| Heroes Comic: A Lesson in Electricity |
| Tuesday, 04 March 2008 | |
 Fire up the DeLorean and don't forget to feed Doc Brown's dog - we're going back in time. Far back into the 1700's, when gentlemen were wig-wearing sissies and women wore ten tons of undergarments. Back when savage frontiermen killed bears with their own hands while the womenfolk made babies and cooked dinner. Back before Zombie Lincoln rose from the grave and began his march of terror through the American heartlands. Ok, so maybe none of that is entirely historically accurate, but I'm the one writing the article, so shhhh! Just go with it. This weeks issue of the Heroes Graphic Novel takes us back to a story we all heard in elementary school: Ben Franklin and the kite. However, since this is a Heroes comic, (everyone say it together) "there's more to the story than we thought".  '...when a man and a woman love each other very much...' I won't bore you with a full recap here, because the entirety of the issue boils down to a single premise: During the "flying the kite in the lightning storm" experiment, Ben Franklin actually took a direct hit from a bolt of lightning and somehow survived without a scratch. Really, Heroes Comic writers? Benjamin Franklin? Are we really just picking historical figures and making up backstories to tie them into your television series? So Ben Franklin had the ability to absorb electricity, huh? Who's next - are we going to find out that Mahatma Gandhi had the ability to stop his metabolism, thereby making those month-long hunger protests possible? Or maybe that Winston Churchill could command people with his voice, or that the "Iron Lady" herself - Margaret Thatcher - could actually transform into iron? Maybe Nikola Tesla was so brilliant because he could travel to the future and brought back the inventions he found there? Or how about this - John Wilkes Booth was actually the very first "Company Man" and his target that tragic night was not Abraham Lincoln, but his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, who had been hypnotically controlling the president - planning on revoking the Emancipation Proclamation and usurping his position in the ensuing chaos - and the "insane asylum" she was later locked up in Batavia, Illinois was in fact a Company-built prison designed to contain a new breed of supervillain... ...wait, actually that last one sounds kinda cool. I call dibs on it! Regardless, this is just another one of those "filler" issues that they publish now and then inbetween the actual story arcs, and it shows. Granted, it's an interesting tale, and is told with a charming sense of whimsy and delight, but all in all, if you really want to see a messed up story about Benjamin Franklin, you're probably better off just watching Drunk History: On a side note, with all of the historic precedence the show has revealed since Season 2, I feel like it's lost a crucial and important part of it's mythos: the "how". We now have evidence that there were ancient Egyptians with powers, and superpowered Englishmen that paraded as Japanese Samurai, and shockproof American patriots. Part of the reason I fell in love with Heroes was because there was this complete solar eclipse, and then suddenly all these people with superpowers start showing up, leading the viewer to think that the two uncommon occurences are somehow connected, that there is some greater force behind these people's abilities. Instead, it appears that it may be nothing other than evolution, or a specific family gene passed down through time that gives these people abilities, and it's not something that can just happen to you - you have to be connected in some way or be lucky enough to have that special evolution. I think that kills a lot of the escapism of the show, something a show about superheroes needs. It's much easier to relate to characters when you find yourself in the same position as they are: neither one of you knows how they got their powers or why. And while the "there have always been Heroes" scenario sets the scene for some time-travelling, globe spanning adventure, it does take away a little of the ambience, the intimacy with the characters. Instead of a show about how this small group of people handle their gifts, now we just have a "lookit all the cool stuff" style of television. You can download the PDF of this issue from the main Heroes site (www.nbc.com/Heroes/novels ) or read it online with their flash viewer HERE . Personally, I don't like either and prefer to read it in .cbr format using a freeware program called CDisplay (downloadable here ). WARNING: Downloading files is wrong and evil and illegal and makes you a terrible person. No one should ever download a file for any reason whatsoever. This website does not endorse illegal down- loading or file-sharing, P2P or otherwise. You should only download files from the original website in whatever crappy and useless format they deem worthy for the likes of you. Also, you should always pay the owners your hard-earned money, because that's how they make their living and if you don't pay them they will starve and their families will be forced into slave camps. However, if you'd still like to know where you can download this file (y'know, strictly for educational purposes), you can highlight the text in the box below . Or don't. http://rapidshare.com/files/96927248/Heroes_075__2008___heroes.nbc.com_.cbr Comments (2)
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