My First Superheroes (repost)

With superhero movies flooding the cinemas and Disney ruining one of my early cinematic role-models, Luke Skywalker, I got to think about the very first super heroes that were introduced to me by the very first superman in my life; my father.

My old man was a big fan of westerns, or I should say: spaghetti-westerns. The movies by Sergio Leone with music by Ennio Morricone contained my first cinematic super heroes. The nameless hero from A Fistful of Dollars was the first movie character that made me stand in awe of masculine badassery that was so incredibly cool I could think of nothing else than wanting to become just like him! Imagine you're in your early teens and you're a boy and you see this:

It was Clint Eastwood's first major role and, as the video rightfully says, a legend was born. Eastwood would continue to make many more of these gems. If you've never seen this movie or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or For a Few Dollars More, you're missing out. The untouchable anti-heroes in these gritty stories populate a hostile world but possess the superpowers needed to survive shootout after shootout. Long before the guided projectiles in Iron Man's suit, we had no-name's never missing quick-draw, long before Tony Tony Stark's super-brain we had no-name's wit and devious mind.

Not long after that dad introduced me to Mr. Harmonica in Once Upon A Time In The West, played by Charles Bronson. Now that movie is a true masterpiece in my opinion and it opens so strong. Watch a three minute clip from the opening of the movie: almost no words are spoken, but the imagery, the music and the sounds are mesmerizing; they paint a picture of a hostile world with close-up studies of worn faces that have known adversity only and look as desolate and unfriendly as the desert railway-station itself. And Bronson is every bit the bad-ass Eastwood was in the Dollars Trilogy.

Okay, these are not really super heroes, they're more like super anti-heroes ;-) But I still love them because they were my childhood heroes given to me by my dad. Thanks dad! Just because Ennio Morricone's music is so good, I'll leave you with Mr. Harmonica's theme from Once Upon A Time In The West:

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