There are many questions that must be answered in order for someone to be considered a hero.  Can he or she be trusted?  Can he or she face the burdens?  What are the motivations for being a hero?  What do others expect out of a hero?  What goals are trying to be accomplished? Is it a short term goal such as saving a person, or a long term goal such as saving the world?  These questions can be answered as we explain the various trials and tribulations that people go through as demonstrated in the film, “X-Men,” (2000) and the TV series, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” (2013).

“X-Men” is a good example of answering some of the above questions.  The movie is about a group of mutants known as the X-Men, led by Charles Xavier a.k.a. Professor X, who face the racism of a society run by humans.  The X-Men try to gain its acceptance and live together while fighting Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, who try to rise up and overthrow the human society that discriminates against them.  According to John M. Trushell’s American Dreams of Mutants: The X-Men – “Pulp” Fiction, Science Fiction, and Superheroes, “the film envisions a liberal mutant dream rooted in the American dream of the 1960s, featuring a moderate Professor Xavier (and his X-Men), a militant Magneto (and his Brotherhood of Mutants), and a McCarthyeque Senator Kelly (with a Mutant Registration Bill)” (162).  At the beginning of the film, Senator Kelly appeals to society’s fear of mutants in order to pass his bill, which would force mutants in the United States to reveal themselves to the public.  The bill would separate mutants from what would be considered as “normal” society, creating a situation that acts as “‘a parable of the alienation of any minority’ in the 1960s” (Trushell 154) such as homosexuals and African Americans during the civil rights movements.  Professor X and the X-Men, who protected society from Magneto, represented the views of Martin Luther King, Jr., who believed that individuals of all races would one day live together.  In fact, in addition to leading a group of mutants who protect humans, Professor X opened a school to teach mutants to control their powers and use them for good.  Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, who try to overthrow the human race, on the other hand, represented Malcolm X and the Black Power movements that “advocated black nationalism” (Trushell 154) around the same time period.  In addition, the very first scene in “X-Men” shows a young Magneto living as a Jewish kid in during the Holocaust.  Through that scene, the audience understands Magneto’s reasons for his extremist views.  Since he already witnessed a society that isolated and alienated a group of people from their society, he believes that there is no room for tolerance in any other society today.  Therefore, mutants must rise up and conquer the majority group in the world they live in.

As we compare the fictionalized mutants and how they appealed to real world society, let’s answer some of the questions using the “X-Men” example.  The X-Men are trying to prove they can be trusted by training mutant youths to control their powers and use them for good.  The X-Men constantly have to face the burdens of racism in their own society.  The motivation of the X-Men is to be accepted by society.  The expectations from others in order for the X-Men to be considered as heroes, as well as their long-term goal, is to quell negative stereotypes and fight for the rights of their minority, appealing to the audience of real-life minorities.  Now that we analyzed people with superpowers (or in this case, mutations) on how they can be considered as heroes, we will now analyze how normal people without superpowers can be considered heroes as well.

Marvel’s TV series, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is about a secret organization of humans that works with people and objects of supernatural or alien origins while trying to leave society in the dark from them as well.  The reason that S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps the world in the dark about these things can be best explained my Karl Marx’s belief that “ideology was a means of maintaining the capitalist social order by blinding the proletariat to the true conditions of their existence” (Herzogenrath-Amelung 522).  In other words, people are not ready to know about such things and if certain people knew about the information that S.H.I.E.L.D. holds, then the information could be abused for evil purposes.  The show inhabits the same universe as the heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe consisting of “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Thor,” “Captain America,” “The Avengers,” and the upcoming “Guardians of the Galaxy” and Ant Man.”  The series focuses on Agent Phil Coulson and his hand-picked group of agents and scientists as they travel on a plane HQ to research and fight against strange occurrences in their world.  In this essay, we will use two episodes of the series that focus on different members of the team in order to analyze how someone can be a hero.  The episodes are “The Magical Place” and “The Well” respectively.

“The Magical Place” focuses on Skye, an experienced hacker and the recent addition to Coulson’s team.  Earlier in the series, Skye gave secret Intel from S.H.I.E.L.D.  to a member of her old hacktivist group, The Rising Tide.  The member then sold it to an evil organization named Centipede, who used the information to track down a street magician who had the superpower to create fire.  As a result, while Skye is still a member of Coulson’s team, she was put on probation and had to wear a bracelet that monitored her use of electronic devices.  The episode, “The Magical Place,” acts as a trial Skye must go through in order to be trusted.

