Chronicle No. 13: A Geek Remembers

I was the kid who sat alone in the playground. The kid whom everybody did not want to include in their games or in their team. The kid who didn't talk, who didn't fight back and who cried after the other kids had finished taunting him for fun.
I wanted power, I wanted revenge and I believed that I would become greater and stronger than they would ever hope to be. I survived high school, enjoyed college, panicked and went to law school. By then, I had forgotten about my plans for vengeance and was just preoccupied with getting a good job and earning a living. I had immersed myself in the concerns of mundane everyday existence. That was until I saw Heroes.

Heroes, is a TV series about ordinary people: a stripper, a nurse, a painter, a techie kid, a convict, a cheerleader, a comic book geek, a politician and a police officer, who discovered that they have extraordinary abilities and gradually realizing that they must work together to save The Cheerleader from murder and then New York City from a nuclear explosion within five weeks.

The TV show charts how the characters came to terms with who they really are and how they would become great and strong in their own ways. There's no Spiderman moments involving dialogues like " With great power comes great responsibility". Fear, the most natural reaction to something totally new and different, is the theme of the series. There were a lot of hair-raising scenes, especially those wherein the characters first discovered their powers. Upon discovery, their reactions were different. Two of the characters were overjoyed to discover that they are special. Most of them, however, hated their powers and tried to conceal them and pretended that everything was normal. One mysterious character, Sylar, turned into a serial killer and used his stolen telekinetic power to slice out other people's brains.

The concept of the show is a fusion of New Age ideas, Darwinian theory and Philosophy. While watching it, I was strongly reminded of The X-Men, The Tenth Insight and The Dark Tower series of Stephen King. I could also hear my Philosophy of Man professor reciting the basic philosophical questions, as what the narrator did in the first episode,"Why are we here?" ,"What is the soul?" and "Why do we dream?". In relation to these questions, Mohinder Suresh, the geneticist in the show, has this to say "Perhaps, we're better off not looking at all. Not delving, not yearning. That's not human nature, not the human heart. That is not why we are here"

What makes the series compelling is that it treats the concept of the show seriously. There's no melodrama, no sentimentalism, no effort to make the audience like and sympathize with the characters and no gratuitous violence.

The characters come from different backgrounds. Nathan Petrelli, who is a congressional candidate, is manipulative, self-centered and has the ability to fly. Niki Sanders, who maintains a website and does strip shows for $40 per thirty minutes, has super strength and is ready to do anything, good or bad, for her son ,Micah, who can manipulate anything electronic. Her husband, D.L. Hawkins, is an inmate, can walk through solid objects and used to lead a gang of criminals. Isaac Mendez, is a heroin addict, lives for the next heroin shot and can paint the future when he's high. These people may not be model citizens but they are called to be heroes.

The comic scenes are handled by my favorite character, Hiro Nakamura, and his friend, Ando. Hiro, can bend time and space and is the character most thrilled about his newly-discovered power. " I used to be behind in class. I was pathetic. Not anymore!" he declares. He also quotes a lot of Star Trek and utters cliches such as "Every hero must learn his purpose. He will be called and tested for greatness.", "A hero does not use his powers for personal gain" and "I want to boldly go where no man has gone before".

Hiro, is the one who is tasked to bring the heroes together. Ando, tags along and is a believer in Hiro. One person who believes in you will give you the strength to do amazing things.

The thing I like most in Heroes is the absence of snazzy visual effects. Things, especially those involving the characters' powers, just unfold naturally and normally on the screen. The cinematography mimics the frames of comic books. The scenes and characters are boxed in by objects or follows the shadowy silhuettes employed by comic book artists to convey mystery and suspense.

Looking back, I am sometimes amazed that I didn't turn out to be a psycho killer. I am forever thankful to those people who believed in me. People have done good and bad things to me and it is because of them that I have become stronger and better. It has been a very long and painful process, just like what the characters in Heroes are going through, and I hope, that one day, I too, would become a hero.