In Kick-Ass, which opens today, ordinary folks with extraordinary personality disorders gird their geeky loins, slap on some spandex, and, well, kick ass. And they do so without the benefit of special powers bequeathed by radioactive arthropods, interstellar intervention, or genetic meddling. It’s nice to know we still raise grass-fed, hormone-free, totally organic vigilantes in this country. Heck, DIY superhero-ing is a cherished American tradition — on the TV, on the big screen, and on the streets. Herewith, a schmoes gallery of some of our most powerful powerless superheroes.
ORIGIN: Fed up with municipal corruption and devastated by the violent death of his grandmother (the late, great Lynne Thigpen), Damon Wayans’s Walker, a childlike genius, creates a sort of bulletproof Scotchguard in his bathtub and soaks some pajamas in it. From there, it’s just a hop, skip, and a New Power Generation montage to hapless-yet-effective urban avenging in the 1994 comedy.
SPECIAL SKILLS: Asperger’s Syndrome, ability to fashion sophisticated gadgets out of housewares, immediate access to legions of factory-farmed reserve Wayanses.
SIDEKICKS/ASSOCIATES: In Living Color co-star David Alan Grier, Robin Givens, and a ranting, wheelchair-bound Jason Alexander, who is, for obscure reasons, dressed like a John Milius–F.W. DeKlerk mash-up.
NEMESIS: Ruthless gangster and acceptable ethnic caricature Michael Minelli (Coen Bros. mainstay Jon Polito). You know he’s evil because he kills a young Greg Kinnear, here making his feature film debut.
WEAKNESSES: North American cumulative box-office. Unfair and superficial comparisons to Meteor Man.
ORIGIN: Driven by do-gooding and fame-seeking, the single, suburban mallard from the 1991-92 animated series transforms himself (via mask, cape, and Shadow-esque slouch hat) into “the terror that flaps in the night.”
SPECIAL SKILLS: Speechmaking, proficiency with a gas-gun, buoyancy.
SIDEKICKS: Adopted daughter Gosalyn, burly waterfowl aviator Launchpad McQuack, nettlesome cyborg showboat GizmoDuck.
NEMESIS: Villainous anthropomorphic bull Taurus Bulba (voiced by Tim Curry), the only known Gogol reference in Disney television animation. He also has an evil twin, Negaduck, from an alternate “Negaverse,” as well as a “Posiduck” persona. Best not get into the physics: The Darkwing mythos is deep, yo.
WEAKNESSES: Ego, duck-themed puns.
ORIGIN: Batman is best described as a human version of Darkwing Duck, only with more family money and more family tragedy.
SPECIAL SKILLS: Also not unlike Darkwing’s: martial arts, technical skill, pain resistance, ability to summon laryngeal phlegm at will.
SIDEKICKS/ASSOCIATES: A seemingly endless series of open-minded, discreet young men.
NEMESIS: The Joker (identity unknown, but believed by some to be Barack Obama).
WEAKNESSES: Pastels, capital-gains tax, mentholyptus, foreseeable but still irritating comparisons to Darkwing Duck.
ORIGIN: Technically a super-villain, Professor Chaos is born when Butters, rejected as a Kenny replacement by the big three (Kyle, Stan, and Cartman), creates an evil alter ego.
SPECIAL SKILLS: Vision, ambition, perseverance, and tinfoil: He conspires to destroy Earth’s atmosphere with aerosol cans.
SIDEKICKS/ASSOCIATES: General Disarray (a.k.a. Dougie).
NEMESIS: Tweek, who’s chosen over Butters as the boys’ “fourth friend.”
WEAKNESSES: Throwing stars (one puts his eye out, accidentally); The Simpsons, which, Professor Chaos learns, has already used all of his plots.
ORIGIN: Filling in for his injured twin brother Diego de la Vega (both siblings played by George Hamilton), flamboyant Ramon dons a mask, a cape, sequins, silk scarves, and various Cyd Charisse hand-me-downs to wreak vengeance on the crooked Alcalde of 1840s Los Angeles. What ensues in this 1981 comedy might be the most sensitive and unflinching exploration of Spanish-colonial homosexuality produced in the Reagan Era.
