From the time I was six years old, I've been fairly obsessed with superheroes. It started with Superman and Wonder Woman and Batman, of course. I mean, how could it not? I even watched some of those old black-and-white Superman reruns where the guy is filmed laying on a table with a fan blowing his cape, and made to look like he was really flying. Of course, to the eyes of a six-year-old...he really was flying.
And a year later, my next-door neighbor and best friend and I moved one to creating our own superheroes. (Actually, you can read more about that on my website under "About".) But my love for superheroes that weren't my own creation never waned, and I was drawn to not just superheroes as people, but superheroes as in vehicles. Lemme see, there was Airwolf and Knight Rider and Street Hawk and Blue Thunder and, of course, the Transformers. Oh yeah...and this weird cartoon about this teenager who accidentally drove into this beam of light some scientist was working on that made it so that he and the car sort of became one and he could transform from human to car and back anytime he wanted. As stupid as it sounds, I really loved that show. Nevermind, I have no idea what it was called.
Anyhow, as I grew up, I never lost that love, and to this day, I rarely get more excited for a new movie than one involving superheroes. Even bad ones, like the recent version of The Fantastic Four. (Sorry...but come one guys...you can do better!)
A few weeks ago, I stumbled on the show Heroes. You know. "Save the Cheerleader. Save the world." Now, I had seen some ads for the show, but I never realized it was about superheroes, and so I felt a bit put out that I missed the first six episodes as a result. But I tuned in to the last two and I'm really really enjoying it.
But, I'm also really really hating it. Because I swear the writers of this show are stealing my ideas. I've now had no fewer than 4 specific ideas that I either have used or plan to use in my own books. What's up with that? And by the time my book is published (eh-hem...and of course it will be published one day...I hope), people are gonna go, "Oh, he's just copying that show Heroes." But really, I'm not. Because I started working on this thing like three years ago.
My story is my story, however, and so I must swallow my pride and except the fact that I'm not entirely original in everything I do. *Sigh* So, I'll sit back and enjoy Heroes, and hope that the seeming popularity of the the superhero genre will be a boon to my book. I hope.
