People love Iron Man now, the way he's depicted in the current MCU. Talking about the movies, man. But the man I knew as a kid, is now a vastly overpowered superhero who cannot lose. He's basically a more colourful Batman. The fun Batman. Nothing wrong with that, except for one thing - Iron Man and Batman today represents a lot of people's belief that they could do anything and be great if they had the right tools. If they have enough money.
And they are losers because they don't. No point in improving yourself or your skills. Just make more money and buy your success.
The comics and cartoons went a long way and took a lot of trouble telling stories about the person behind the powers, abilities and the money. Professional photographers like Ken Rockwell bought a five dollar camera (fixed focus, no zoom) and took a photo that replaced one of Ansell Adams' pictures in the Smithsonian to prove a point. That it's the skills behind the tools that matter.
What we have nowadays is potentially gearheads' wet dreams and the power fantasy of capitalists. With enough money, anyone can win. Tony Stark? Bruce Wayne? Najib Razak?
One of my favourite episodes of the '90s Spider-Man animated series was about Mysterio causing absolute havoc with just his lame superpower of looking like other people. He worked his way up from the airport security to Nick Fucking Fury himself and almost succeeded except for one stupid mistake.
That's the kind of stories I like - anyone, hero or villain using whatever small ability or advantage they have and using the shit out of it.
For example, Hawkeye is pretty lame. He's got super accuracy or some shit. In one Ultimates comic book, he was captured and tortured. So he used the only weapon he had available - his fucking fingernails. Killed a few people and got free. Spoilers, bitch.
We don't have Stark's or Wayne's money. Not even Najib's access to cash. But even with what little we have, and I'm not talking about cash, we should get creative on what we can do and ultimately achieve.
This is the credo I have followed all my life. I have limited abilities. I'm primarily a pattern-recogniser, so I used that to copy writing and thinking styles. This ability was used by Neil Gaiman and members of the Uchiha clan.
The more intelligent people I encounter, the more I can understand new ways of thinking. Whether they are useful or not remains to be seen. This is why idiots waste my time.
