By Joshua Pantalleresco
Who Wants to Be A Superhero? is a reality TV show from a simpler time also known as summer 2006. YouTube had celebrated its first birthday that spring, Apple would inflict the iPhone on the public in just 11 months, and Iron Man – the first salvo in the cinema-altering behemoth known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe – was nearly two full years away.
The show, hosted by comics icon Stan Lee and broadcast on Sci-Fi Channel, featured twelve contestants inventing their own super-powered alter-egos like the banana-clad Monkey Woman and the flip-phone wielding Cell Phone Girl (did I say it was 2006?).
Who Wants to Be a Superhero? operated on a simple premise. The cadre of would-be caped crusaders performed challenges–the most memorable of which involved the heroes facing off against attack dogs–after which Lee would choose who to eliminate from the group. The show ran for only two seasons, ending in September 2007.
The winner would become Stan Lee’s next great superhero, earning a comic book with Dark Horse Comics and a Sci-fi Channel original movie. The winner of the show’s iconic and more-memorable first season, a hero called Feedback (real name Matthew Atherton), received a one-shot comic but no movie, getting only a miniscule guest appearance in Sci-Fi Channel’s 2007 schlock film, Mega Snake.
Does this all sound ridiculous?
Yes. Because back then that’s what superheroes were: Still kind of a joke!
Yellow Spandex
Batman Begins in 2005 had made the first steps towards changing things, but people were still washing out the taste of the prior two Batman films courtesy Joel Schumacher. Batman Forever is still kind of watchable if you appreciate camp. The movie feels like a lost love letter to the Batman of the 60s. The less said about Batman and Robin, the better.
The Adam West Batman show that ran from 1966-1968 played a huge role in making comic book superheroes appear to be capering court jesters. Batman and the Joker wearing swim trunks over their costumes for a surfing competition is not even the most ridiculous thing that happened during the show’s run.
Attempts throughout the decades to change that comical image didn’t stick. For every well-made, adult film like Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) or X-Men (2000), there was a disaster like Captain America (1990) or Steel (1997). And if a superhero film wasn’t an outright, instantly-infamous trainwreck, it was a bland, forgettable movie like Daredevil (2003). X-Men went out of its way to mock its comic book origins with the infamous “what would you prefer, yellow spandex?” joke.
By 2006, we were still in that realm of campiness; superheroes may not have been explicitly for children, but the conceit of a costumed hero righting wrongs was inherently childish. The Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies had a few moments that carried into the modern era with earnest and adult sensibilities, but even that series had some corny parts with cartoonish J. Jonah Jameson, the over-the-top newspaper headlines, and some of the comedic stuff with Randy “Macho Man” Savage’s Bonesaw McGraw. Spidey still had to play in the old superhero sandbox, even if it did make a few steps into a more serious future.
That serious future, however, would have to wait until after Who Wants to Be a Superhero?
Excelsior!
The show’s opening minutes hit the viewer over the head with how cringe superheroes were in the aughts. American Idol debuted in 2002, achieving pre-internet virality by airing auditions from hopelessly out of tune singers like William Hung. Who Wants to Be a Superhero? Is very much channeling that early on with some of the would-be heroes like “Ice Bitch,” “Slimeball,” and an unnamed hero who loses all his powers if he doesn’t have his daily helping of hummus.
Lee (or the producers) narrowed it down to a group of twelve: Levity, Major Victory, Ty’Veculus, Rotiart (not really a contestant but a spy sent by Lee to unearth superhero secrets) the Iron Enforcer, Fat Momma, Creature, Lemuria, Monkey Woman, Cell Phone Girl, Nitro G, and the eventual winner, Feedback.
Each week the contestants would take part in a myriad of often-physical challenges meant to test their heroism. For the first four episodes, there were two eliminations. Usually the first one would be as the result of a secret challenge that was not so obvious. For example, intentionally giving a hero a bad costume on new costume day to test their honesty (a challenge failed by Ty’Veculus). Ty’Veculus lied about liking the costume, ultimately resulting in an on-the-spot elimination after the challenge ended.
The second half of an episode was always the more interesting part as that was typically reserved for the more onerous challenges. The heroes squared off with attack dogs in one challenge (don’t worry; they wore a protective suit) and in another walked blindfolded over a balance beam they were told was between two tall buildings (the show blasted the heroes with a giant fan to really sell the lie). These moments revealed glimpses of character within the contestants. One couldn’t help but respect Monkey Woman’s performance with the dogs referenced above, refusing to give up as she crawled her way across the backyard and towards the finish line (represented by a door). Conversely, the massively muscular Iron Enforcer cried uncle the moment the dogs brought him to the ground.
