Driving The Big Boat, by Dennis O’Neil
Maybe we ought to retire the word “hero” and designate the characters whose needs and actions drive the story, more technically and accurately, as “the protagonist.”
(You’ve guessed that we’re continuing our incredibly prolonged discussion of the evolution of superheroes? Good.)
As mentioned in an earlier installment of this blather, the word “hero” is derived from the Greek and means, roughly, “to protect and serve.” (Lest anyone think I’m a scholarly dude who actually knows Greek…I wish!) The problem nowadays is defining exactly how the protection and service is to be accomplished. In other words, what kind of person do you admire, and why do they do what they do? Who do you favor mor e– Mother Theresa or the late Colonel David Hackworth, our most decorated combat veteran?
I never met the good nun, but I did spend an hour or so with Colonel Hackworth once and liked him very much. I don’t think I would have enjoyed Theresa’s company a whole lot. But maybe she was the more heroic of the two, if we count heroism as doing deeds that take courage and accomplish long-term good. Going out every day to deal with disease and poverty…it must have taken guts and it can’t have been easy. Easier than facing enemy guns? I have no idea what measurement we can use to quantify such things. Maybe there is none.
Col. Hackworth did what he did repeatedly and must have often known what he was getting into and, presumably, chose to do it anyway. But I’m wary of heaping too many accolades on folk who, in a military situation, do one brave thing because…
Despite my firm belief that I know everything about everything, I humbly admit there is something about this variant cover thing I don’t understand. Therefore, I’m tossing these questions out to you, the public, for comment. I’m not really trolling for comments; I honestly don’t understand this stuff.
How do you get nominated for a 
George E. Turner is a familiar name among serious movie buffs – a pivotal figure in the realm of film scholarship, as influential these many years after his death as he was during a lengthy prime of productivity. George’s authorship alone of a book called The Making of King Kong (and known in its newer editions as Spawn of Skull Island) would be sufficient to cinch that credential.
