The Friends Every Superhero Should Have

So I recently watched The Amazing Spiderman and finally The Dark Knight Rises. Then went on to watch all the other batman movies, for the exception that is “Batman & Robin.” In the Amazing Spiderman Peter shows up at Gwen’s home seriously wounded and she proceeds to bandage him up. I later realised that it would be essential for a superhero have a friend that is medically trained. I looked into it and many Superheroes do have the same kinds of friends. Batman stated, “I don’t have the luxury of friends,” However he clearly does. So I did some digging and I’ve compiled a list of the friends a superhero should have. Most of them would need to know your secret identity.

*Some of the images used don’t necessarily illustrate what I’m getting at but hopefully you’ll get the point*

The Medical Professional One

This is probably the most important friend to a superhero seeing how many injuries a superhero usually gets. Bruises, gashes and in a worst-case scenario, breaking of the spine.

They couldn’t just show up at a hospital with serious wounds, questions would be asked. Sure you could do the first time round, coming up with an excuse like you fell….on a series of knives. After the third or forth time the police would get involved. And in America, prior to Obama care, the amount of money you’d go through would be ridiculous. So you’d have a friend who is trained. They could be a doctor, nurse or paramedic. It doesn’t really matter, as long as they stop you bleeding to death. You would show up at their place and they would patch you up without raising too much attention.

Now obviously they wouldn’t be able to fix everything. Small gashes and cuts are all fine and dandy but if you showed up with a bone sticking out of your leg or a bullet lodged in your shoulder it would be much different. They wouldn’t be able to have the resources in their home so they would have to bring you to a hospital. Once there they’d patch you up themselves with perhaps a few extra hands. With them there you’d both be able to play down the injuries to anyone asking questions.

The One in the Police

Now this is basically Superhero 101. Almost every superhero has a pal in law enforcement. Batman has Gordon. Spiderman’s got Captain Stacy. A connection that will you to strive towards justice together. Now this friend wouldn’t necessarily have to know your secret identity as you wouldn’t exactly be having dinner dates.

You have a friend in the police who’d be able inform you of any major issues like gang wars breaking out or major drug shipments coming in. They’d also be able to share some evidence, which you could analyse and contribute to the investigation.

They’d be able to try convince the police department that you’re a good guy and not some menace that they should hunt down ‘cause after serving justice can be tough when you’re the focus of a police chase any time some spots you. Also having links with the police can help your self-esteem, helping you to feel like you are one of the good guys, and that can go a long way.

Personally I think you’ve got three types of cops you should associate yourself with. (1) A police commissioner; with the commissioner on your side you know for a fact that they won’t think you’re a bad guy. (2) A police in the serious crimes unit; working with the SCU means you’ll be able to tackle mob bosses and stop disaster. Working with them means you can save the city on a greater scale. (3) A beat cop; a beat cops sees the city’s darkest secrets and working with him you can learn the crimes happening to people everyday, whether it be murder, burglary or rape. You can help save the citizens of the city.

The Successful One

The successful friend is more beneficial to your civilian. All in all, this friend should be generally better than you. Better looking, cooler, better style, charming and most important, wealthier. Much like how Harry Osborn was with Peter Parker.

With being the successful one they’d have a job, a very good job. Possibly an executive or head of a department, just generally a role of responsibility and leadership. And with this role they could get you a job. As a superhero it would be able tough to get a job (and even harder to hold one) so this friend would be able to find an opening for you. Either in his department, which allows you to disappear to save the day without him getting angry, or finding you an easy job where you work mainly by yourself so you could slip away from without anybody noticing.

This friend could also lend you money when you desperately need it e.g. rent and bills. He’d also be able to help you when starting up your superhero gig. There would be the cost of the material to make the suit, the cost of having to put together the suit yourself to avoid having someone make it for you. Then there’s the cost of gadgets, there’s the cost of designing, developing, prototypes, testing and then finally the creation of the final product.

