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Supes

11 Jun 2021

Today’s prompt: “Write a ‘bucket list’ for your favorite superhero.”

Superman’s1 To-Do List2:

  1. Travel back in time and save Lois Lane from being crushed in a faultline.
  2. Save Jimmy Olsen from superintelligent gorillas.
  3. Travel back in time far enough to pass eye exam, join the army, and punch Hitler.
  4. Travel back in time and save Mabel Lonagan, Mark Turullo, David Watanabe, and José Juarez (victims of a random trolley accident)3.
  5. Save Jimmy Olsen from time-travelling pterodactyls.
  6. Travel back in time and save as many victims of the Titanic as possible.
  7. Travel back in time and save as many victims of TWA Flight 800 as possible.
  8. Save Jimmy Olsen from mummies.
  9. Save Jimmy Olsen from lava monsters.
  10. Travel back in time and stop global warming. (Note to self – what’s the best way to do this? Introduce more efficent combustion engine plans to their inventors? Shut down coal mines? Punch CEOs of companies that are major polluters?)
  11. Save Jimmy Olsen from superintelligent gorillas (again).
  12. Save Jimmy Olsen from accidentally irradiating everything.
  13. Convince Batman to spend at least part of his immense wealth on good schools and other programs that prevent crime and recidivism, for fuck’s sake.
  14. Travel back in time and save Charlie Morton, Will Edgerton, and Mary Sokolowski from freak bridge cave-in.
  15. Save Jimmy Olsen from ghosts that smell faintly of blue cheese.
  16. Travel back in time and save victims of Mt. St. Helens explosion.
  17. Save Jimmy Olsen from time-travelling pterodactyls (again).
  18. Figure out what Lex Luthor is up to this time.
  19. Travel back in time and save Earl Rodgers, Dikembe Ware, Suzanne Framingham, Jun Chang-Xiu, and the Earth-1 version of [insert your name here]4 from lava monsters.
  20. Save Jimmy Olsen from switching minds with a gorilla.

  1. Of course Superman isn’t my favorite superhero, but he’s one of the most well-known to have the power to turn back time to fix things that went wrong, per the 1978 Superman movie. I’m personally way more into Marvel than DC. My favorite superhero changes frequently, but if you were to ask me today, I’d probably say my favorite is Squirrel Girl. Ryan North did an absolutely delightful run on Squirrel Girl a few years ago all about fun animal facts, computer science, female friendship, and Deadpool’s Guide to Super Villains trading cards. It was funny and heartwarming and I highly recommend it. ↩

  2. I realize this is supposed to be a bucket list, not a to-do list. But a bucket list is for things you want to do before you die, and for most superheroes, due to the revolving door of death, that’s just not relevant. A to-do list seems more appropriate. Some of them are a superhero’s version of mundane; some aren’t. But even though I haven’t read much Superman, my general impression of Supes is that he’s a man with relatively few regrets, so big splashy bucket list items might not be his thing. ↩

  3. No, you didn’t miss a major plotline. These, and many later names in this post, are neither real nor comics-canonical names. They are here to represent the many unnamed lives a theoretical superhero could save in the kind of ordinary accidents they are often depicted intervening in. ↩

  4. The main DC Universe is Earth-1. It’s where the superheroes we’re most familiar with live – Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, as opposed to, say, Earth-3’s villainous Ultraman, Superwoman, and Owlman. Likewise, the main Marvel universe is Earth-616, where the Avengers, X-Men, and other characters we are familiar with live. But in the Marvel multiverse, there’s another world called Earth-1218. That’s our world. The world with no superheroes. I’m not sure what the DC equivalent of Marvel’s Earth-1218 is. But rest assured, in that one, the one you yourself live in, you die at the hands of those lava monsters. ↩

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