Another blast from the past.

Timmy is the son of an obscure super villain named Leap Frog. After a traumatic experience, Timmy showed signs of Split Personality Disorder, and had a fixation on the Daredevil. After weeks of investigating, Ben Ulrich found out that Timmy was physically abused by his father, Leap Frog. Turns out, one day he caught Leap Frog fighting Daredevil on the roof of their apartment building. Leap Frog screamed at him "Get out of here, or you're next!" as he was beating up Daredevil (I know, seemed unlikely but Daredevil was distracted by Timmy showing up on the roof). So Timmy took a cut electrical wire and electrocuted his father, Leap Frog.

And Ben Ulrich, writer for the Daily Bugle writes an article about it:

This is just a story of a boy. Adults get the opportunity, eventually, to choose who they are. Children do not. Children come into this world with no say in the matter. No one asks you what kind of parents you want. No one asks you what environment you think you would do best in. You just wake up one day -- and you’re in the world. You wake up and look around you…and you see the hand that’s been dealt you. What the world has in store for you…

Contrary to popular belief, we do not live in a world of equals. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to make themselves feel superior or perhaps even inferior. Some of us have ethnic diversity. Some of us have sexual diversity. And some of us -- some of us can even fly. Some of us are Peter Pan.

In my travels as a reporter for this paper -- sometimes it feels like I have met every kind of person there is. Every kind of human diversity. But I haven’t. Every once in a while the world surprises even the most jaded -- of which I must include myself -- with someone like Timmy. Timmy was born into this world just like the rest of us…and like many of us, he has spent every single conscious moment of it trying, as best as he can, to tune it all out. Because just like the rest of us, no one asked Timmy who he would like for parents. No one asked Timmy what kind of environment he would like to live in. Certainly, no one told Timmy that sometimes life just isn’t fair. That sometimes people can be mean for no good reason. That people say they love you, can treat you badly. But most importantly, no one bothered to tell Timmy that these things are not his fault.

Many people have said to me: who cares about a guy named leap frog? And I say: certainly not I. In my moral dictionary, that man lost his membership rights to the human race a long time ago. They can leave him where they eventually found him. I care about a remarkable little boy named Timmy. And what makes him so remarkable to me? When faced with no other choice, Timmy rose up and faced his moral fear head on. He did this and he came out the other side to tell about it. And though I’ve met a lot of different types in my time, I can honestly say I don’t know a lot of people who can claim such a task. But I wish I did. I wish I was like Timmy. …and I just wanted to tell you this story.

I posted this nearly 5 years ago. I can't believe it's been that long already. Just thought with everything happening in the Philippines, or even the world...we're currently in need of heroes.

This came from Ultimate Spider-Man Super Special #001, Peter Parker, still in High School tries to find the answer of what makes a Hero for a homework. This was his report:

"With great power, comes great responsibility. Heroes. The way I see it, when most people think of heroes, they think of larger than life patriots. Men and women who have dedicated both their personal and professional lives to represent a symbol of hope to those whose life might seem hopeless. A colorful embodiment of selflessness. Of course, that’s not the only form a hero’s life can take, and there are so many places that our heroes come from. So many worlds within our world…worlds of magic…worlds of technology…worlds of intrigue…a world where a family of adventurers can bond together in the fight for the underdog. And when speaking of the underdogs of our society, one can’t help but think of the mutants. People whose entire existence is defined by their unique genetic birthright. And like every civil rights embattled minority before them, some mutants have come together using their celebrity and powers to help fight for their cause…while others wade through life’s persecutions and misunderstandings by attempting to live their everyday lives with nobility and grace. But a noble soul can whether they want to or not, find himself on a warrior’s path. Sometimes I wonder if being persecuted and embattled because of who they are makes the choice of becoming a warrior predestined. Predetermined. And that it’s the choice made there…when faced when faced with the unthinkable…that defines them…because we do not live in a black and white world. Cliché, but true. We live in a world where around any corner an act of violence is waiting that can change your life forever. And whether we want to admit it or not, it is at those times when we need someone who is willing to cross the line of what is technically, or morally, right and wrong. But with that comes the risk that the world can be so dark…and so compromised…that there can be no escape, no chance for happiness. So in my search for the hero I most admire…in my search for the definition of what a hero is…the one thing I realized is that I will eventually have to make certain, choices that will define me and my life. Or maybe I already have and don’t even recognize them yet. But I guess I don’t have to worry about it too much because of all the people in the everyday lives…in the news…in sports…in law enforcement…teachers…musicians…and yes, larger than life superheroes…all the people who stand for something bigger than ourselves. For me only one man…a man I have never met…has given me words to live by that I know I have to hold my life up to. I know they are the words that define a hero…that with great power comes great responsibility."

