Oct 25, 2008 11:00 AM
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San Francisco, 6:33 PM
Tue Feb 9
26 posts in the last 24 hours
If ever there was a sign that the election needs to be over already, it may have come in the form of a newspaper suggesting that the ideal Hallowe'en gag for next weekend would be dressing up as Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin superheroes. Yes, we knew that the Republican VP nominee was a popular choice for Hallowe'eners this year, but Hillary or Sarah superheroines? Isn't that what we have Obama for?
We should've seen this coming, of course; both Clinton and Palin have their own comic books now, not to mention action figures... so why shouldn't these two already sci-fi political figures become superheroes, too?
Well, for one thing, there's the laziness of the how-to:
Their superhero capes were intended for a dracula costume, but we tucked the high collars in to make them look more superhero-ish.
But for another, there's the fact that, well, we like our superheroes to be better than politicians. There's a reason that you don't see attack ads against the Joker or the Penguin every two seconds on television, and it's not because Bruce Wayne can't afford them. No, to us, superheroes have a deep-seated morality - a belief that with great power comes great responsibility, if you will - that makes them people we can look up to, not people who'll happily pander to win our support every four years. The idea that the person saving you from some wife-beater-wearing mugger in a grimy back alley somewhere in Gotham City will then hand you a button and ask for your vote seems beneath them - and we've got no interest in finding out that Wonder Woman spends $11,000 a week on her hair, either.
No, we'd prefer to keep our superheroes free of party politics, thanks very much - unless it's done tastefully... or in a comic that no-one actually reads.
Halloween costumes: Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin [Metromix Des Moines]
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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