Who Wants to be a Superhero?
10.11.06 By Collin David
The Nerdiverse hath been torn asunder by the Sci Fi Channel’s original six-episode reality miniseries, ‘Who Wants to be a Superhero’. We’re talking a deeper rift than Kirk vs. Picard. Marianas Trench deep, folks, and the denizens ain’t none too pretty. At times painful to watch, at other times slightly less painful to watch, I fell in love with WWTBAS from premiere to season finale, and I bought the DVD as soon as it came out (which was about a week ago). Give me a cheap season of ANY show on DVD and you’ll find it on my shelf. I’m an enthusiast of especially bad video, which is an inexpensive and inexhaustible hobby to get into, since you’re basically collecting undesirable garbage. Lionman II : The Witchqueen? Yes, thank you.
The premise of this show posited that a dozen average humans costumed as heroes live in a house together for a few weeks. During this time, they’d be faced with challenges that would determine their true mettle and worthiness of the ‘superhero’ moniker, all while their ranks were being whittled down by the floating head of living comic legend Stan Lee, for whatever insane reasons he saw fit. After six episodes, one hero would remain, and that hero would earn the right to appear in their own Sci Fi Channel movie, as well as a comic book penned by Stan Lee. And, thankfully, we get to watch the whole thing. Oh, they’d cry and fight and fail and succeed, and you probably couldn’t be convinced of its ultra-scripted veracity for more than a moment, but it was a fun watch.
Being the inaugural season of a highly experimental show, it lacked many of the more interesting reality show details, such as the selection process behind the initial twelve heroes and their post-show reactions. It was edited in such a way that enormous, relevant swaths of information and entertainment were clearly left out, cutting abruptly between different incarnations of the heroes’ costumes and referencing things that didn’t appear in the final show. The real names of the participants were clearly listed on IMDB, and it came to light fairly early on that a majority of them were out-of-work actors who were likely cast based on their obscurity and acting ability rather than their superheroic ideals.
While the ‘heroes’ were infinitely fun to watch, especially the voluptuous female ones, the reasons behind Stan Lee’s criticisms of their characters always rang specious. At one point, Major Victory (my personal favorite character) removes his cape to assist a woman stepping over a puddle and is later chastised by Stan Lee for removing an article of his costume, claiming that Superman would never, ever remove his cape. Allow me to put my nerd-hat 
on and state that this fact is simply incorrect, as the Man of Steel has never hesitated to remove his cape to serve as a fire blanket when rescuing someone from a blazing building, or should some enormous supervillian have it in his clutches. At another point, Stan Lee proclaims that Spider-Man would never, ever reveal his identity to a stranger. Curiously, a few weeks before this episode aired, Spider-Man, embroiled in the Civil War of the Marvel Universe, had held a press conference and revealed his true identity to the whole world. And in the process of digging through the heroes’ respective pasts for dirt, it’s completely ignored that Creature has nude photos of herself on her website, while Feedback is lambasted for having a cluttered office space. All of these things tore larger holes in the already paper-thin premise of the show. Surely drinking games could be formed around the questionable decisions of Stan Lee, jarring editing jumps and how many times Cell Phone Girl needs to get smacked, but I’ll leave that to you. I’ll start you out - two drinks every time Fat Momma steals food from someone ‘in character’. Oh, and three drinks every time Stan Lee pronounces Lemuria’s name wrong.
Have I made this sound agonizing enough yet? Truly, the best parts of the show were left out of the broadcast, with SciFi.com holding hours of interviews and deleted scenes that were genuinely revealing and interesting, without the pretense and the incongruity. The 2 DVD set does not include any bonus materials that are worthwhile. The ‘see the audition’ footage is a montage of repetitive promo materials, and the Stan Lee ‘interview’ says nothing at all. So why would you subject yourself to this blissful agony? Because there’s nothing else like it, and praise Hera, the show was picked up for a second season, this time with 12 episodes.
Secretly? I shed a tear for our heroes. I continue to follow them on MySpace and await the moment that the Sci Fi Channel unleashes the surefire abomination that will be the movie promised to the winner. I’ll be there, popcorn in hand and perpetual grimace across my face.
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Article Tags: DVD, Sci-Fi Channel, Super Hero================
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