How Do You Be a Superhero?

glitchphil just alerted me to the second season of Who Wants to Be a Superhero? The second episode airs on August 2nd – I think you can watch the premier until then.

Now, glitchphil's post was mainly analysis of this year's cast (contains spoilers). And that stuff is interesting. But I got to thinking about the superheroic qualities Stan Lee is testing for. (After all, like Eric Burns said last season, the truly great thing about this reality show is that success isn't about gaming the system to win the competitions, it's about character.)

Well, I'm not going to pretend that I've secretly cracked Stan Lee's playbook, but I think I see four paramount virtues among those he praises, and absent from those he criticizes. I even think I have them in (mostly) priority order. If I may put words to them ("The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way" and all that), the four virtues are Compassion, Dedication, Humility, and Honor.

Spoilers for Season One below.

Compassion: Stan Lee emphasized this in the very first challenge of the first season of the show – given the choice between completing an arbitrary task as fast as possible and helping someone in need, help the person. Linked to this is being aware of your environment, although the superheroes who merely failed to notice the bystander in need were criticized less than those who noticed and failed to act.

Dedication: I can only point to the second episode of Season One, where Monkey Woman spent nine minutes and forty-three seconds struggling against a pair of attack dogs to finish a challenge, and Cell Phone Girl cried 'Uncle' after four seconds. Though three other contestants finished the challenge (all in under a minute) and four others failed (all in under a minute), it is the former who earns the kudos, and the latter the boot.

Humility: This was at the center of what I consider the worst test of the first season – the "who would you eliminate" challenge. The test stinks because any fool can see what answer you're supposed to give, especially because you have to do so publicly, leaving two of the only contestants brave enough to answer the question honestly – Ty'Veculus and Fat Momma – to face the ax. Still, the importance of humility to Stan Lee is unquestionable – thus the challenge.

(But a point – egregious though the test was, I do believe that Feedback, seemingly the most guileless person on the show, was honest in nominating himself. Then again, it's practically a truism that you can't really tell when someone is lying just by observation.)

Honor: Saying 'honor' is very nearly a copout, but I think it appropriate nevertheless. It says that a superheroes words must be their bonds (something which caught Ty'Veculus in the costume challenge, for example). It says that superheroes must support the traditions of heroism (this caught everyone but Feedback and Fat Momma at the cafe – that superheroes protect their secret identities is all but a dogma of the genre). And it says that superheroes must live up to the ideals of the society (thus Stan Lee's repeated ribbing of Major Victory for doffing parts of his costume, and his stripper past). It is the conservative honor of centuries past, and it's value has only been increased by tempering it with humility and compassion.

Some show, I gotta say.