“Well, despite what you think, Syndi,” I said, “I am impressed by how much you’ve accomplished—and not just for someone your age, but for anybody of any age. Your LSAT manual is apparently the most effective one on the market, and my own agent said your editor swears you wrote every word of it, even though you’re only nineteen and you’ve never been to law school—”
“Of course I wrote it! I wrote all my books!” she said, climbing onto a display case next to a standee of herself. “Why’s that so hard to believe? People are, like, always underestimating me just because I express myself on my own terms!”
“So you don’t see your manuals as an attempt to make other people live like you do?”
“I’m, like, helping them?” she said, vaulting from the display case onto the top of a decorative pillar. Miraculously, despite her heels she did not fall. She stood up straight. “That’s not controlling them!”
“Yes, but don’t you think Iron Lass sees her actions the same way?”
“I don’t care what she thinks, Eva! Whose side are you on, anyway? I don’t exactly feel supported here!”
“Syndi, my job isn’t to be on anybody’s side. It’s to be on everybody’s side.”
“Gawd, what good are you then?”
“Syndi, did you ever think that using your HEAT Ray on others might be a violation of their rights?”
She chewed her gum furiously for several seconds, as if hoping her mastication might provide clarification. “Their rights?” she said finally. “What are you talking about? Because I included them in my meness?”
“People have a right to freedom, to individuality—”
“Eva,” she said from atop her pedestal, “why wouldn’t anybody want to be me?”
Iconquest: Id-dentity Crisis and the Power of Narcissism
Part of the id’s purpose is to assert its host personality onto the world to ensure its host’s continued existence. If I get enough, says the id, I will exist another day.
But unlike the narrator from the classic disco song “I Will Survive,” the id isn’t satisfied with “enough,” because enough is never enough. The id always needs more, or specifically, more than anybody else. So “enough” becomes “more than” which becomes “all.” And even then, the id fears that all can be taken away; therefore crushing the capacity of others to resist becomes paramount.
Narcissism is the id’s assertion of itself, not just over its host but over others as well. It is the illusion that one’s own needs are not only more important than other people’s needs, but that one’s own needs are other people’s needs.
Because Power Grrrl was a highly narcissistic personality, she could not understand that my role as therapist was to aid everyone from her team and not to be her own personal ally or avenger. Nor could she understand that her paranormally overdeveloped id was the true power source of her HEAT Ray and that her use of it fundamentally abused the people whom she dominated.
Most of all, perhaps, narcissism blinded Syndi to her true reason for disliking Iron Lass: their similarity. Both iconic heroines sought to control others, believing such control was a boon rather than a bane.
But while Iron Lass was overbearing, her attempts at control were manifested through blame, guilting, and manipulation, all of which still provided some chance for resistance. Power Grrrl’s HEAT Ray provided no such chance for escape…a reality that led, indirectly but inescapably, to the July 16 massacres.
Clash of the Icons
You come from a large family, isn’t that correct, Hnossi?
And royalty, too?”
Iron Lass’s gaze flickered over to Power Grrrl before she looked back to answer me. She’d done that several times since we’d reconvened inside a neutral Id-Smasher® mindscape both their brains had selected, a badlands grove of buttes at sunrise.
“Ja-a-a-a…?” she said slowly.
Power Grrrl coughed into her hand, except it wasn’t a cough—she’d barked the word phony, eliciting a glare from Hnossi.
“Syndi? Is there something you think we need to attend to?”
“Like, aren’t we supposed to be honest here, Eva? Because I happen to know one or two things about this ‘icon’ over here. And they don’t square with what she’s been saying?”
Staring back at the young woman, Hnossi’s face looked as coldly cutting and metallic as the grille of a 1955 Pontiac. I asked the elder woman to respond, but when she said nothing, I pushed further. “Hnossi, am I missing something? You’re Hnossi, daughter of Odin and Frigg, the royal family of—”
“Oh, Eva,” sighed Syndi, “I thought you had a better builtin BS detector—I can’t believe you fell for Hnossi’s ‘royalty’ shit.”
