this were real?” The superpowers the hero’s of Mystery Men possessed were lame to non-existent, which is what made the prospect of costumed vigilantes roaming the streets so plausible. After seeing the movie Kickass it dawned on me. The future of the greater Cleveland area was in the hands of whoever had the cohunes to seize it. Cleveland needed a new hero who wouldn’t leave them after seven seasons to go play for the Miami Heat and that hero was me. I might not be the hero Cleveland needs or even the hero Cleveland deserves, but OWNS A BASEBALL BATMAN was going to turn this hard luck city into the safest place in the world with powers such as hitting you in the head with a fucking baseball bat, sneaking up behind you with a baseball bat and hitting you in the head, leaping out of the shadows and hitting you in the head with a baseball bat, and throwing a baseball bat at you from over six feet away.

Much to my surprise, OWNS A BASEBALLBAT-MAN was a little late to the party. There were others out there with a profound need to exact righteous vengeance on evil-doers, and they already had costumes. The Real-Life-Superhero movement takes LARPing to the next level (the next level being reality) by actually patrolling the streets of real cities. Not content to stand idly by as society crumbles, these men and women dance on the line separating community service and vigilante justice by donning a home-made mask and sticking a boot in the ass of evil. These heroes include men such as:

His web site misquotes Nietzsche with a suicidal disregard for proper literary reference, and warns readers that “I am the reason to fear the night.” Neck deep in the Hell-Zone of Vancouver, British Columbia, Thanatos is the living nightmare of the forces of death and entropy. In a world gone completely bananas, Thanatos gives jars of peanut-butter to the homeless.

What was I thinking when I tried to use a baseball bat as the source of my powers? This guy uses an industrial angle grinder to intimidate his foes. Who are his foes? The people who go around putting wheel clamps on your car for parking illegally. In a 2002 interview he was quoted as saying, “I may not be able to single-handedly and totally cast off the repressive shackles of a corrupt government – but I can cut off your wheel-clamps for you.”

This ex-Marine likes to think big. Every superhero needs a supervillan and according to the International Superhero Registry this guys chooses Osama Bin Laden as his. Who knows how many plots foiled by this knight errant have caused the man responsible for September 11^th to shake his fists into the air and yell, “Curses Tothian! You’ve foiled my evil plot yet again!” His costume is rather minimalist, but he explained that its simplicity is by design and not laziness during a 2008 interview with SF writer Mike Brotherton when he said “It’s up to others to decide how they see me. But what I like people to think of, when they hear my name, is kinda like a Jedi Knight or a Medieval type Warrior.”

The list goes on, and includes characters from Salt Lake City to Tokyo. While most of these superheroes aren’t going toe to toe with the Mob or an army of mutant super geniuses, their respective cities are better off because they live there. Are they easy to poke fun at? Of course they are. As I write this, I am howling like a banshee with peals of laughter because I haven’t stopped finding these goofs hilarious. I have been hospitalized twice for a hernia and my constant cackling has seriously affected my social life for the worse.

However, they’re doing what they need to do to feel like they are a force for good in the world, and they’re helping real people. If they are actually making the world a safer and more just place, then what’s so delusional about them calling themselves real life superheroes? Their enemies are the everyday injustices and tragedies that most of us simply ignore. Poverty and homelessness might not be as sexy a nemesis as Catwoman, but real life is typically less glamorous than a comic book. These people want what the rest of us want, they just choose to personify their desires with an alter-ego and a costume. Do you have an alter-ego? I think that if some of their detractors were to engage in some self reflection, they’d find their alter-ego to be something along the lines of Watches T.V. then Takes a Napman. Which of these identities is more absurd?