Wolverine

Last night while I was scouring Reddit trying to find some inspiration I stumbled across this gem.



First, a round of applause for the guy that took the time to put those monsters together. I can only imagine the time it took to concept and fabricate a set of spring action claws attached to a custom welded copper tube frame. His dedication to making one of my childhood dreams a reality is impressive to say the least, but it made me wonder why are we so infatuated with superheroes?

My first guess was an admiration of their powers. Superheroes are everything their fans have dreamed of becoming. For example, lets take a look at Wolverine. Wolverine is born with regenerative healing powers that allow him to heal almost instantly from most wounds - decapitation being the lone exception. Another trait he has from birth is a set of three retractable claws embedded in each forearm that he can extend or retract at will. Now, these powers alone would be a pretty solid combo, but Wolverine received an extra dose of badass when his skeleton was infused with adamantium, an indestructible metal.

Couple bullets? No biggie.

So to summarize, Wolverine can heal from almost any wound, has an indestructible skeleton, and, oh yeah, he has three blades that can pop out of his arms on command. What boy wouldn't want that kind of skill growing up? All of a sudden you can take tree climbing to a whole new level. You could climb anything and not worry about the fall because your bones will be healed before you even realize what happened. Bullies, you ask? I don't know of too many bullies that would mess with a kid who has claws. The admiration of the heroes superpowers make for a decent argument, but I think it goes deeper than that.

I think the reason we get so caught up in superheroes is because they offer an escape from reality, and a chance to peek in to a life most of us will never live. By reading comics or watching a movie we can escape to a world where our lives are more interesting. Instead of waking up at 6AM, dragging through a shower, and grabbing a coffee and donut for the road Wolverine wakes up to alarms going off, slashes his way through a host of intruders, and saves a girl with physically impossible dimensions in one episode alone. Life is boring for us sometimes, and rather than get up and make our own lives more interesting sometimes its just easier to spend a few weeks concepting and fabricating a set of retractable claws so that for a brief moment we can live the life we've always fantasized about.