And now for something completely different

So I was reading some of the back-issue comics I picked up for Romel since he's been filling the gaps in his collection. I don't usually read Spider-Man since I'm more of a DC guy but one of the character monologues really struck me. Say what you will about comics being a "lesser" literary form but some writers are just damn good. This is from The Sensational Spider-Man #41, written by J. Michael Straczynski and penciled by Joe Quesada; it's an exchange from an alternate, washed up Peter Parker to the regular Spider-Man (italics).

"So who're you?"

"Oh, well, I mainly work in software design and testing. Computer games mostly... first person shooters, space combat games, super hero stuff. Yeah, kind of fell into that right after high school."

"Well, that sounds like it must be kind of a fun job."

"You know why guys like me get into games like that? Because there's something missing. We look around at a world where there used to be a chance of being a hero, of being important... and it's just not there the way it used to be. You can't just pick up a gun and become a gunfighter, or go off and explore for a new world, or pull a sword out of a stone, or rescue a damsel in distress, or-- So we play games and we read books because the world we got isn't the world we thought we were supposed to get, the world we thought we'd been promised by somebody. Because things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to. So we go someplace else."

"But those places don't really exist."

"Yeah, well, nothing's perfect, right? If I could do any of those things in real life, really be those things, a hero, somebody who could change the world, save lives-- I guess I'd be the happiest guy on Earth. I'd never ask for anything else. Wouldn't need anything else. I'd be grateful. Because the rest of the world never gets that chance."

 Good words from Pete to, uh... Pete.

38

My honest words are spent on ears that seem
To turn and turn away as seconds pass
From hours to days and silent weeks. I dream
Through clouded nights and look by twisted glass.
I should not hold my hopes too high or look
Too long into her eyes, whose gazes turn.
She walks her life in peace, between the crook
Of silence borne from speech. I do not learn
To hide enamored hopes. I sit and think: 
If I had courage, strength, or wisdom here
I'd find her hand in spite of fear and drink
Away my fruitless thoughts with love found near.
But I know I will never find this joy;
Such is reserved for men, I am a boy.

37

A skirting dusk lies fallow 'twixt my feet.
I see no nighttime eyes to scrutinize
My love. Or, least, they gaze in wait. How neat
The foreign ground, pecked through with cautious eyes.
I think her sun is fading from my sight.
But... I'd be wronged to write these thoughts as fact;
One hand in mine, her other to the night,
While both we play to tunes of her skilled tact.
I'd fall again, again, and evermore.
To speak, to move; the two are intertwined
Yet distant still as waves that meet the shore.
I stride sans mind in search of hope to find.
I know I care; that much is certain here,
But to what end? To what committed fear?