When I was a kid, I loved the show Dragon Ball Z (DBZ). DBZ was an anime, which meant that it was developed in Japan and adapted for American audiences. The premise involved a group of fighters in an alternative version of Earth with supernatural powers like extreme strength, flight, and the ability to shoot high-powered lasers out of their hands, eyes, feet, etc. They fought against villains for the date of the Earth and fixed their problems using the Dragon Balls. These wish orbs allowed individuals to wish for anything they wanted which was usually reviving the dead due to the villains. The plots were simple, involved a lot of screaming, and had a lot of world-building.
I loved that show.
I’ve tried re-watching it recently and it’s a lot slower than I remember and the writing doesn’t appeal to me anymore. They’re making new episodes and they don’t appeal to me as much as an adult. This makes sense due to the show's aim at a teenage male audience.
As a kid though, I had this running idea for fanfiction where I was a part of the show. According to Wikipedia, fanfiction is fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator as a basis for their writing. I didn’t have the writing capabilities to put this idea into words, but I thought the bullet points might make a good medium article. Throughout the years, I continued to update the fanfiction based on my life, current events, and lately the story has been trying to answer the question, “How would the world react to real superheroes?”
In my fanfiction these days, aliens invade without quite explaining why. My theory is that if aliens existed and invaded Earth for the purpose of conquering the planet, it’s likely that they would come with a massive invasion force.
I asked my cousin who has a PhD in Astrophysics the question of whether aliens exist. He said that it’s likely that somewhere in the infinitely expanding universe that some sort of intelligent life exists on another planet. The likelihood of us finding them or them finding us is extremely low. Substantially lower than finding a needle in a haystack. If aliens were likely to find us, they would have to have a reason to find another inhabitable planet and have some kick-ass spaceships. I’m also skeptical of their ability to speak English like the aliens we see in movies and TV shows.
Let’s say a group of superheroes or one individual rose up to defeat the alien invasion. When that happened in my fanfiction, it was just me. I would defeat the aliens but be badly hurt by the situation. In my fictional superhero version of myself, I would have superpowers based on the situation. I wouldn’t be able to activate it at will, only when I was in danger and it would scale up or down based on the level of danger. No invulnerability and once the aliens were defeated my body wouldn’t be able to heal quickly. I also had the idea that I wouldn’t know where my powers came from.
I have to imagine that if a tall, Anglo-Saxon American had superpowers and saved humanity then a few things would happen.
- White supremacists/Trump Supporters would be extremely emboldened.
- Evangelical Christians would either deem the man Jesus or Satan.
- Forbes magazine would list this person as the most powerful person on the planet.
- The man would gain some political standing in the world and domestic politics until his political party was revealed.
- Guessing the person’s social media would light up.
It would be interesting to watch someone go from a nobody to the most powerful person on Earth overnight. Some folks would like to be afraid of someone with the ability to fly, shoot energy beams out of his hands, and great strength in times of crises.
