Faster Than A Speeding Badger

Editor’s note: This article was written by my mum. Today marks the third year since my mum passed away, and I am posting this in memory of her. Her passing was sudden, and the world became a darker place without her presence. Mum was a wonderful woman and the best mum ever. I hope you enjoy this article, which gives us just a small glance into her insane and magnificent mind.

My son has a stock range of questions that he brings up roughly every 2 days or so to either confirm an answer I have previously given or to see if I have changed my mind in the intervening time since my last intense questioning. The first one is: if I could have any car what would I have? We then run through the entire James Bond back catalogue – including the invisible one – through the sleek and aerodynamic world of Formula 1 (swiftly disregarded, however, due to impracticalities such as their 2inch ground clearance and inability to go into reverse) before I settle on either an Aston Martin Vanquish or a 1971 VW Beetle with a Porsche engine, replete with furry dice and rocket launchers mounted on the bonnet, depending on my mood. The second one continues the theme of ‘my favourite’ but can vary widely to be about anything from world leaders to types of cheese, pausing at many other stops in between over the course of a couple of weeks. But the third one is more interesting and more happily filled with possibilities. It is this – if I were a superhero, what power would I have?

Now, there’s an interesting thought. So, how does one become a superhero? Of course there are many ways in which one can become a superhero. Indeed, as any comic aficionado will attest, most are born with their abilities or gain them via mutation or some sort of hideous industrial accident.

Generally, superheroes and their abilities fall into several categories. Some come from another planet outside our solar system where everyone on their homeworld has these powers and so they are seen as nothing special. That is, of course, until they crash land in a turnip field on Earth and grow up to discover that they can throw a football through a cow or bend a tractor in half. Some are turned into superheroes by other giant interplanetary beings. The Silver Surfer became a superhero when he struck a deal with Galactus – a large gaseous blob and consumer of planets – whereby he would fly around the cosmos scouting out future meals and small snacks for his new master. This arrangement was agreed in exchange for sparing his own planet and, inevitably, the women he loved, and so he became a man with a shiny silver paint job and a surf board which, as we all know, is the ideal mode of transport for navigating an infinite universe. Alas, if your passport says you are from Enfield and you haven’t encountered any alien gasses with malicious intent then you are probably not a superhero just yet.

There is still hope, however. You could be a mutant. These traits are inclined to manifest themselves around puberty which, at a time when you are already nurturing a healthy crop of spots, developing traffic stopping BO and are devoting inordinate amounts of time to growing lots of unnecessary hair, is probably the last thing you needed. So if, along with sucking out your parents life force along with the contents of their wallets, your transformation was accompanied by an ability to control their thoughts and you began to leave scorch marks on the furniture, then you may be a bona fide mutant and potential superhero.

If, on the other hand, you are distinctly lacking in the ability to run though walls or turn people inside out with your mind then you could try another tack to achieve superhero status. You could fall into a vat of something vastly toxic or be savaged by an animal that has recently escaped from a shady, illegal laboratory. In the comics, all of this is taking place in a world without the restrictions of Health and Safety legislation which is why there are so many more superheroes in the comics than in real life.

Clearly, in the normal way of things, much of this removes the possibility of having any choice whatsoever in the matter. Magneto did not choose his ability to influence metallic objects. Having spoons continually stuck to you and being able to drag kettles and tea trays in your wake can only get you so far in life, as far as I can tell. Some have very cool powers, like the ability to control the weather, to call up towering thunder clouds and tornadoes in the blink of an eye and, utilising favourable updrafts, are also able to fly. But others are not so fortunate and spend their days intermittently turning into a frog or disgorging an acrid green mist from every orifice so it clearly is a double edged sword. (For the benefit of my son’s questioning, this rather inconvenient point regarding choice is always disregarded as it is deemed as not taking the inquiry in the spirit in which it was intended.)

So, let us ignore the science we have gleaned from comics books and movies – what if the Superhero genie granted us a wish? To be a superhero, and to choose our power. Even leaving aside all the various disgusting, unhygienic and socially challenging powers, we still have many clean, nice and useful ones to choose from. Invisibility is a good one, but it has to be achievable at will, not a permanent arrangement – there are many benefits to this, not least being able to blow off in a social setting without accusing fingers ever being pointed in your direction. Super strength is an excellent choice also so that you can lift 4×4’s off trapped pedestrians after car accidents or get lids off jam jars. An obvious choice is the power of flight. From a practical standpoint, It would mean no interminable airport scenarios; check in queues, cramped planes, the baggage carousel free-for-all and the crushing sense of despair that accompanies any air traveller that doesn’t fly first class, which is most of us. You simply launch yourself into the blue beyond from your back garden and in a matter of minutes you can be at your destination, happily free from the joys of deep vein thrombosis and the lingering metallic taste and desert dryness left in your mouth and sinuses from aeroplane air conditioning which often seems to have been filtered straight to our lungs via a dead man’s sock. And it is the green choice for all environmentally aware potential superheroes as it eliminates the need for motorised transport at a stroke.

What would my superpower be? Well, amazingly I have never been able to make a final definitive selection because once you choose one, you begin to see the benefits of many others. So, my son’s line of questioning usually ends with me shrugging my shoulders and whining “I don’t know”. I am currently toying with mind control where I can send my thoughts to any brain in the vicinity and render them compliant to my will and way of thinking but ultimately I will no doubt decide that the world is in enough trouble already.