Sidekicks and Villains

Marty recently has become interested in the bad guys of Batman, after spending a bunch of hours playing the Lego Batman video game. Now, as it happens, Batman was my favorite comic book hero when I was growing up. He's dark and brooding, I'm dark and brooding...it comforted me. It's actually always disappointed me that Marty - a fan of Marvel comics - didn't at least like Batman...so I was ready for this conversation.

When he told me that Two-Face was his favorite villain, I was totally ready to discuss the origin story of Harvey Dent. (When he told me that his other favorites were Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn because they're "hot," I was a little less prepared...but that's a different story.)

But, then he decided that he wanted to know about villains for other heroes and he was disappointed that the others were less interesting. So, he decided that he should make some up. He had me grab a pen and paper and this is what he came up with:

The Swimmer - Dove into polluted water, had his mask meld with his face and grew gills.

The Leach - Was bitten by a radioactive leach and can now turn small and suck blood.

Recorder - Wears a body suit that can record and film anything he sees. The suit allows him to appear to look and sound like anyone that he's recorded, and can make him invisible.

Party Animal - Dresses like a clown, but can shape shift into any animal. When he works kids' parties, he turns into a vicious animal before stealing the balloons, cake and presents.

Play Toy - Can turn into any toy. As it happens, he likes to steal toys. He frequently turns into a toy and waits for a store to close, before robbing it.

Rockem & Sockem - Super strong twins that used to be boxers. Can punch through steel.

I don't know what it says about Marty that he seems to identify with bad guys, but it did remind me that when I was a kid, I almost never cast myself as the hero either. Only I used to pretend to be the sidekick/best friend character. Not sure what that says about me either. Even when I took my first shot at a screenplay when I was 12, I wrote the lead character in what was meant to be an 8-millimeter movie for my buddy Billy. It was a "Star Wars" style space adventure. I wrote a Han Solo character for myself...and this was before "Empire" came out and we knew where that character was going.

Maybe the men in my family just aren't the hero types. Well, I guess at least we're the writing about heroes types.