With Great Power

It's been said that there are only two things someone could find endlessly interesting. The first is another person. The second is a real good story. We can enter the same story again and again when its themes are universal. A great story will hold up a mirror to ourselves and our time -- showing us what we share with men and women of all times. There has been much talk presently over former President Bush and current President Bush and the tremendous conflict that approaches for our nation. Perhaps it'd be wise to step back from the daily headlines and consider those universal themes of fatherhood and power. The two are not unrelated, and we might see this more clearly through one of my favorite stories: last summer's movie, Spiderman.

In our story, Norman Osborn is a father who hardly sees his son. He's the CEO and the brains behind OsCorps, a defense-contracted engineering company. Norman's 17-year-old son, Harry, having failed to live up to his father's standard of success, is a real disappointment. Norman turns away from his work only for the time it takes to buy Harry something. Harry has no special significance in his father's eyes, but receives equal treatment _ as a pawn. Norman finds Harry's friend Peter to be far more interesting. Peter Parker, boy genius and class nerd, shows the kind of technical prowess that Norman is more than willing to exploit. Norman Osborn never neglects an opportunity to dismiss his own son in favor of Peter.

Peter Parker has no father. He does have an uncle. Uncle Ben, both in his character and relationship with Peter, is the antithesis of Osborn. Ben believes in honesty and good, solid work. He lives modestly and loves his wife, Mae, more than himself. And it is quite clear that he loves Peter for who Peter is, not what he can do. When Peter fails to meet his uncle for the house-painting job he promised to help with, Peter does not face a raging lecture when he comes home late that night. Instead he finds a prepared plate of dinner in the fridge. Ben's sweet note attached exudes the kind of love that chides misbehavior but proves a constant willingness to forgive. Ben embodies that grace that any awkward boy needs to be loved into the man he ought to be.

Norman Osborn and Peter Parker. What happens when great power enters both these lives? Osborn grabs power for himself. In a desperate attempt to save the company he's made his life, Osborn tests an experimental body armor on himself. He is given great strength and formidable technological power. His own power begins to seduce him immediately. At first it pleads and promises. If only he would give it free reign, Osborn argues with himself, his power could fulfill his every desire. So Osborn accepts the mask of the Green Goblin, killing anyone who would stand in his way. Before long, the Goblin mask is not persuading Osborn, it is commanding him. The power of the Goblin overshadows Osborn, and the mask becomes the person.

Peter does not avoid having problems with power. Yet Peter suffers not from using power, but from not using it. Peter's power is thrust upon him. He is bitten by a radioactive spider that endows him with superhuman strength and agility and the ability to walk up walls. Peter too, seeks his own desire, and uses his power at amateur wrestling, aiming to buy himself a car. When he is stilted by his bookie, Peter stilts him in return by not stopping a looter he could have easily caught. In Peter's eyes, this was simply not his problem. This inaction would prove fatal, not for Peter, but for Uncle Ben. Later the same night Peter finds Ben the victim of a mugger _ the very same robber he had let go. Peter realizes that Ben had been right with that old fatherly wisdom: 'with great power comes great responsibility.' Peter becomes Spiderman, ready to make the problems of others his own.

Osborn and Parker's decisions soon bring each other into conflict. In one of the key scenes of the story, the impact of the fatherhood in both lives shows its greatest effects. The Goblin makes Spiderman an offer: "Why do we fight," he says. "You and I are exceptional people. The teeming masses out there exist to prop us up. Reject those ungrateful weaklings and join me, and we will rule together." People are still mere pawns to the Goblin; if his own son was merely a means to an end, how much more disposable are the citizens around him. To the Goblin, it is the right of the strong to rule the weak. How does Spiderman respond? His reply is as powerful as it is simple. It is 'naive' in the eyes of many. It is something Uncle Ben would say: 'No. That wouldn't be right.' Peter knows there is a right and a wrong in this world. Though he is strong, he would rather become weak so that the weak might be strong.

Peter's convictions do not save him from more trouble; they actually cause more of it. The Goblin, enraged, wages a war on Peter's loved ones, bringing the two of them to a climatic final scene. The two are alone, and the Goblin is near defeat when he suddenly pears to change, appealing to the bond he had with Peter as Osborn, the desire to be 'the father you never had.' Power has so corrupted Osborn's being that he's not above lying and deceiving his enemy over the most precious of human longings: for a father's love. Peter sees through the deception because he knows what a real father's love is, and is confident in the father Uncle Ben was to him. The Goblin's death-trap, meant for Spiderman, is sprung on himself, and in dying he gasps a shameful, 'Don't tell Harry.' Corruption comes full circle as Osborn's tool of power, having become his Master, becomes his own destruction.

What can this story tell us about today? It's much more fun for the reader to think about that on their own. But if I had the ear of President Bush and his administration, I might highlight a few things: The lesson is clear that unchecked power is sure to corrupt; no man or woman is free from its lure. Yet we also see that wrongdoing will not go away by being ignored. Someone's problem could be anyone's problem. "With great power comes great responsibility." There is no hint of trite or irony when Uncle Ben says this. It is not a boast. It is not meant to be an arrogant swagger, justifying an unrestrained 'calling' to remake the world. It is also not an excuse. It is not meant as a sneer to intimidate into inaction or frighten into complacency. It is a sobering call for humility and for courage, and it means what it says.

For what it is worth, in our situation a rough family comparison in the application of this truth might be illuminating. Our 41st President, in his recent speech, spoke of the consistent impression he made on his children of the value of self-sacrifice and service to the public. President Saddam Hussein has instructed his sons on how to build lavish palaces for themselves, enforce a secret police, and kill the opposition. George H.W. Bush made every possible effort to help his sons into the political life, and then let them go to lead their own lives.

Hussein's favor towards son Udai as his heir (to a 'republican' Presidency) began to fade when Udai was partially paralyzed. Positions that could have been Udai's went to younger brother Qusai. Udai, not happy with such limited power, appeared to be enough of a potential 'problem' that many in the Mid-East in the summer of 2001 wondered if Hussein would 'solve' Udai the way he had other 'family problems' _ with a bullet ("The Republic of Kings," Sahar Kassaimah). George H.W. Bush's happiest day of his life came long after his presidency, the night when both his sons became governors. Who is more likely to know, at least, that justice is not the rule of the stronger? I pray it is our President.