Hero Essay

All heroes go through a tragic experience that they use to help others and stand up for what’s right, because what makes a hero is not the number of lives they save, but the lives they have helped. This is why with Batman as the fictional hero, Martin Luther King Jr. as the historical hero, and Andrew Manzi as the personal hero they can be used to show how a hero doesn’t need super powers nor to save a life to help others. While Batman, Martin Luther King Jr., and Andrew Manzi all are heroes, it is not because they may have saved a life because they used their traumatic experience to help improve people’s lives.

Batman is someone who went through the traumatic experience of having his parents killed at a young age but rather than going down the path of villainy he used this experience to help others. He used his tragic past to help “define his life, as he dedicated himself to becoming the world’s greatest weapon against crime—the Batman” (DC Comics). Batman used this dedication to influence his need to learn skills such as martial arts, stealth, and archery in order to protect and defend the citizens of Gotham. Even though Batman “has no superhuman powers, he is one of the world's smartest men and greatest fighters”(Batman). Batman has gone through many different feats of mental and physical anguish but has never swayed from the path of justice because he looks back at his past and sees that his parents would never have wanted him to be a criminal. So because of Batman’s past experience he doesn’t follow the path of a criminal but rather the path of heroism where he strives to save and protect all who are out in harm’s way.

Martin Luther King Jr. has faced much discrimination and racial segregation throughout his lifetime, and even though he got many death threats he never stopped fighting because he believed he could make a difference and bring equality among races. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for equal rights via peaceful protests and boycotts that of which at times put his life on the line, but this did not stop him because he was willing to fight for what he believed. Throughout his lifetime he touched many people both blacks and whites and showed people that if they stand together nothing is impossible. Martin Luther King Jr. put together “The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, a spirited call for peace and equality” (History) because after all the protests, boycotts, and fighting the only thing Martin wanted was equality for both blacks and whites. Sadly "On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.” (Martin Luther King Jr.).  Even after Martin’s death he was able to change the lives of many achieving his goal of equality even if he was not alive he was there in the hearts of all who he had touched. This shows that Martin Luther King Jr. was a hero because he used his past experiences of segregation and death threats to help the lives of others.

Andrew Manzi joined the U.S. Marines in 2003 due to the events of 9/11, before he was honorably discharged from service in 2007 as a Sergeant. “Andrew deployed multiple times to Operation Iraqi Freedom” (Manzi) putting his life on the line for our freedom, and country. The years following his discharge from service were “Turbulent”, but everything changed the moment he was introduced to surfing on the Rhode Island coast. He found surfing to be a release and a way to let go of the battle field and come back into modern society and has since used this to help others that have faced similar issues. Andrew “moved to Folly Beach, South Carolina, where he started giving surf lessons. On the beach, he met and bonded with other veterans, and he soon realized he had found a way to bring healing to their lives” (Dunn). But even through after the war Andrew chose to help and change people’s lives because it’s not the number of lives he may have saved but rather the number of lives he has helped.