By G.P. Avants

 

Why do we love comic book heroes? Maybe it’s because their character and spirit have things we can emulate and affect real life. Who wouldn’t want to fly like Superman, shoot webs like Spider-man, or spike up like Wolverine and route out the enemy? Anyone who is reading this blog knows that we cheer right alongside our heroes because we really see something courageous and fearless in them that we wish we had.

Laura, AKA X-23, is brought to Logan in a very secretive manner. She comes with the clothes on her back and a back-pack she guards viciously. What is so important about the contents of that beat up bag? It is soon discovered to be the key to the future and her plan the salvation of the remaining mutants. It isn’t until Logan gains her trust that she reveals her secret weapon. In a surreal moment, we see Logan thumbing through an X-Men comic book. He badgers the creators of the comic as in his opinion, the sensationalized everything from his suit to the real life of mutants. “In real life, people died,” he growled tossing aside the comic. He puts no trust in the Eden or the coordinates that Laura was told was a mutant safe-haven. Grudgingly, Logan & Dr. Xavier takes the perilous road trip to get Laura to safety. Sadly, as Laura holds to her faith in the comic book version of her hero, people do die and she sees the ugly truth about life. However, like a child’s faith they finally find other mutant children who also believe in that comic-book reality.

When the children see Logan, they all know he is Wolverine stepping off the page and staggering worn and torn into their lives. Because he looks nothing like their comic hero, the children armed with scissors gave him a make-over while he slept. When Logan awakens, he looks more like the Wolverine they have come idolize.

As Logan gives his life to save the children, one boy Gus, holds tightly to the Wolverine action figure that has never left his side. It is in memory of seeing the real hero leaping out of fiction into the harsh realities of life and death. As the children leave his grave-site to flee in safety they leave behind a simple grave adorned with a simple wooden cross. Laura hesitates before she leaves. That man wasn’t anything she thought Wolverine would be, but everything a father and friend could be. As a final act of honor the flesh and blood comic book legend, Laura turns the makeshift cross on his grave to t the letter X.

Dreams are real things that life can’t destroy.  I really believe that though I will never fly or read minds, I can take the real character of a hero into issues of life. For what makes a hero truly different is their resolve, their passion, pursuit of the truth, friendship, loyalty, and the list goes on.  When Laura pursues Eden, she is applying faith. When Gus holds that doll, I mean action figure, he is keeping loyalty alive. When Logan whispers his last words, “So this is what it’s like,” he shows us all that real comic book characters are nothing to laugh at. Their hearts pump the same as yours and mine, right to the….