“Vatch your langvidge!”
“Watch this,” said Syndi, cupping her pudenda.
“Ach, Kvasir’s bowl! Vhere’s your vhistle now, Frau Doktor? I shouldn’t haff to stand here unt take ziss—”
“Please, ladies—let’s deal with this properly. Syndi? You said I fell for an untruth. So what is the truth?”
“Like, there’s more than one Frigg in the Norse pantheon, Eva? People always think that the other Frigg, also known as Freyja, is Frigg, the wife of Odin. And Iron Lassy there just lets ’em think that. Like, isn’t that deceit or something? Doesn’t that violate some sort of Aesir honor code-thingy or something?”
“So, Hnossi, you’re not related to Frigg, wife of Odin?”
Iron Lass: “…Nein.”
“So why have you let people believe—”
“If people make ziss mistake on zeir own, am I suppost to take all my time to correct zeir misconzeptions? I have a life, Doktor, of teachink claasses, gradink papers, providink guidance in ze F*O*O*J—”
“Lying…”
“Syndi, please. All right, Hnossi. We can get back to family of origin later. Let’s see here…you became a Valkyrie, correct?”
“Ja.”
“Why’d you join?”
Her eyes were like switchblades, swinging their glinting tips between Syndi and me. When she spoke, the indignation of her words grated like the fingernails of the damned on a blackboard in hell.
“I vaanted,” she said, “to be part of sumsing devoted to ze greater goot. Vhere honor vut alvays vanquish self-indulchence. Vhere clarity uff vision decisively defeatedt ze false promises uff moral relativism.”
Syndi rustled in the scrub grass, about to interrupt. I intervened.
“And you felt you weren’t getting that at home?”
Syndi laughed, snidely enough to spoil yogurt. “I bet that wasn’t the only thing she wasn’t getting at home.”
“You’re a disgraceful lout!” said Hnossi. She looked furious enough to knock down the buttes around us. “Everysing for you is sex, sex, sex! Do you have a sinkle uzzer sought in your headt? I’ve devotedt my entire life to—”
Syndi mouthed the words along with Iron Lass. “Justice, honor, diknity!”
“Yes, zat’s right, little girl. Mock me all you vaant! But for centuries vimmen haff looked up to me as an example—unt now, sanks to people like you, I look aroundt unt find a generation of tarts more devotedt to diamond tongue studts unt causink media scantals zan achieving power in politics, in ze vurkplace—”
“Your problem, Hnossi, is that you not only don’t like men, you don’t like women, either! You liked being the only woman in the F*O*O*J! How long was it after Lady Liberty, like, died that the F*O*O*J got its third heroine? Twenty-five years? And that was only after a lawsuit? What walls were you breaking down then? Oh, almost forgot—you were too busy getting ready to break down your marriage!”
“You know nussink about ziss! You’re a disgraceful, disrespectful—you’d be better off viss a little more Germaine Greer unt a lot less Camille Paglia, young lady!”
“And you’d be better off with a little less Ayn Rand and a little more Frigg! The real Frigg, like, your mother?”
“You’re only in ze FOOCH to milk it for marketing, for synergy tovard your
next album, your next product line, your next Grrrl Guide on Tantric Flute Playink or vutever, or to launch a movie career! You haff no more devotion to ziss organization zan a tapevurm hass to a stomach! You need to straighten out your priorities! You need to chainch your life! You need to—”
“You need to remember you’re not my mother!”
Both women fell silent.
A hot breeze blew through the neuroscape, tugging at each woman’s hair, and the dust grew thick enough to choke on.
Syndi’s simple statement of fact seemed to have sliced through the argument like a dull ax through a forehead. And it was the last sentence I could wrangle from either of them for the rest of the morning.
CHAPTER FOUR
Iconoclastic Means “I Can!”
SUNDAY, JULY 2, 1:45 P.M.
Iconversion: Art for Heart’s Sake
Your task,” I told Hnossi, Syndi, Kareem, and Mr. Piltdown inside the Aesthetics Laboratory of the Hyper-Potentiality Clinic, “is to construct with the materials in this room a three-dimensional model of your own personal icon.”
