Is it me or are the superheroes that populate the minds, televisions and computer games of today’s youth just downright scary? Most of them appear to be robots with bad attitudes that go around blowing up other robots with even worse attitudes. They all need to have a sit-down with Dr. Phil or Dr. Drew or Dr. Doolittle and relieve themselves of some of their deeply imbedded issues. Perhaps their robotic mommies disciplined them too much or their cybernetic dads didn’t pitch ball with them enough. Whatever the origin of their frustration, they need to calm down and allow the overcome-evil-with-good process to occur with fewer pyrotechnics.

Even the superheroes I grew up with have gotten dark and almost demented. Take for instance Batman. Lately I’ve seen commercials advertising Batman-related video games where he is tossing criminals through plate glass windows while smiling through razor sharp teeth and glaring through glowing red eyes.

I know all you comic book aficionados would point out to me that the “new age” Batman is how he was portrayed in the original issues. That’s fine, but I prefer the made-for-TV campy renditions from the 60s where Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin faced weekly perils such as being turned into human snow cones by Mister Freeze. Now that was entertainment.

I also appreciated the felonious feline antics of Ertha Kitt’s conniving Catwoman and the peculiar pranks of Burgess Meredith’s perilous Penguin. No real harm came to our heroes during the BAM, POW, BANG fight scenes. It was all pure fun and games with no video enhanced blood spillage.

Kids today seem to need all the hoopla of high-tech hijinks and computer generated gyrations. The kinder gentler comic book heroes of my day just don’t have the razzmatazz necessary to hold their interest. This is probably why you don’t hear much out of my favorite superhero of all time: Tarzan. Present-day kids would find him mundane and not worthy of a view.

I know what you’re thinking. Tarzan? He’s not a superhero. He can’t transform into a mechanical killing machine, or shoot webs, or start a tsunami at will. Still, he was always pretty cool in my book.
First of all, he was a man of few words. “Me Tarzan. You Jane.” That was his only pick-up line. He never had to use: “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” or “What’s your sign?” or “Hi, I’m Bill Clinton.” With sentences that would receive an “F” from any high school English teacher, he always got the girl. Now that’s heroic. Okay, so his wearing only a loincloth while sporting the body of a Bowflex fitness model was also to his benefit.

Secondly, he got lions and tigers and bears to do all his dirty work. With one Carol Burnette jungle cry, the animals were running the diamond smugglers and the pachyderm poachers into their “African Queen” boats and on down the Nile. How cool. I can’t even encourage my dog to go out the front door to relieve himself if a light rain is falling. And don’t get me started on getting a cat to follow through on a command without an indignant “Are you kidding?” smirk. 

Thirdly, he lived in a tree house and swung on vines. What kid wouldn’t want to live in a tree house and swing on vines? I would have loved living in a tree house, but my wife dissuaded it which was probably a good move. Child Protective Services may have frowned upon us raising children three stories above the ground without a net. In addition, how would we have baby-proofed our open-air kitchen when we had no cabinets on which to apply safety-latches? Another point to make is that the vine-swinging never seemed to work in real life as it did when Johnny Weissmuller did it. The vines I found along the Hardware River were never attached high enough to use for swinging from tree to tree. You could grab one, but you’d merely hang in the same position a foot off the ground—not a very effective mode of transportation.

Last, but not least, Tarzan was my superhero because he could run barefoot through a jungle. This, my friend is an amazing feat for only amazing feet. How did he do it? I barely walk in my house barefoot on account I might step on a discarded thumbtack, or straight pin, or stray plastic-coated bread tie. I’m a tenderfoot. Needless to say, I would never venture into the woods—much less the jungle—without a pair of steel-tipped Redwing work boots. There are all sorts of scary things out there I could step on like jagged rocks, sharp twigs, spiders, ticks and stray plastic-coated bread ties.
I married Scarlett instead of Jane. We raised our daughters at ground-level instead of high up in the limbs of a lumbering oak. My pets have never listened to me. I drive a Camry instead of swinging on vines. I am rarely seen in public without my shoes. And Lord knows if I donned a loincloth, I’d likely resemble Baby New Year than Johnny Weissmuller.

But sometimes on a Sunday afternoon, I’ll be clicking through a couple hundred channels to find something to watch and in between commercials of a red-eyed, demon possessed Batman and a new Transformer movie trailer with more explosions than Die Hard one, two and three combined, I’ll happen upon an old black and white Tarzan film with bad acting, fake vines, and a barefoot protagonist running courageously through the Amazon to save the beautiful heroine adorned in Eddie Bauer camping wear, and I’ll think to myself, “Now that’s a super hero!” as I stretch out on the sofa in my Snuggie and steel toed Redwing work boots.