In the episode, when Centipede kidnaps Agent Coulson in order to find out how he died, his team is put into the authority of the experienced S.H.I.E.L.D. operations agent, Victoria Hand.  Under the orders of Agent Hand, Coulson’s team captures a Centipede associate known as Mr. Vanchat and attempts to interrogate him for information on where Agent Coulson is.  When Skye attempts to use her hacking skills to search for Coulson’s whereabouts, Hand shuts off Skye’s access to electronics and takes away her cell phone and laptop.  When Hand asks veteran S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and pilot, Melinda May, one of Coulson’s recruits, if Skye was useful on the plane, May says “No.”  As a result, Agent Hand orders that Skye be debriefed.  Agents Grant Ward, Leo Fitz, and Jemma Simmons try to help Skye to find Coulson.  Agents Fitz and Simmons give Skye a damper-resistant satellite phone with only one call to use, while Agent Ward gives Skye a 12-minute head-start before the debriefing agents arrive on the plane.  Due to S.H.I.E.L.D. blocking her access to technology, Skye has to figure out alternatives in order to find Coulson.  She uses a magazine to discover a man named Lloyd Rathman and steals his car to get to his home.  When she can’t use the car’s GPS, she crashes it so the OneStar roadside assistance can tow her to Rathman’s house.  When Skye reaches Rothman’s house, she uses a golf putter to call Rothman home on his office phone.  Skye then impersonates Agent May and uses Rothman’s cell phone (with a S.H.I.E.L.D. “lock-down” screen) as an impromptu badge and uses information about Rothman in order to convince him to hack into Mr. Vanchat’s Swiss bank account on his computer for her.  When two LAPD police officers interfere, she uses her combat training from Ward to prevent them from interfering.  When Rothman proves to be technologically incompetent, she uses one of the cops to get the information instead.  Afterwards, she uses the satellite phone to contact her team with the exact location Centipede is holding Coulson.  In the end, Coulson is saved and he deactivates Skye’s bracelet, taking her off probation.

According to Julie D. O’Reilly, in The Wonder Woman Precedent: Female (Super)Heroism on Trial, “For female superheroes, the trials are imposed upon them by the institutions that sanction their power as a way to limit their agency, thus exposing their weaknesses” (280).  This best describes what Skye went through in the episode.  Skye’s weakness is that she needs technology because she is useless without it.  As a result, she had to go out in the field and work around her limitations in order to get the information that led to Coulson’s rescue and prove that S.H.I.E.L.D. can trust her.  Her situation is similar to how Wonder Woman had to be tested by “surviving gunshots from point-blank range” (274) in order to gain her status as a hero as the institutions that sanction [her] power determine [her] status (or nonstatus)” as a hero. (281)  Agent May purposefully told Agent Hand that Skye was not useful on the plane because she knew that Skye could work better outside of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s system, free from being monitored by other agents.  By going through a trial that tested her limits and proved to be valuable to her team, Skye proved herself to be a “‘heroine in her own right’” (280).

The episode, “The Well” centers on Agent Ward and focuses more on the hero’s burden.  In the episode, Coulson’s team has to face a Norwegian pagan hate group who is searching for an Asgardian artifact known as the Berserker Staff in order to take over the world.  The staff, which was broken into three different parts, gives the person using it great strength and uncontrollable rage.  When Agent Ward touches one of the pieces of the staff, he gains the strength and rage, but is unable to hold it for a very long time because the staff causes him to relive a very traumatic memory from his childhood that he had to repress.  In his memory, he recalls how his older brother tossed his younger brother into a deep well.  When young Ward tries to throw a rope to save his younger brother, his older brother threatens to throw Ward down the well too.  Ward is then unable to save his younger brother from drowning.  Eventually, at the end of the episode, Agent May defeats the hate group with the Berserker Staff with all three pieces combined together.  When Ward asks May how she was able to use all three pieces, she claims that she sees her traumatic memory every day.  This episode can be best analyzed with Anthony Ubelhor’s document, The Hero’s Journey Defined as part of the road of trials that have to be faced under the initiation stage.  According to the road of trials, “Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed – again, again, and again” (4).  This quote can act as a metaphor in such a situation.  The burden is the unrepressed memories which also act as the dragon.  The Berserker Staff is what passed the barrier to reach the “dragon.”  The need to learn to live with traumatic memories is a burden because a hero must face whatever obstacle is thrown at him.  Traumatic memories are obstacles in the mind that never leave and if they are repressed, then the memories will be more mentally damaging should they ever resurface.  By learning to live with traumatic memories, a hero can go through life along with any serious objective.

In conclusion, whether someone has superpowers or not, he or she must prove themselves worthy of being a hero.  A person must learn to live his or her everyday lives with the hero’s burden in order to prove his or her psychological capability.  A person must beat the odds they face in order to prove their worth.  But most importantly of all, to be considered as a hero, a person must prove trustworthiness through the actions and objectives he or she makes.

Works Cited:

Herzogenrath-Amelung, Heidi.  “Ideology, Critique, and Surveillance.”  Triple C.  11.2.  (2013): 552.  Web.  10 Mar. 2014.

O’Reilly, Julie D.  “The Wonder Woman Precedent: Female (Super)Heroism on Trial.”  The              Journal of American Culture.  28.3.  (2005): 274 – 281.  Print.

Trushell, John M.  “American Dreams of Mutants: The X-Men – Pulp Fiction, Science Fiction,          and Superheroes.”  The Journal of Popular Culture.  38.1.  (2004): 154 – 162.  Print.

Ubelhor, Anthony.  “The Hero’s Journey Defined.”