“Good God, ‘Doctor,’ ” said Mr. Piltdown, “is there any floor past which you cannot sink? The finest flame of the Age of Heroism has just been extinguished, and meanwhile you want us to pretend we’re in grammar school so we can drawr pitchers?”
“Art therapy, Mr. Piltdown, is a highly reputable and effective means through which the subconscious mind can release its repressed fears, anxieties, grief, and yearnings. And during the psychemotional turbulence of having lost a figure of such importance to you all, to the country—”
“So the answer is yes, then,” said the brawny septuagenarian billionaire. “This is pointless. And if I’m to be subjected to this pointless inanity, why aren’t Wally and that dung-crawling tap dancer here to be punished alongside us?”
“Festus, please,” sighed Hnossi. “Let’s just get ziss over viss. Can ve do zat?”
He paused, finally nodding to her. “For your sake, Hnossi.”
“Sank you. Continue, Frau Doktor.”
“Thank you, Hnossi. To answer your question, Mr. Piltdown, André isn’t feeling well—”
“Either a hangover, or a ho-over,” muttered Kareem, possibly louder than he thought (or possibly not), “number seven hundred and thirty-eight.”
“—and Wally said he’d be here, so I’m sure he’s just running behind.”
Flying Squirrel: “Running something, I’d wager.”
I looked to Mr. Piltdown, expecting him to elucidate. He said nothing.
I continued. “You have all afternoon. Look around the Aesthetics Laboratory. Use anything, from felts and crayons to swatches to minerals to industrial cast-offs, and employ whatever powers, skills, or talents you wish. All I want you to do is to evoke through art what moves you most about the person, group, or place that embodies your highest ideals. The point here, especially during this period of bereavement-processing, is to connect yourself with the power source of your emotional-intellectual nexus.
“While you’re working, I’ll ask you some questions about what you’re doing and why and how, and then at the end we’ll have some conclusion-and-contemplation work. So, go to it!”
Power Grrrl raised her hand.
“Yes, Syndi?”
“Is there any of André’s baking left from the other day?”
“No, Syndi.”
“Like, could you call him and ask him to bring—”
“Just focus on ze verdammt assignment, Fraulein ‘Grrrl’!”
“What-ever!”
Iconograffiti
Because actual icons—the type held in museums—represent our most esteemed virtues, we might assume they must be constructed exclusively from genuinely precious materials such as marble, gold, or achillium.
But during Europe’s Middle Ages, a thriving trade in faked icons saw horse molars sold as the teeth of Saint Paul, splinters sold as shards of the True Cross, and bear’s hair sold as clippings from the beard of Solomon. Clearly, the composition of an icon is irrelevant to its purpose—that being the focal point for our contemplation.
So if you’re prevented from confronting your own inadequacies because you’re prostrate in front of a golden calf that’s been thrust upon you, or if you’re stuck inside a narcissistic id-loop of worshiping yourself, then right now, put down Unmasked! When Being a Superhero Can’t Save You from Yourself, and take whatever random materials you have in your apartment, headquarters, cavern, or hideout and build an icon of your own.
When you’re done, resume reading the chapter and follow along with my heroes. Write down your own answers to the questions I ask them, and take part in our final exercise. What you discover may put you much closer to freeing yourself from the cold clutches of your own psychic supervillains.
Iconstruction
My team quickly surveyed the room, each seeker securing the materials necessary to build his or her own icon, or in Mr. Piltdown’s case, seizing the resources he thought others might require for their work.
I noticed that the dynamic detective was also depositing pamphlets around the room—red-white-and-blue glossies whose covers featured his own cowled scowl beneath the slogan RE-TURN TO HONOR, PRIDE, & GLORY and above the phrases ELECT FLYING SQUIRREL and DIRECTOR, F*O*O*J OPERATIONS. No one so much as glanced through one, not even Kareem, even though the tract was a direct challenge to him.