My generation's irony: so bad it's not good?

All we say and do is lacquered with sarcasm. We don't take anything seriously, and yet we take everything seriously

• Darragh McManus
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 March 2010 14.30 GMT

Would you knowingly buy a lunchbox featuring this car? Photograph: Michael Buckner/Getty Images

Recently, my brother and I were gently teasing our father about how cool he was looking in his argyle-patterned cardigan. He said to my brother's wife: "I never know with these two if they're being serious or not."

And a weird realisation struck me: a lot of the time, neither do I.

This is the curse, gift and defining characteristic of my generation: irony. My dad's generation, and those before him, were sincere: they meant what they said and said what they meant.

But by the time I was born, in the 1970s, some detached, too-cool Left Bank intellectual had taken a break from his doctorate in semiotics to invent postmodernism, and we were doomed to a world of irony.

We grew up with it and in it. We swam in its invisible currents, like a school of bizarre fish wearing stylishly outmoded spectacles and T-shirts of long-forgotten cartoons. Irony was our amniotic fluid, our mother's milk, our Knight Rider lunchbox (that we keep, tragically, as a totem of nostalgia – another crucial strand of Gen X DNA).

Because of an ever-more self-reflexive culture and generational mores, we see everything through the prism of postmodernism. We like – or pretend to like, and to us it's virtually the same thing – big-hair metal, daytime soaps, Dr Phil, Diff'rent Strokes reruns, jokes that are funny because they're deliberately unfunny, bad acting, bad special effects, bad anything so long as it's bad enough. (One exception, though: we want good-quality literature.)

Our uniform is the ironic T-shirt; even better if the slogan across the chest adds an extra layer of self-reference, a sartorial wink and nod to the audience of our peers: "You are not reading this T-shirt." Arf, arf.

Since before we existed, irony has been seeping through the culture, percolating down like the strong coffee we prefer to alcohol because booze is so lame and mainstream – to the extent that, by now, we're never entirely sure when we mean something or not.

As usual, The Simpsons captures it best. Two slackers at Hullabalooza (a pitch-perfect allusion to Lollapalooza, travelling Mecca of Gen X's devotion). One says: "Here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool." His friend asks, "Are you being sarcastic, dude?", and gets the forlorn response: "I don't even know anymore."

Did I really think my pop's cardigan was nice? Dude, I don't even know anymore.

Our parents don't get this; they literally wouldn't understand what's funny about something that you know, absolutely, isn't funny. Generation gap? It's more like a whole different species.

But it gets worse: we're sincere in our insincerity, thus confusing the matter to proportions so Byzantine it couldn't be teased out by an intellectual tag-team of Steven Hawking and King Solomon.

I'll enjoy Steven Seagal's KillFist of DeathPunch IV as part of some knowing, ironic joke to myself – I realise it's rubbish, and that's the point – but at the same time part of me will genuinely enjoy it. We'll mock someone for trying to save the world but we truly want them to save the world.

Everything is a pseudo-apathetic pose, a wry jibe, for Generation X; everything we say and do is lacquered with the bitter patina of sarcasm. We're ironic and infantile and don't take anything seriously, and yet we take everything seriously.

We're as glum, idealistic and sincere as you could get – sometimes to extremes. Our godhead is Kurt Cobain, who in interviews displayed a sardonic playfulness and mocked his image as a doomy depressive, but ultimately killed himself because the world was inauthentic.

All of which is very disorientating when you're trying to work out if you really meant that compliment about your father's cardigan. Like, I did mean it. But I didn't. But I did and didn't at the same time.

Not that it matters, anyway. Dude, I'm being sarcastic. I probably don't mean any of this. Even though I do. Maybe. If you follow me.

from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/11/generation-x-sarcasm-seriously