Super - Human?

Good evening, you’re in for a real treat tonight on the world biography channel and I am both fortunate and excited to be your host. I don’t want to give anything away, or toot my own horn, but I’m going to educate you and your family about one of the most amazing people on this planet. Let’s just say, what you will soon learn will satisfy all you ever wanted to know about this incredible person. It’s a real “out of this world” story, so get your popcorn ready, your beer open, tear off the foil cover to that TV dinner, and just sit back and just enjoy as I, Blake Dimendull, teach you about your favorite Superhero, your only Superhero, The Iron Shield.

It was almost fifty years ago when he came to our planet. That’s right, in case you didn’t know he’s an alien, but honestly who really wouldn’t already know that he’s not from our world. His planet is almost two hundred light years away, we call it Seti 234B, he called it home. It was a planet torn and divided, people that were at war for thousands of years. And one day, much like our planet keeps learning and evolving, they discovered how to make weapons and machines that literally ripped their planet in two. Out from his world a handful of survivors were sent out in pods to the far reaches of their galaxy and beyond.

When our hero first landed in Detroit he looked nothing like us, but, through the powers imbued in him and his people, he was able to mimic our shape. He took on the likeness of a man. At first, he tried to hide his identity, but a pair of glasses, hair gel, and some slouching didn’t couldn’t him for too long. We all know him now as Jack Reece. These days he stays more secluded, more private, just wanting to be a regular person, but he’s about as regular as a unicorn in a field of horses. Personally, I’ve always wondered if he can look like anyone, be anyone, why not just completely change his looks on any given day?

Anyhow, the Iron Shield was not without his growing pains, his learning curve if you will. For some time, before he was known to us all, he had issues, just like you or I or any teenager. Though personally I’ve never found myself in many of the situations he got himself involved in. His life became entrenched in drugs, drinking, and an impressive amount of debauchery. It’s even said he fathered several children, though no children with any of his godlike abilities have ever come out of…

Hold on, hold on, stop the recording, you’re getting off course a little. We’re here to cast a good light on our subject. Have you ever watched this show?

Yes, yes, I get that. However, let me delve into his darker past. Let the people endure some of his hardships, his digressions, so they can see his ascension. People enjoy a hero that rises like a phoenix up through the ashes to show his true form, his true colors if you will.

Okay, but remember this is a family show. This is going to air through prime-time.

Yeah, yeah, got it. I spent hours last night putting all this together, it really goes somewhere wonderful, trust me.

Alright, continue.

Let’s see, where was I? Oh yeah.

The Iron Shield felt the growing pains of any man, any woman, any one of us. He witnessed our tortured world as an outsider and, imbued with his godlike powers, decided he needed to help us, all of us. He wanted to save this world from the fate his own people went through. He saw the writing on the wall, as we all did forty years ago.

At that time the world was at the verge of its third world war. And far too many countries were armed beyond what was needed to blow this world asunder many times over. The major powers of the world were at their wits end and nearly every other country had taken sides. I for one was a young lad at the time but remember our drills in class, and I can tell you that even as a ten-year-old I was pretty sure that hiding under my desk wasn’t going to do me any good. We were, by every standard, at one minute to midnight, a mere sixty seconds away from the end of humankind.

At the time, our Hero hadn’t quite pulled himself out of what might be called his formative years. Still acting like a teenager in many ways, feeding his own lust, but many of those tales are possibly just rumors, and so far, nothing has been shown to really be true. What we do know is he found our drugs to his liking and developed a heathy thirst for alcohol as well. And his uncontrolled appetite for the two was, frankly, otherworldly.

Hold on, stop right there. Did the phrase “family show” mean anything to you?

Oh, of course, but at the same time people should know the challenges, trials, and uncommon life choices our hero had to make. It has been a long road for our hero to travel to become The Iron Shield we know today.

I really must say though that I really can’t work under these conditions. My mental process is moving forward, and you keep stopping it.

Well, I apologize, but we are the ones paying you. And honestly you weren’t our first choice. Morgan Freeman was busy however, and David Attenborough wanted too much money. So here we are with you.

Either way they can edit our what they don’t want, and I can always come back and fill in pieces where they need it. At my regular fee for any callbacks of course.

Or, and I’m just thinking out loud here, you could just stick to the script we gave you. I’m currently waiting to hear any part of that.

I could, I really could, but I was told that script was more of a guideline, and I could add and subtract as I see fit. Put my own spin on things if you will; a standard in the industry. So, I read over that heap of garbage last night and, for the most part, tossed it all. I mean who wrote that garbage anyhow?

I did. And I guarantee there was more truth in it than anything you’ve touted off so far.

I doubt that. I sat down last night with a nice Pinot Noir, I love a good Pinot, and did some research myself. Well, I let AI do the research really. I wanted to develop an understanding of our hero. I wanted to feel everything that challenged the depths of Jack Reece and The Iron Shield. He’s a fascinating creature.

Yes, he is. And that is what we want to tell people. No one wants to hear this crap.

I beg to differ. People will eat this up. And I’m just getting to the good parts. He saves the world many times over. There was the battle with…

Okay, feel free to continue, I really don’t want to stop you again so lets keep it clean and professional.

Thanks, I would rather not be stopped anymore either. It really is hard to work like this. Shall I continue?

Yes, I guess.

Okay.

The Iron Shield had few enemies when he first arrived. His main enemy at first was the greed and dysfunction of man. He became the recess attendant, making sure we all played well together. It was twenty years after he arrived when other conflicts arose for him. At first there were so-called super villains that wished him gone. But no matter how hard they tried, they were only human and nothing could stop him nor could anyone find any weakness.