But while Mr. Piltdown tried to spark Hnossi’s interest, to his obvious disappointment she was much more concerned with the three-yard-wide broken slab of granite she was hefting from the industrial cast-offs section of the Aesthetics Lab and laying across the floor of her workbay. Syndi had dragged over a mannequin and gone back for armfuls of cloth scraps and cans of spray paint, while Mr. Piltdown began by flipping through a stack of magazines, constantly casting looks over his shoulders (whether from angry suspicion or embarrassment, I’m not sure).
X-Man, however, was standing at his workbay without tools, without materials, without scraps. His eyes were closed, and he remained motionless.
From behind me was a simultaneous rush of frost and heat—Iron Lass had manifested her white and black swords, alternately freezing and melting sections of her vast granite slab before shearing them away.
I noticed Mr. Piltdown had become completely still—not due to gazing at Iron Lass but because he was fixated on the inside of a 1979 issue of Time from which he’d been tearing out images and text.
He stood staring at a full-page photograph of a beautiful, slender-muscled young Asian man in tight green shorts, a tight red leather vest, a short yellow cape, and a shiny black mask with stubby, furry gopher-style ears. His legal name, which had not been revealed when the article was written, was Tran Chi Hanh.
Back then he was known to the world as martial-arts ingenue and Flying Squirrel sidekick Chip Monk, North America’s first Buddhist superhero. And its last.
“You were once his icon,” I said as quietly as I could to Mr. Piltdown. “Before…before he left you.”
He looked down at me, his eyes burning like piles of discarded hospital waste. “That was before he ended up in therapy,” he hissed, “with the likes of you.”
“Looking up to anyone as much as Tran did to you can be very destructive to one’s ego integrity—”
“The word therapist, Miss Brain,” snarled Mr. Piltdown. “You put a space after the third letter, and you get the rapist. Chip fell into therapy, like any street junkie falls into smoking maki. That’s what ruined him, not—”
“I can’t imagine the burden you carry, Mr. Piltdown, of having to be an icon, always having to be perfect, never being able to make a mistake. Because the distance to the pinnacle that people believe you’re perfect, it’s to the same depth they’ll be furious when they inevitably discover you’re not.”
“Tran’s betrayal, Miss Brain,” he said, “wasn’t because of any perceived imperfection on my part. You brain-shredders! Devoting your lives to splitting marriages, ruini
ng families and organizations, digging up depravities that should be repressed and reanimating them in front of a crowd—”
“Perhaps the real problem, Mr. Piltdown, is being someone’s icon within a close relationship. It’s inevitable that worship decays into contempt, because worship is ultimately about being trapped, being a slave.”
“The only slavery I see here, Miss Brain, is your cultish, psychopathologizing claptrap!”
He returned to his Time, tearing the picture of Chip Monk down the middle and glancing at 1979 entertainment coverage of Ragnarok Now!, the Oscar-winning film about superheroes suffering from Post-Power Stress Disorder. “Tran Chi Hanh, the boy I raised as if he were my own son, betrayed me. Betrayed me because of a very sick and very evil little man.”
He turned his burning glare on me, then on everyone else, but no one was looking back. Had they heard him, they all would have instantly understood his reference—to the premier scandal of Reagan-era superheroics.
In 1980, after rumors of an ever-degenerating relationship between the senior hero and his sidekick, Chip Monk resigned at his first, brief, and final press conference.
And then he disappeared for more than four years.
Surfacing in 1985 under his legal name and fresh out of law school, Tran began his new public identity as an intern at Human Citizen, the premier antisuperhero public-interest law firm headed by the archnemesis of the Flying Squirrel—Jack Zenith, author of Unsafe in Any Cape and Two Masks of a “Hero.”
“ ‘Betrayed’ you?” said X-Man from his workbay, his eyes still closed. Apparently someone had been listening to Mr. Piltdown after all.
“Interesting wording, Festus.” He chuckled. “You sound like a lover scorned. Of course…that’s exactly what everyone said actually happened, now isn’t it?”
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