This friend would also help you to conceal your identity. If your friend is great and successful it makes you look much more inferior and this means people are less likely to suspect you.

The One You Work With

To whether or not you get a job with the aid of your successful friend having this friend can be extremely helpful. While you are away fighting crime during work hours this friend covers you while you’re away.

For this partnership to work out you two should be in a similar boat, working the same hours at the same job. Its works better if use sit close together, either your cubicles are next to each other or you sit opposite each other. It doesn’t really work as well if he’s sat at the opposite side of the room.

Along with assisting in tasks he also can fill you in on anything that has happened that you’ve missed, so that you’re not confused if something comes up and you can pretend like you were there the entire time.

 The Smart One

Now as a superhero you can’t just fight common day bad guys, you will have to battle a super villain at some point and one of the things that makes a villain super is power. As evidence shows many super villains are very elaborate, with power such as controlling fire or electricity, to super-strength and even being forever encased in an impenetrable suit of armour. However every Villain will have a weakness.

Now not every superhero is a genius so figuring out a weakness can be tough and this is where the smart friend comes in. This friend would be an intellectual and have knowledge in a whole range of areas, possibly the most important, science. Now I’m no science expert but when it comes down to it science is the key to defeating a super villain.

The smart friend can also be useful if you’re still in school or university/college when being a crime fighter. He can lend you notes to help you catch up on all the work you’ve missed and maybe the occasional allowance of copying work.

The One With A Car/ The One With A Lot Free Time

This friend’s main duty is to save you when you’re unconscious and probably left for dead. And seeing how you fight crime all day, he has to be ready to get a panic call from you at all times, so best to get a friend with insomnia if you’re a night-time crime kind of guy.

One of the main key parts to this friend is that they have a car. So in the event you are beat to a pulp by an enemy and tossed in an alley you can call them and they can rush over and pick you up. Now realistically all this friend has to do now is to drive you to the medical friend.

The Super-One

As a superhero you can get bogged down with problems and dilemmas that other friends just won’t understand but it isn’t easy going it alone. That’s why you should always have at least one other superhero that is a friend.

With this super friend you can just hangout on the rooftops, talking about different things like how to balance a love life with the your lifestyle or swap humorous stories about past foes and battles. You could always do this with other friends but they wouldn’t quite get it. With a super friend you can feel a sense of normality with them, knowing you’re not the only one with these problems. Having a super friend also allows for superhero team ups, which we all know when done right are awesome. You learn new team-working skills, far more than you would at an office-training day.

Now you don’t have to reveal your identity to each other to be friends. Though if you do you will have to work on how to interact if you meet in average life. Now the chance of you actually meeting in normal circumstance could be quite slim. In a city like New York, with a population of 8,244,910, the odds of two people randomly bumping into each other are very fine. Especially on what jobs you have, if you are a IT consultant for some big corporation and your super pal is piano player in a VIP lounge at a fancy club, it is unlikely you will run into each through coincidence.

So those are the friends you should make sure you have if you plan on becoming a superhero, just encase you needed to know. There could be other people you might need to know if you’re specializing as a superhero but I’m just talking generally.

Spider-Man Is A Foul Bachelor Frog

Everyone knows who Spider-Man is. Peter Parker, nerdy high school, later college, student that gets bitten by a radioactive spider and develops superpowers, after losing his uncle Ben he devotes his life to saving the day under the mask of Spider-Man (Well that’s a pretty vague description but I doubt I need to go any further)

Though some of you may not be familiar with the “Foul Bachelor Frog.” The Foul Bachelor Frog is advice animal meme that depicts the activities of lazy single men.

Recently I came to realise that realistically (Probably not the right word to use seeing how I’m talking about superheroes) no superhero would be able to hold a relationship and would remain a bachelor until hanging up their costume. I thought I’d write this up explaining why Peter Parker is a Foul Bachelor Frog, though I should stress this is relevant to a lot of superheroes. I have settled on Spider-Man as my main subject for this for many reasons, mostly because Peter Parker is our everyday working class guy.

