No More Heroes

There comes a time in every kid's life that he or she wanted to be a superhero. Beating up bad guys, saving the day, getting the guy or girl of their dreams—it was a pretty sweet deal, not to mention super-powers. Inside a comic book world, you can be anything and anyone you want to be. You can fly, teleport, lift fifty times your weight, be faster than light, breath underwater, talk to animals—anything. And the best part of a comic book life is that it's always a happy ending.

But as we grow up, we soon realize that those comic books and Sunday morning cartoons need to end. As we grow older, life begins to harshly teach us about its pains—Death, terrorism, suicide, corruption… we soon learn that bad guys tend to win too. There was no man in spandex to save an old lady from being mugged, there was no big green guy stopping the train before it falls to the ravine due to the broken rails, there was no caped vigilante disarming the bomb at the last second—there were no superheroes, no one saves the day.

During the 1950s, something bizarre shook the entire world. NASA found out that the sun was having strange irregularities with its solar flares. The big fiery ball in the sky was going berserk—climate changed all over the world, the icecaps melted, some cities drowned while others burned to the ground. Everyone soon learned from their scientists that there was a possibility of a solar flare hitting the planet, causing the face of the earth to be destroyed in an instant. Panic ensued.

The people couldn't take it and it was chaos. The manners these civilized people developed over the course of centuries deteriorated to barbarism. Everyone started looking out for themselves, governments were destroyed overnight and complete anarchy took place. Some people just gave up and ended their lives—some ended the lives of their own children to spare them the suffering and pain. Desperation and despair reigned for months.

Finally, the day when these humans predicted they would meet complete demise came to. The world was silent while all watched the sky. Bright and sunny on one side, dark and starry on the other—no clouds on sight. Some were holding their hands, just waiting for it to be all over. They saw the flare as the big ball of fire spat it out, it was coming for them.

The bolt of solar flare headed towards earth in light speed, incinerating every other space rock that crossed its path. Everyone braced for impact as certain doom awaits them… but the flare never hit earth. Miraculously, there was a certain comet near the planet that was on an unusual course—maybe because of the recent sun activity. As the solar flare made contact with the comet, its destructive power dispersed in an instant. A miracle, coincidence, fate having a twisted laugh—whatever it was, humans lived to see another day… but not without a great reminder of how fragile their lives are.

They might've dodged a catastrophic bullet, but they had been given a reminder for months. For half a year, all over the world, there was an aurora borealis-like phenomenon that transpired all over the skies. The curious minds of some men and women decided to study it and the more they analyze, the more they were baffled. The phenomenon might've been the result of the solar flare colliding with the strange comet and after the collision— the sky was showered with some sort o radioactive waves. They said it wasn't lethal that everyone should just enjoy the colorful skies for a while—they weren't aware of the real effect of the strange radioactivity.

No one remembers who the first was and when it started. But some people became more and more… powerful. Some people began to fly, some could lift a car with one hand, some began doing what they can only describe as magic, and some people began thinking like they had an IQ of two hundred and ten. Out of the ashes of near extinction, some people began to "evolve", "mutate" or just plain change. Out of the ashes of a crumbling world, something new was being created—a comic book world of super-powered people.