Heroes Without Capes

I grew up idolizing superheroes. Spider-Man was my first, as I watched the old television show version climb up buildings and shoot rope webs from the contraptions on his hands. I had Marvel action figures, DC action figures. I had comic books. I had underoos. I'm a nostalgic sort of person, which is why I really wish I could get more into the MCU and DCU movies. They're a bit too blockbustery for me, as I prefer the darker and grittier Netflix versions of Daredevil and The Punisher. By any account, I see heroes everywhere I turn in movies, more specifically in the more unconventional types of heroes. Some may not recognize them the same as I do, but I thought I would highlight a few of my favorites.

10. Leo (Mute)
After his girlfriend and the love of his life, Naadirah, goes missing, Leo (Alexander Skarsgard) embarks on a mission of silent justice to get her back. After a childhood accident leaves him unable to speak, Leo coasts his way through a futuristic Berlin cityscape with Naadirah at his side. She's chosen a difficult living for herself, but Leo doesn't care, totally and completely loyal to her foreign charms.


Costume: Traditional Amish dress
Weapon: Bed post he carved for Naadirah
Cause: To Find Naadirah at any cost
Weakness: Inability to speak
Sidekick: None
Arch Nemesis: Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd)




9. Zorro (The Mask of Zorro)
Zorro has been around for a long, long time, and here, we see the retired one, Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins), pass the torch to career criminal Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas) to stand against a Spanish tyrant. Zorro takes on the colonial powers that be, a Robin Hood of sorts to the people in Old California. De la Vega trains his new pupil well, and they fight back to back as they try to win the affections of Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

Costume: Black outfit and hat
Weapon: Spanish rapier
Cause: The fight against tyranny and to avenge his brother
Weakness: Anger over the loss of his brother
Sidekick: Don Diego de la Vega
Arch Nemesis: Don Rafael Montero and Captain Harrison Love




8. Sadie (A Vigilante)
If Sadie (Olivia Wilde) isn't a superhero for the modern age, I don't know who is. As a life's mission, she helps battered women escape the clutches of their abusive husbands by training as a boxer and beating the snot out of the callous men. She then gives the women everything they need to start a new life for themselves whilst disappearing into a cloud of car exhaust. A Vigilante is an intense movie, but it comes full circle for Sadie, showing us just why she feels compelled to do the work she does.

Costume: A plethora of disguises
Weapon: Boxing skills, handgun
Cause: Emancipating victims of domestic abuse
Weakness: Grief over the death of her young son
Sidekick: None
Arch Nemesis: Her survivalist ex-husband




7. Liu Siu-Jian (Kiss of the Dragon)
In Kiss of the Dragon, Jet Li plays a Chinese intelligence specialist on assignment in Paris. He's cooperating with French intelligence to bring down, and to bring home, a Chinese criminal passing through The City of Love. When they double-cross him, kill his mark, and then try to kill him, he crosses paths with Jessica Kamen (Bridget Fonda), an indentured servant to intelligence office Inspector Jean-Pierre Richard (Tcheky Karyo), the same one trying to kill Jian. Jian is a hero because it eventually becomes less about him and more about reuniting the battered Jessica with her daughter, the one being held captive by Richard.

Costume: All black outfit
Weapon: Kung-Fu, acupuncture needles
Cause: Clear his name, help reunite Jessica with her daughter
Weakness: Limited resources
Sidekick: Jessica Kamen
Arch Nemesis: Inspector Jean-Pierre Richard




6. Sean Donovan (Boy Wonder)
Sean Donovan is a regular, reserved teenager bent on avenging the car-jacking death of his mother. He starts small, fighting every day crime in his city, but it will all lead him back to his ultimate quest. He's not a seasoned vet by any means, which is why he leaves a few clues behind, setting him into the cross hairs of newly-anointed detective, Teresa Ames. What's a good hero story without the constant threat of being caught?

Costume: Black jacket, hood, face paint
Weapon: Handgun
Cause: Avenging his mother's murder
Weakness: Inexperience
Sidekick: Detective Teresa Ames
Arch Nemesis: Larry Childs




5. Leon Montana (The Professional)
The Professional is a dark, gritty movie with a tenderhearted relationship at its core. Leon is a Italian assassin living in Little Italy who's very particular about his plants. Matilda (Natalie Portman) bears witness to the murders of her family at the hands of crooked DEA agents, led by the drug-infused, highly unpredictable Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman). After they strike up an unlikely connection, Leon and Matilda are soon hunted by Stansfield and his goon squad, which kicks the finale into overdrive.

