We can be heroes (spider-man) 5.3.02

Stick around, true believers. There should be something here for everyone even if you have never read comic books, been familiar with super heroes or followed the career of the amazing Spider-Man.
By the time this column goes to press, we should all know whether or not the film version of "Spider-Man" is worth seeing or not. As I write this column, it is Friday morning and I doubt I will see "Spider-Man" until the lines shrink a bit. I am now at an age where few things are worth waiting in line for just so somebody can chatter behind me and kick my seat for two hours. It will certainly clean up at the box office either way.
In today's fast-paced world, a movie can be a god-awful waste of time and still make a killing on opening night, but fans are expecting a great deal from director Sam Raimi and well they should. The subject matter is important. That's right, I said important.
What's so important about a guy who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and suddenly gains the ability to stick to walls? Put like that it sounds trivial.
Anything sounds silly when you pick it apart. It's like asking what's so important about a carpenter with the ability to walk on water? It's all relative.
When it comes to good examples for us to live by, we can never have enough heroes.
Spider-Man is one of those super heroes whose following is massive yet he has always fallen just short of capturing the popular imagination the way Superman and Batman do.
Spider-Man creator Stan Lee did one thing better than everyone when he spelled out this character's motivation, it's almost allegorical. Spider-Man represents what it means to be an ordinary person with an extraordinary gift.
One line Stan "The Man" Lee wrote summed it up best whether we are talking about a comic book hero, a legend, a fairy tale or a parable. With great power comes great responsibility.
Peter Parker, the boy who becomes Spider-Man, is initially uninterested in using his extraordinary new powers for anything more noble than impressing the ladies. It is his Uncle Ben who tells him he has an obligation to use his abilities to help other people. Peter blows this off and Uncle Ben is killed by a mugger Peter could have stopped on a previous occasion before the "great power" lecture.
It is a hard lesson but well-learned as the boy becomes a hero.
What is so appealing about this message is it has deeper meaning than the obvious. Sure, we could all be heroes if we came from another planet, if a radioactive spider bit us or if a drunken monkey gave us three wishes.
But the simple truth beneath the bright colors and comic book fantasy is we all have some power and a responsibility to use it wisely for the good of everyone.
It doesn't matter if you can't fly, make people tell the truth with your golden lariat, run faster than a train or shoot death beams out of your fingers. We all have something we can do. It doesn't need to be superhuman; being human is enough.
It can be as simple as giving blood, making a phone call on behalf of a friend, giving your business to someone who deserves it, calling a tow truck for someone stuck in traffic, tipping your waitress, supporting free-range agriculture, recycling, doing the automobile repairs you should have done the first time and charging a fair price for them and then reconnecting all the little wires you disconnected in the first place, being honest, operating in good faith, taking pride in your community, letting someone else go first, reaching out to those who need it, being as polite to a clerk as you want them to be to you, giving your spare change to charity or being aware of how easy it is to make the world a better place one small act at a time.
Larger than life figures make for good story-telling and they can set an example for us to follow. Sadly, most of them are made up, but fiction or not they give us a standard to live by.
We need heroes to admire, but ordinary people like us should know above all else that, quietly and without fanfare, we can be heroes, too.
- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be contacted at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.