At the end of the day I think it boils down to two things.

1: The Foul Frog

2: The Bachelor

The Foul Frog:

I think one of the foulest things would be how much of a mess his apartment would be. Stuff would be lying all over the place, with rubbish across the room and I don’t think it’s necessarily his fault. Spider-Man usually operates alone when protecting the city of New York and seeing how it’s a pretty big city with a lot of crimes being committed it doesn’t exactly leave much time for other tasks. I believe with the constant crime fighting the apartment’s primary use would be a place where he could simply collapse on a bed and sleep, the odds of him making it to the bed would be slim. Then there's the fact that he also works at a photographer, which itself can take up a lot of time.
All and all the amount of time he’d actually spend in his apartment would be so fine that cleaning the place wouldn’t benefit him and it would simply waste time.

Then there's his diet, something that wouldn't exactly be called 'healthy'. This, along with many of his messy traits, would be down to his lack of spare time. Cooking an actual meal would take far too long so the best solutions would be to either eat fast food or eat microwavable food that would take a minute to cook. Regardless of what he would eat, few or none of his dishes would get cleaned and would lie around is a messy kitchen, if they even made it that far.

Thirdly his personal hygiene would be a little below acceptable. It could boil down to clothes and the fact that he would most likely be wearing dirty clothes. Everyday Spider-Man would return home with a costume drench in sweat, considering he would be swinging around a city all day fighting super villains, dirt and possibly rubble, so daily washing of the costume would be required. Now personally I’m under the impression that Peter Parker only owns one washing machine. When washing his clothes he would be required to washing his costume separately to his other clothes as it would be rather annoying having all your clothes red and blue, so the costume would take priority when washing. So the costume washes and is left out to dry. He wakes up, presumably after oversleeping, and rushes to put on the now dry costume. Now he has the costume he required plain clothes to go on top and seeing how he hasn’t washed any he’ll grab the first clothes available. Now dressed, he gathers the rest of his things and leaves, forgetting to put his dry clothes into the washing machine. Hence he’d be wearing dirty clothes all the time.

The Bachelor:

Peter Parker, along with many other superheroes, would never be able to hold a stable relationship, though in saying that he did eventually get married. Now it’s fair to say Peter has certainly tried to have a relationship but there’s always been things in the way. Whether it is she turns out to be an alien, a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, another superhero, if the Green Goblin kills her or the relationship is wiped from existence in a deal by the devil, those little things that can spoil a relationship.

 

For Peter Parker, initially getting a girlfriend should be very difficult. Any time there’s danger he disappears. Once Spider-Man has saved the day and everyone is safe Peter reappears with a lame excuse. This makes him seem totally cowardly to any girl and that from a right off should stop him getting a girlfriend. There is also the fact he’s never really around so no one can really get to know him.

Then there’s the maintaining of a relationship. Peter gets a girlfriend and everything is great, for the first week. Despite having the responsibilities of being a good boyfriend, the great responsibilities of protecting a city tend to be more important. So peter misses lunch dates, dinner dates, meeting her parents, Valentines Day, their anniversary and that’s just a few of the occasions. His usual excuse is that his work needs him and this makes the girl think he cares more about his job than her, instant grounds for a break up. He could tell the girl the truth and reveal he is Spider-Man but this opens a full new line of problems. There’s the obvious fact this information could put her in danger, there’s also the fact that she may not be able to handle the idea that Peter might get killed everyday and leaves him. Also, when should he tell the girl? He could leave it a couple months. (unless she sees the costume whenever he’s getting into bed) if he leaves it too long she would have most likely left him by that point. He certainly can’t tell them straight away, he’s not Batman after all.

At the end of the day Peter Parker would (and possibly should) be subject to awkward sexual tension and one night stands, which he would probably leave before dawn, seeing how he needs to be out there fulfilling his moral obligation to watch over the people of New York.