Costume: Trench coat, hat, sunglasses
Weapon: Silenced handguns, high-powered rifle
Cause: Protecting Matilda
Weakness: Love for Matilda
Sidekick: Matilda
Arch Nemesis: Norman Stansfield




4. Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China)
Along with Indiana Jones and John Rambo, Jack Burton tops the list as far as '80s action heroes go. He's what you get when you mix John Wayne with a hyper-reactive teenage girl, tough, sure, but often can't seem to get out of his own way. He makes his buddy Wang's problems his own, following the Chinese-American into the bowels of a Chinatown hell. He faces weather-inducing baddies, Kung-Fu minions, an age-old sorcerer, and Little China street gangs to get his truck back, and to rescue Miao Yin from David Lo Pan.

Costume: Chinese-themed sleeveless shirt, jeans, knee-high boots
Weapon: Sub-machine gun, boot knife
Cause: Rescue best friend's girlfriend
Weakness: Himself
Sidekick: Wang Chi
Arch Nemesis: David Lo Pan




3. Max Rockatansky (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Successor to the character Mel Gibson made famous in the '80s, Tom Hardy takes over the mantle of Mad Max in Fury Road, where the crazed, Valhalla-obsessed sons of Immortan Joe rule the desert wasteland of dystopian Australia. Max Rockatansky gets in the way and is used as an unorthodox hood ornament. That is, until he crosses paths with Imperator Furiosa and the innocent, freedom-craving young brides of Immortan Joe.

Costume: Dusty leather jacket and pants, boots
Weapon: Double-barrel sawed-off shotgun
Cause: Freeing the brides of Immortan Joe on Fury Road
Weakness: Haunted by his past
Sidekick: Imperator Furiosa
Arch Nemesis: Immortan Joe




2. Eric Draven (The Crow)
Eric is the only member of the undead to the make the list, but that doesn't stop him from being an unconventional hero. A year following the unrightful deaths of he and his fiancee, Shelly, Eric is resurrected by a crow to wreak vengeance on the killers, and the guy who calls all the shots at the top. He has a lot of pieces to connect before he can get there, but the crow is his guide, giving him the supernatural powers he needs to rights all the wrongs done to him.

Costume: Black outfit, leather jacket, face paint
Weapon: Invincibility
Cause: Avenging the death of Shelly
Weakness: Vulnerability of the crow
Sidekick: Detective Albrecht
Arch Nemesis: Top Dollar




1. Driver (Drive)
As soon I saw Drive, I immediately thought of Driver as a hero. The notion comes not only from the soundtrack song, "A Real Hero" by College, but by the scorpion insignia on the back of his jacket, and by his actions. He's not trained in the arts of heroship, but Driver will stop at nothing to protect the young woman he's fallen in love with.

Costume: Jeans, boots, scorpion jacket, leather driving gloves
Weapon: Hammer, car
Cause: Protecting Irene and Benicio from harm
Weakness: Trust
Sidekick: Shannon (Bryan Cranston)
Arch Nemesis: Bernie Rose

INFParadigm

I have long associated Regency poet John Keats, indie rock star Jeff Buckley, and Aussie acting talent Heath Ledger with one another. All three died young, creating their best works before succumbing to the tragedies that took them away from us forever. Another aspect that binds them is that they were all three INFPs, the personality type associated with only about 4 percent of the population. I am also an INFP, which is likely why I feel such an affinity with Keats, Jeff, and Heath. All three possessed a certain quiet, awkward calm that could erupt into moments of sheer brilliance.

John Keats was born in 1795 and died in the year 1821. Though this is a twenty-six year time gap, he died at the age of 25 of tuberculosis in a room overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome. He had earlier trained to be a surgeon, but found the work not for him, preferring to pursue his dream of being a poet - a profession which kept him from the love of his life, Fanny Brawne. Though they were neighbors for a time and spent many of their waking hours together, a fact chronicled in the movie Bright Star, they could not be married. In order for Keats to marry Fanny, he would have to support her and provide for her with a "real job." Fanny had secretly been a fan of Keats' work, even though his first collection of poems was shunned by critics. It wasn't until after his death that people began to recognize the brilliance behind his Romantic poetry, and now he is considered one of the greatest English poets to ever live. He's also one of the most tragic, next to Percy Shelley.

