The world looks so calm. So peaceful. It’s hard to imagine that 500 years ago I was just beginning to see the dangers and evil in the world and now I can’t help but see all the beauty that I was fighting for this whole time. If I’m being honest, I miss those days. The brand new suit, all yellow and green and blue. The villains with the catchy names and shticks that would sometimes make you wonder if they were actually villains or just people trying to make a brand. I miss those days… I never knew it would start to change though. At least, not in the way that it did. The villains got more and more brutal and more and more destructive in their crimes. The weird part was it started to feel like the heroes changed too.
Isn’t that weird? All of my friends who were once just as bright and as colorful as myself started to become darker in both suit color and philosophical view. I was left behind and thought of as childishly optimistic and innocently naive to the way the world works. Really! These kids who grew up loving me and wanting to be me are all of a sudden telling me how to be a hero! It’s ridiculous!
Of course though, at some point, you can’t help but start to see the world that way. When even heroes start destroying the city and claiming they're saving it and they start fighting with each other or becoming “anti-heroes” you just start to wonder if you really understand what’s going on. I’ll be honest, I almost quit a couple of times. Hung up my cape and my cowl and just wanted to lead what normal life I could, but I never did.
And look at me now. Sitting up here in a satellite I built myself over the years filled with old memorabilia from past heroes, villains, and adventures. It’s like a museum that I live in every day. I still go and fight crime when I’m needed, but now the planet is so populated with heroes that I don’t really think I’m even needed. The name of Mighty Imperium is no longer a household name. No longer a name that strikes fear into the hearts of scum and villainy. Now that name just reminds people of how the old days were. The funny part of it all is that I haven’t really gotten any weaker. I can still fly, deflect bullets, but now that I have grey hairs and my suit isn’t full of gizmos and gadgets, I’m old school. I don’t mind though. All these technology-based villains confuse the hell out of me anyways.
I miss my villains from when I started. Professor Pharaoh (an archeologist who opened the tomb of a cursed Pharaoh), Mrs. Mortiferum (with a touch of her finger she could kill or raise the dead), Dino-myte (part Dinosaur, part explosions expert), Big Foot (not the cryptid, just a dude with massive feet), and who could ever forget, Fire Man Stan (dressed like a fireman with a hose that literally shot fire.)
Oh well, times change. One of these days I’ll be back in style, but even if I’m not, I’ll happily live out my days in my satellite of the past and watch as the heroes of now save the world I once protected. That is the way of the Mighty Imperium.
