Spider-Man: Romecoming

It’s a Marvel after all these years, but I am still an unabashed Spider-Fan. And that’s true whether the man behind the mask is Peter Parker, Miles Morales … or Mattia Villardita.

If you don’t recognize that last name, don’t worry; you haven’t missed the box office smash “Spider-Man: Far From Rome.” Mattia Villardita is a man from northern Italy who visits sick children in hospitals dressed as the superhero webslinger. During the pandemic, that even extended to organizing video calls for pediatric patients, delivering Spidey-pizzas to them, and organizing a kids’ play area in his home town’s hospital.

It’s been a colorful way to help others,  and recently it’s gotten him international recognition. Photos of Spider-Man receiving a thank-you from Pope Francis on June 23 and then giving the Pope a mask of his own rocketed around the internet… to the amazement of Mattia, who didn’t learn of his applause until later, since, as the Irish Times noted, the Spider-Man costume didn’t have room to carry a phone.

“To tell you the truth,” he told the Irish Times, “I expected that this meeting could spark curiosity, but not that it would go all over the world.”

Unlike Mattia, I’m not surprised at all.

If ever there was a superhero for all of us, right here, right now, it’s the webhead.

I latched onto Spidey as a kid, buoyed by comics and games and episodes of “The Electric Company.” It was a neat fit – a young hero with a quick sense of humor and a mind that worked faster than his web-shooters. As I reached my teen years, I even had a bit of a Peter Parker look myself, albeit with blue eyes instead of the traditional brown hidden behind the mask.

But it didn’t take me long to see what really made his heart beat behind those red-and-blue long johns. And what makes him still work today.

Then and now, he’s one of us.

Superman routinely saves the planet. Spidey’s had his moments, but spends most of his time with more local problems (as befits “your neighborhood friendly Spider-Man”).

Batman has the resources of a billionaire to help Gotham, both in and out of costume. Spider-Man sometimes struggles to make the rent.

Wonder Woman fought to become a champion, Spider-Man chose to become one when he saw how badly he’d screwed up.

He goes into battle scared and covers it with jokes. He’s got troubles of his own, but doesn’t let it stop him from helping someone else.

Flawed. Limited. Struggling. And still trying to help.

That’s us. Even if we’re a little less flamboyant in how we cover our mouth and nose.

That’s the family friend who visits because they heard the lawn mower was broken … and then stays to help tame a backyard that had become Wild Kingdom.

It’s the daycare helper who’s in demand to read again and again because “You do the voices!”

It’s the steady hand on the trembling shoulder, offering comfort at a time when there’s nothing else to give.

It’s the realization that we’re all responsible for each other. And that if we each do what we can, however small it might seem, it can make a difference.

Even without a Papal photograph to prove it.

I hope Mr. Villardita keeps up the good work. I hope we all do. We may not be able to climb a wall or swing between skyscrapers, but together, we can spin up a super amount of help.

And True Believers, that’s a world-wide web worth having. 

The Face of Choice

A few days before he died, Heather saw footage of John Lewis in “Eyes on the Prize” and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“He looks so young,” she said in amazement.

A simple thing. But powerfully true. There on the screen was the young Freedom Rider, protester, orator and organizer. A face so different from the Georgia congressman so many of us had gotten used to, the man who had represented his district for so long that no one would have been surprised to see him turn up in “Hamilton” – as one of the characters.

Now all the faces belong to the past.

What face will we see?

That’s not as simple a question as it sounds. Like many people in many places, America loves its heroes. But we love them best when they’re safely distant. A Founding Father who belongs to a different time. A martyr cut down at the height of his glory. Crusaders and agitators whose messages can be carefully shaped the way we want to hear them, rather than have them inconveniently speak for themselves.

Lewis received an honor that many fighters for justice never claimed. He got to grow old. And so, for years and years, he got to remain a person rather than an image. Someone who could inspire people or irritate them, make them proud or make them angry.

The living get to do that.

They get to challenge us.

They get to embarrass us.

They even get to shame us.

Most of all, they get to remind us that they’re people. Not saints and angels from another realm. Not heroes conveniently written into a Hollywood script. But people like you and me.

And that can be the most humbling lesson of all.

Because if someone like you and me can do so much and stand for so long, it suggests that we could do it, too.

And then we have to ask ourselves why not.

For some of us, true, it’s a matter of opportunity. If you’re sweating and straining just to find $5 for a cheap dinner, simple survival looms much larger than leaving any sort of mark or legacy on the world. But for many of us – most of us – the answer is more unsettling.

For most of us, it comes down to choices. Often ordinary choices, that collectively have an extraordinary impact in what we do or what we ignore.

Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a piece about a photograph I’d found in a World War II history. It showed German soldiers throwing snowballs at each other in a train yard. Replace the uniforms with civilian clothing and they could have been anyone’s sons and brothers, taking joy in a winter’s day.

Ordinary men. Capable of laughter. Capable of silliness. And fighting for one of the most evil regimes in history.

Not monsters, safely separated from the human race. But people. Like us.

We can be our monsters. We can be our heroes. These are roles of our making, born of our choices.

Who will we choose to be?

John Lewis has left now, his choices made. Only his example remains behind. Will we remember a man, in all his complexities and contradictions, who left a mark and a job to be carried on? Or will we just remember a face from a documentary, a name from another time, a message from an old battle that surely has nothing to do with us?

Will we remember that we share the same story and the same potential?

Will we remember that our choices matter? And make them?

John Lewis’s face belongs to the past now. It’s time again to look at our own.

What will we see?