Shortly after he jailed his biggest major threat, a woman named Rita Blackheart, his first otherworldly challenge came for him. The massive space monster Gidran, a shapeless gelatinous glob, came to earth with an appetite. The beast was dangerous to us humans in every way. First and foremost, it was radioactive. Secondly, if it touched any living material, plant or animal, this includes humans too, it dissolved and absorbed it completely. We tried our weapons against it to no avail. I won’t lie to you, there was a point where we all started to wonder where The Iron Shield was or Jack Reece either. Was he back into his drugs and booze? Lost in some Opium den somewhere?

My god, you are just making stuff up. We all know where he went.

Yes, I do, but not everyone does. Shall I continue?

I guess.

The Iron Shield finally arrived on scene, in the middle of downtown Chicago, where the beast had already rolled its way through and devoured a hundred thousand innocent citizens. Where was he we asked ourselves and was asked of him when it was all settled. He told us he was on a distant planet; he was gaining knowledge of Gidran so he could defeat it.

Whatever he might have been doing we will never truly know. What I do know is that Lake Michigan will never be the same. After he tossed the beast into the waters the contents of the entire lake turned to poison; poison to everything and anything. What he later told us he learned was that the creature couldn’t survive in water. Water itself wouldn’t destroy Gidran but submerging it in a large body of water would defeat it. The Iron Shield then smartly dammed the lake off at the northern end to prevent the poison from spreading into the other great lakes.

We needed Gidran gone, but the cost was over four trillion gallons of fresh water and a surface area of almost twenty-three thousand square miles. If that was the extent of things we all could learn to live with it, but the water eventually seeped into several tributaries as well as just into the ground around it. That area, that unlivable area, the poisoned earth, has doubled each decade since.

You’re killing me. Why? Why get into these unresolved details?

Truth man, everyone deserves the truth. He saved us, but it’s believed that the creature only came here seeking whatever strange radioactive signature The Iron Shield exudes in the first place. So maybe, just maybe he was at fault.

Speculation. You are just taking all the conspiracy theories and turning this story into speculative sci-fi drama.

That may be, but your audience will eat it up. This will sell man. And it will finally get an Emmy or, at the least, a nomination.

Why would you get an Emmy?

An Emmy for outstanding narration, it’s the highest honor for people in my field. I think this story, this body of work, has that type of potential. David Attenbourough hasn’t received one, Morgan Freeman either. This could be my ticket for sure.

You’re an idiot.

Hold on there. This is becoming a hostile work environment. I’m a professional and I can’t believe how I’ve been treated. I demand your name sir. Who is this that accuses me of not knowing what I was hired to know?

Who am I? I’m the guy that hired you. I’m the guy that can fire you. And you are terrible!

Well, your failure to identify yourself will go down in my written objection. This is an outrage. I have never been so insulted in all my years of work.

Years of work? Just hold on there. You are neither a Freeman nor Attenborough, but you also weren’t anywhere near the top of any list we obtained. In fact, sir, you were just about at the bottom. The only person below you was Gilbert Gottfried. You at least have a more pleasant voice than him. And you certainly won’t be getting an Emmy for this or anything anytime soon.

How would you know who they’ll pick? I have a great voice, and I was going to turn this into something to talk about. Something that would be talked about at the office around the water cooler.

Maybe, maybe people would talk about it. They would most definitely be laughing uncontrollably at you, and it would only undermine the legend of The Iron Shield.

Legend? Have you looked into anything about him? After Gidran there was a string of lesser beasts and aliens that came here for him. All, and I mean all, were suspected by many to have been transported here by The Iron Shield himself. He’s a false hero. A false Super anything. People need to know the truth. He’s just an alien tossed onto our world and I’m not sure if he even likes us.

Well sir, you have earned yourself a ticket out the door. Feel free to show yourself out.

You can’t fire me. Only the producer or director can fire me. So again, I ask, who are you anyway?

That is the question isn’t it? Who am I? Well, I am Jack Reece, The Iron Shield himself. And if you think anything you’ve said is true. If you think you can know me at all from your AI search, you’re dead wrong. No one’s ever tried to know me, no one’s ever cared. I know so many, and no one’s ever tried to get to know me at all. You called it a lust for sex, that’s all they wanted, I just wanted to make a connection. And you, from pinot induced Google search, certainly knows nothing.

 I will try to enlighten you, but I want you to shut up and really listen. If I seem like some kind of superhuman I’ve been greatly misunderstood and my purpose here is overblown. You’ve all put me on some pedestal. A pedestal I clearly don’t deserve. The only part of me that might be human are my flaws. And the parts of me that seem super to you humans are more of a curse than you might think.

This world surrounds me, and the people admire me, yet I feel completely alone. I go through life with everyone knowing me but no one, not a single person on this planet, actually knowing me. On the flip side people are guarded around me, hiding behind their own created facades, so, in turn I know so many of you without ever really knowing anyone? How can I feel so abandoned even when the world adores me? I’m in a world of strangers, a world that drowns me and suffocates me with their own delusions of who or what I am.

Are you really Jack Reece? I would love to get your autograph.

You haven’t heard a word I’ve said have you. I’m neither Super nor human. I’m just mistaken for something, someone, that you all have fabricated in your heads, your love for superheroes. This world doesn’t deserve one. What I wouldn’t give for my own Lois Lane. Yes, I’ve read the comics. She actually loved Superman; she was at least one person who understood him. I have yet to find that inside anyone. Sure, there are many who love what they think I am, and what they believe me to be… but there isn’t an ounce of compassion or concern for me at all from one single person.

No autograph? Okay, am I still fired?

Yes, please just leave.

Okay, sorry it didn’t work. Where can I pick up my check? I really feel like my ideas were misunderstood.

Yes, you were the one who's been misunderstood.