Keats was of short stature and bright-eyed with a strong nose and a soft voice, though he claimed a strong since of principle and justice, the first to speak up for the least of these. He found beauty in all things that most took for granted, especially his Bright Star herself, Fanny Brawne. These are all character traits of an INFP, non-confrontational except when encroaching on integrity and brimming with a colorful inner-world that likely kept him alive for as long as it did. Consumption was a familial disease that took away his mother and his older brother, Thomas. I own an old copy of his poems, published in the year 1921, one hundred years following his death. I've stepped foot into the room where he passed, saw the bed he died in, stared face to face with his death mask at the Keats-Shelley Museum in Rome. I own one of his many biographies, Posthumous Keats, and all of the above things connect me to a man I revere but will never meet.

I first came across the creative wiles of Jeff Buckley in 1995, a year following the release of his one and only completed album, Grace. I first heard "Last Goodbye" from the album, a pensive but optimistic track that has long been my favorite song of all-time. Jeff Buckley, born Scott Moorhead, is the son of legendary singer/songwriter Tim Buckley, who had been an absentee father to his son. Even though Jeff eventually took the surname, he shunned early advances from producers and record labels who wanted to cash in on his connection to Tim. Jeff was determined to make it on his own, and subsequently did, playing shows around the coffee house scene of Manhattan as a solo act. After achieving commercial success with the release of Grace, Jeff returned to the studio in Memphis, TN, to record his follow-up album, My Sweetheart, the Drunk. On a whimsical night out with friends and band members, no drugs or alcohol anywhere in sight, Jeff was caught in the undertow of a tugboat while swimming in Wolf River, a tributary of the Mississippi, where he tragically drown. Fans were devastated. I was in a record shop when I heard the news, and I promptly returned to a record shop when Sketches For My Sweetheart, the Drunk, the unfinished "sketch" of songs Jeff was planning to release, dropped on the public. At the end of 2019, In His Own Words, a chronicle of Jeff's diaries and doodles was released, which was I was gifted with for Christmas. It's sad to read, knowing he's no longer with us, but the book, and his albums, whether finished or not, are things I will always treasure as a die-hard fan.

As an INFP, Jeff gave us a fleeting view of his inner world through his highly-descriptive, imagery-riddled songs. While he was an introvert, he was often goofy and completely in his comfort zone when performing in his element, much like I was when I dabbled in music for many years. Jeff embodied the feeling portion of an INFP, as did Keats, and I often refer to Jeff as a modern Romantic poet for the ages. Jeff was kooky and kind, soft-spoken but sure of himself in his abilities without being brash or boastful. He didn't just sing. He soulfully crooned, and he simply felt, transmitting his inner world to us so we could catch of glimpse of the highly unique person that he was. And strangely enough, Jeff resembled Keats, not only in soul, but in outward appearance as well.

I first saw Heath Ledger in the 1999 romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You. He was tall and gangling, handsome and very Aussie, transferring into school as the new bad boy. I then saw him The Patriot, at which point I officially became a fan. Heath had a great look. He was highly awkward in interviews and was generally kind to everyone around him. I found myself drawn to his work, and so I followed his career right up until his tragic death, seeing him traverse the world for his friends in The Four Feathers, seeing him play an Aussie Robin Hood in Ned Kelly, and watching him go from priest to sin eater in The Order. His best role, and breakout role, was his next to last. He breathed new life into Gotham City's Crown Prince of Crime in The Dark Knight, giving us a certain Joker character we'd never seen before.

Heath died soon after, some say as a direct result of his role as the Joker. In preparation for the role, he locked himself away in the dark and really tried to fit inside the head space of the mentally decrepit character, even going so far as to keep a Joker journal. He was having trouble sleeping and found himself riddled with anxiety, so he crossed medications for both and died of an accidental overdose. Both The Dark Knight and his final movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, were released posthumously, with fans and critics alike lauding Heath for his remarkable performances. Heath was an up-and-coming actor, one of my favorites for the roles he chose, for his performances, and for his dedication to being who he was in a profession that often morphs people into something else entirely. Heath is the third point in my triumvirate of INFP champions, and I will always watch his movies fondly, especially The Dark Knight, and Doctor Parnassus, in which Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp, and Jude Law resumed the character he was playing when he died, and subsequently donated their paychecks to Heath's infant daughter, Matilda.