My favorite challenge in the whole show was the prisoner moment, where the heroes had to talk to actors playing the part of hardened criminals–one of whom was an in-character murderer. Specifically, the heroes had to successfully perform physical acts like hugging, massaging, or sitting in the criminal’s lap (again, it was 2006 folks). Feedback managed to make a genuine connection with the man opposite him, as both of them had lost their father, Feedback’s to suicide, and the prisoner to crime. The hug wasn’t just Feedback’s task at that point, but rather, something earned, as a bond seemed to be formed in that moment.
Not to say that the show was perfect, because it definitely made you roll your eyes on more than one occasion. Stan’s continued dismay at Major Victory’s stripper background came across as hypocritical as Stan himself had a hand in a character called Stripperella. The costumes–both the original variants and the new version given to each hero at roughly the halfway point in the show–look dated, even if the design principles were sound. This was an era where the costumes weren’t translating to the screen the way they do now, and it shows in this series. None of the suits would pass a cosplay at a convention today, let alone a television show or movie. Iron Enforcer had a giant toy gun taped to his arm enhanced with what appeared to be tinfoil and cardboard. Ty’Veculus donned a cheap-looking red plastic helmet which somehow made him one of the better-dressed entrants.
And the effects were equally cheesy as much as they felt like something from another time. Iron Enforcer’s transformation into super-villain the Dark Enforcer looked like something you’d watch from a show like Mutant X, as the lights and effects created the act of transforming.. It definitely made taking the actors and characters seriously difficult. Season one had some bugs to it. And in spite of the attempt to give a little gravity to the idea of a superhero, possessed childlike qualities.
But the other big capstone of the time is that superheroes were still primarily for kids or adults who had yet to grow up. This show was fun. You can’t help but smile as you watch the series play out. In spite of the show’s corniness, there is something innocent about this series. Who Wants to be a Superhero? Contained a surprising amount of human moments, and the cast embraced the fundamental absurdity of crimefighters in tights. Superheroes are supposed to be fun, and the show embraces that. The show is how superheroes felt on the eve of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Scorsese’s Last Laugh?
It took Iron Man and The Dark Knight in 2008 changing the culture completely. The MCU in particular found a formula that clicked, and credit should go to Robert Downey on that as much as the creative team. Marvel was able to capitalize on the movie’s success, and figuring out the formula of superheroes we know today with Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and more. Superheroes had become serious business and summer blockbusters that really worked on a multitude of levels until Avengers: Endgame. Superheroes had graduated into big business and treating franchises like a joke or a kid’s show were long gone. There were no references to body odor by Stan Lee to the Iron Enforcer you saw on this show. Or Monkey Woman’s warcry that echoed something like from The old Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk series.
Yet the cinema superhero’s success took on a darker side. Martin Scorsese in 2019 said that superhero movies were not cinema. Later, he elaborated the discussion about superheroes to this quote: “Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel Pictures. What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.” I disagree with Scorsese pre-Endgame. Marvel studios took huge risks throughout the first three phases of the MCU, among them telling a giant arc that spanned across a dozen plus movies. That’s never been done before, and likely never will be again. There were definitive character arcs for the original Avengers. Captain America, Thor and Iron Man in particular showed incredible growth and emotional revelation and maturity. That could be an essay in itself.
But post-Endgame, I have to agree with him. Marvel movies always had a touch of formula to them, but now, that’s all they have. None of the movies grab you at all because none of the characters evolve. There is a clear lack of creative direction and risk and as a result, none of the characters have managed to grab people’s interests. Instead, these movies serve purposes, and the story barely counts or moves anything of worth forward. There are a couple of exceptions to this such as Wolverine and Deadpool, but by and large, these characters are properties as much as they are story and it’s preventing the MCU from maturing to the next level and it’s why the studio was desperate to bring back Robert Downey Jr. in the forthcoming Avengers: Doomsday. Time will tell if that works and changes the course of the MCU. But as it stands, Scorsese looks like a genius at this moment.
All things change and some of that is for the best. But the idea of people dreaming to become superheroes doesn’t have that same childlike zest you witness in this show. In that sense, Who Wants to Be a Superhero? Actually asked and answered a more important question: what is a superhero? The show’s answer is human moments like Feedback discussing the death of his father with Stan Lee or Major Victory’s tearful reunion with his estranged daughter. To be a superhero, then, is to simplify the world into the heartfelt emotional resolutions that evade the complexities of real life, complexities that only adults would understand. Paradoxically, the contemporary superhero genre retains the simplicity yet eschews emotion for quips, catchphrases, and convoluted tie-ins. But it’ll be fine so long as Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, a true artifact of its time, remains free on YouTube for all to see.
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