In April of 2010, I completed principle writing of my first manuscript, 100,000 Years in Detention. As much as it felt rewarding and as though I’d had a weight lifted off my shoulders, there was a nagging mosquito, a dry heat in my brain, worrying that I hadn’t started another project. I’d casually mentioned to my wife a book about the four years my family lived in Maui, and had even penned a story or two for it, but I had no outline, no plan and no desire to exorcise those demons just yet, and especially not while we had a newborn in our house.
So I worked my 40 hours a week in retail management, or sat with my wife and our daughter on my days off, and felt more than a bit insecure about continuing my career as a writer. I worried that every day I didn’t write, I was losing what talent I had, wasting my free time away playing video games and watching movies.
Finally, another new father, who we met in birthing classes before the babies were born, called and said he wanted to go on a ManDate to see Kick-Ass and grab dinner at O’Faolin’s, an Irish Pub in the same strip as the theater. We were both a little excited to get out of the house for the first time post-partum without bringing a diaper bag, car seat and stroller along so we picked a night off and I met him in the parking lot.
We ate bangers and mash and shepherd’s pie and talked about debt, Jameson and babies. Then we walked across to the theater and saw the movie. It was brilliant. It details the story of a normal teenage comic fan named Dave Lizewski who decides to buy an outfit and become the world’s first real-life superhero: Kick-Ass.
In one early scene leading to Dave’s decision, he asks his friends Marty and Todd why nobody ever tried to be a superhero in real-life, and they remind him of the inevitable hazards of the job. Risking beatings and killings, he decides to go through with it anyway. Arguably realistic complications arise throughout the rest of the film, which we loved, but after the movie we kept asking the same thing.
“There’s gotta be one guy,” my friend Cord said. “Right?”
“I’m pretty sure there is. I was watching some features on like the Watchmen Blu-Ray or The Dark Knight and one of them had a thing on vigilantism, and I thought there were one or two guys on there who do the superhero thing in the streets. Somewhere up in New England, I think.”
Then we got quiet. I was the first one to speak, after several moments.
“Y’know, it probably would make a good story to throw in the middle of my next book. I could just do a couple thousand words on one of those guys and how close to – or far-removed from – the Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne image of the 'hero with no superpowers' they really are.”
In my next free afternoon I started researching. I combed through my comic-based-film Blu-Rays and found “Real Super Heroes: Real Vigilantes” on Watchmen. I watched it again and took notes.
The Guardian Angels, I wrote.
Bernard Goetz.
Ecliptico.
Google led me to his MySpace and I wrote to him and requested an interview. I didn’t even know if he’d write me back. My sole qualification at the time was a BA in journalism from a state university in Georgia and a thin portfolio from its school paper, which I’ve since found can’t get me a job in a mail room, let alone a newsroom. I’ve never been comfortable digging into my past as a writer, as I was approaching my sixth year out of college before I earned a dime off any of it.
So, days later, when I had an e-mail in my inbox from Quest Blackthorn, I was surprised. We talked about an interview and I started punching up questions. The day came fast, and I cleaned up, got a drink and dialed his number. I had no idea what to expect. If anyone would have told me, I would’ve called them a liar.
Kick-Ass. Dir. Matthew Vaughn. Lionsgate Films 2010.
Watchmen. Dir. Zack Snyder. Warner Bros. 2009.
"Real Super-Heroes: Real Vigilantes." Producer Anna Obropta. Warner Bros. 2009.
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