SPECIAL SKILLS: Proficiency with the sword (straight Zorro’s specialty), the whip (gay Zorro’s weapon of choice), and the sub-Brooksian double-entendre (a bi-Zorro trait).
NEMESIS: Alcalde Esteban, basic black
WEAKNESSES: Tassels; camp; the tagline “It’s Zexy, Zany and Zensational!” — although all of these things are “ab-zolutely” true, if we do zay zo ourzelvez.
ORIGIN: Even before Twitter, Shaq was on top of the latest technology. Here he plays army weapons developer John Henry Irons, whose nonlethal gear is stolen, its settings switched from “stun” to “kill,” and sold to street gangs. So he fashions himself a suit of armor out of trash and takes back the streets.
SPECIAL SKILLS: Unlike the DC Comics hero he’s based on, the Shaq Steel had no uncanny abilities other than Shaq-level strength, Shaq-quality acting, and Shaq-consistent early adoption of electronics. He also has a sledgehammer.
SIDEKICKS/ASSOCIATES: Junkyard owner Uncle Joe (Richard Roundtree), paralyzed tech-support type Susan (Annabeth Gish), a very bored-looking dog.
NEMESIS: Arms dealer Nathaniel Burke (Judd Nelson), who learned — long before Kobe did — exactly “how my ass taste.” (The answer: vaguely metallic, with notes of clover and vanilla.)
WEAKNESSES: “I never could make the free throws!” Yes, this line is actually uttered. (The “free throw” in question: a live grenade! Did Dennis Rodman achieve this echelon of self-parody in Double Team? No he did not! Boom! How it taste? How it taste?)
ORIGIN: Canarsie. He formed the Angels in the late seventies in response to subway violence. More relevant than ever, Sliwa is now best known as a conservative-populist radio host. Straphangers eagerly await his response to those annoying Nurse Jackie ads and deadbeat punks who leave their Sierra Mist cans under the seats so they roll around when the C train starts moving.
SPECIAL SKILLS: Bloviatin’, speechifyin’, totally-un-gay-beret-wearin’.
SIDEKICKS/ASSOCIATES: Men of principle, men of valor, men who see hats and color-coordination as a form of direct action.
NEMESIS: John A. Gotti, whom Sliwa has accused of attempting to have him murdered.
WEAKNESSES: A craving for red satin second only to Miss Piggy, self-mythologizing.
ORIGIN: Organized as the “Minutemen” in the late thirties, these costumed crimefighters (which writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons based loosely on Charlton comics characters acquired by DC in the eighties) bent the curve of history dramatically to the right. (Basically, we end up with Nixon as president and a thriving zeppelin industry.) What ensues might be the most sensitive and unflinching exploration of non-Spanish-colonial homosexuality produced in the Reagan Era.
SPECIAL SKILLS: High defined muscularity, highly nebulous moral crepuscularity.
SIDEKICKS/ASSOCIATES: Everyone from Terry Gilliam to Paul Greengrass to Darren Aronofsky. All Judases, in the end.
NEMESIS: The medium of film.
WEAKNESSES: “Bullet-time” effects, the sourness of fanboys, the humbling blue genitalia of Doc M.
ORIGIN: Unlike Batman, Buttman began his career as a seventies porn actor, eventually making his own increasingly proctological films starting in the early eighties. Like Batman, Buttman has a stable of young people who do most of the work for him.
SPECIAL SKILLS: A unique style of cinematography that can only be described as “colonoscopic.”
SIDEKICKS/ASSOCIATES: Ass-ociates. Heh-heh. What was the question? Oh yes: midwestern housewives, girls next door, women who never thought they’d do this kind of thing yet seem oddly unfazed by it.
NEMESIS: Treacherous former protégé turned rival rectal kingpin Seymour Butts.
WEAKNESSES: None. Well, except for occasional obscenity charges. Oh, and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which he was diagnosed with in 1997.
