I car­ry fond mem­o­ries of my school days at St Mary’s Col­lege in Port-of-Spain. Thank­ful­ly, dur­ing my time there, bul­ly­ing was some­thing I nev­er en­coun­tered, though it’s now a top­ic of con­cern among some alum­ni. My rec­ol­lec­tions, in­stead, are steeped in the grandeur of the ar­chi­tec­ture, the qui­et dig­ni­ty of the teach­ers, and the warmth of friend­ships.

While I was nev­er drawn to sports, I was an avid read­er. Any spare mo­ment was spent dart­ing off to near­by book­stores, im­mers­ing my­self in sto­ries. As­gar­ali Book­store, Smith and Al­fred, and a tiny sec­ond-hand shop at the cor­ner of Ox­ford and Dun­don­ald Streets be­came sanc­tu­ar­ies for my imag­i­na­tion.

The Chi­nese pro­pri­etor of that shop in­tro­duced me to un­for­get­table com­pan­ions: Fu Manchu, Char­lie Chan, Her­cule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Doc Sav­age, John Carter of Mars, and Co­nan the Bar­bar­ian. Com­ic books were every­where too—Stephens & John­son and Ross Drugs stocked the lat­est is­sues.

Each month, I ea­ger­ly await­ed new edi­tions of Bat­man, Spi­der-Man, The Phan­tom, Fan­tas­tic Four, Sil­ver Surfer, and Tarzan. I was drawn not on­ly to the ac­tion but to the emo­tion­al depth of these char­ac­ters. I was par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by the hu­man sides of these he­roes.

Spi­der-Man, for ex­am­ple, strug­gled with his re­la­tion­ships with Gwen Sta­cy and Mary Jane. Even Bruce Wayne, the seem­ing­ly in­vul­ner­a­ble Bat­man, was en­tan­gled with Talia, the daugh­ter of the vil­lain Ra’s al Ghul.

These were not just ac­tion sto­ries—they were emo­tion­al jour­neys, win­dows in­to com­plex char­ac­ters grap­pling with loss, love, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

To­day, in an era dom­i­nat­ed by so­cial de­cay and ris­ing crime, I of­ten ask: were comics a dan­ger­ous in­flu­ence, or sim­ply sto­ry­telling at its most imag­i­na­tive? My grand­moth­er’s tales of Douens, La Di­a­b­lesse, and the Soucouyant were far more ter­ri­fy­ing than any­thing I found in a com­ic. Yet those were ac­cept­ed as cul­tur­al folk­lore—moral tales de­signed to teach and cau­tion.

In 1954, psy­chi­a­trist Fredric Wertham, tes­ti­fy­ing be­fore the US Sen­ate Sub­com­mit­tee on Ju­ve­nile Delin­quen­cy, ar­gued that comics en­cour­aged sadism and emo­tion­al de­tach­ment. He spoke on peo­ple’s propen­si­ty to find en­joy­ment in watch­ing some­one else beat up an­oth­er per­son while they stand by un­harmed. He claimed chil­dren read­ing Su­per­man were ex­posed to “fan­tasies of sadis­tic joy in see­ing oth­er peo­ple pun­ished over and over again while you your­self re­main im­mune.” If Wertham had suc­ceed­ed, many beloved char­ac­ters might nev­er have been cre­at­ed.

But I see Su­per­man dif­fer­ent­ly. He’s an im­mi­grant, sent to Earth to es­cape his dy­ing world, raised by adopt­ed lov­ing par­ents, and taught to use his gifts for good. As a jour­nal­ist, he pur­sued truth and found his love Louis Lane. As a hero, he of­fered hope. In times of tur­moil, that myth of sal­va­tion—the idea of some­one com­ing to save us—res­onates deeply. It echoes our own long­ing for mes­sian­ic de­liv­er­ance.

Re­cent­ly, I was amus­ing­ly dis­ap­point­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s pref­er­ence for Su­per­man over Bat­man, men­tioned dur­ing an in­ter­view with Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly. Ram­bal­ly’s jok­ing­ly com­ment­ed, “This one re­al­ly hit me hard.”

Su­per­man and Bat­man rep­re­sent op­pos­ing world­views. Su­per­man stands for ide­al­ism, moral cer­tain­ty, and di­vine pow­er. He in­spires but al­so en­cour­ages re­liance. Bat­man, on the oth­er hand, is shaped by trau­ma. He watch­es his par­ents die, and from that dark­ness, forges a re­lent­less sense of pur­pose. He doesn’t have pow­ers—just in­tel­lect, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and will. He is mor­tal. Flawed. And, like some of us, he was mo­ti­vat­ed to help him­self.

Carl Jung de­scribed the “Hero’s Jour­ney” as a con­fronta­tion with one’s own shad­ow. Bat­man lives that jour­ney. He forces us to face our in­ner dark­ness and teach­es that great­ness can be forged from ad­ver­si­ty. As psy­chol­o­gist Dr Travis Lan­g­ley not­ed, while we can’t be­come Su­per­man or Spi­der-Man, Bat­man shows us that with grit and re­silience, we can rise.

With an elec­tion around the cor­ner, we might not find ac­tu­al su­per­heroes on the bal­lot. But we can look out for the vil­lains. Be­ware of the Cap­tain Colds—the thiev­ing op­por­tunists. The Mys­tiques—il­lu­sion­ists with great promis­es. The Chameleons—po­lit­i­cal Ju­das­es. The Lex Luthors—ruth­less busi­ness moguls. King­pin-the Big Fish. And yes, the Jok­ers—agents of chaos in pol­ished suits.

Come Mon­day, if you see these char­ac­ters in any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, do what Adam West’s Bat­man would do—Kapow! Bam! Vote them out. Give your vote to the Jus­tice League or Avengers of your choice. Cast your bal­lot not for sav­iours, but for those will­ing to do the work. Choose your Jus­tice League—or Avengers—wise­ly.