We all know what superheroes are good at – saving lives (especially pretty women lives or old women lives), giving sexy firemen a serious case of envy fever by doing their job for them in a fraction of the time. However, while these superheroes are undeniably good at their main job, one begins to appreciate them a lot more when you realize that they have to run multiple shifts for that! Juggling between work and hero-time must get tiring, especially as not all of them are lucky enough to have the kind of fortune that Bruce Wayne does! Most of them are just your average run-of-the-mill working class individuals struggling to pay rent — and occasionally playing superhero instead of just Netflix-and-Chill. So here’s a countdown of some of the superheroes who make us wonder if their additional superpower is an ability to not need sleep!
Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man
Whether delivering pizzas 30-minutes late on the back of a scooter, or clicking badly angled pictures of himself as Spider-Man, one could argue that he’s pretty terrible at his day job. Add to that, the fact that his landlord is always after his skin about those damn rents! Tobey Maguire in the Spider-Man movies did a great job of capturing just how totally overwhelmed Spidey must have been — between a moody teenage love affair, villains out to destroy him and his family, a friend who suddenly goes dark, and the Domino’s 30-minute delivery deadline! It’s a wonder he managed to keep it together at all! But he did. Multitasking away to glory even if that resulted in the occasional lover’s quarrel.
Clark Kent, aka Superman
When not out flying Lois Lane around in his arms through the twilit skies or saving towers from falling down, he is crushing the dreams of millions of journalism students who thought the job would entail at least an iota of excitement. Nope, I suppose the glamour in proofreading and fact-checking the statistics of Metro usage doesn’t stand a chance against that of saving the world with a beautiful woman by your side. But it is precisely his diligence in sticking to it that is a source of such inspiration. Whether sitting at a desk station from 9 to 5 or flying around the world, it all has its station and purpose in life.
Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil
Unlike the previous entries in the post, this is the one that actually sees glamour even in the down-in-the-dirt copper plate lifestyle that the portrayal of the other two seems to revile. Matt Murdock, lawyer, is every bit as important as Daredevil, the superhero. It’s not just a day job, Matt Murdock and co. legally put away criminals brought to justice by Daredevil. That’s a pretty good hand-in-hand affair. Even though we are shown the law firm as a shabby, unbearably grim place in a low-rent neighborhood, there is romance in that. They stand for something. The job is important to them, to the city of Hell’s Kitchen. They stand up for the poor and disenfranchised against big corporations. And that is what makes Murdock’s back and forth between the two roles so much more heroic, because they supplement each other, proving that listening to disenfranchised tenants who pay in chicken barter is as important as running blindly down the streets in Red Spandex.
Kara Danvers, aka Supergirl
Her usual day goes something like this – get coffee for boss, save a truck from being crushed on the way, heat up the coffee with eye laser, get yelled at for being late, file some papers, take a break to go fight some bad guys, and on and on. Being an assistant to a catty Media Mogul while consecutively saving the world would put a damper on anyone’s day. But she manages to do both those things by being fiercely, unapologetically ‘girly’ and with a pleasant smile eternally plastered on her face, so much so that it can sometimes even get her boss, Cat Grant to occasionally smile through her botox! There’s nothing quite like beating the toils of multitasking, than doing so with a positive outlook.
Jessica Jones
A disillusioned ex-superhero who now spends her days and nights in back alleys photographing cheating spouses. She is willing to use whatever feats of strength or fear it might take to extort evidence that her clients are looking for. All of this while saving other women, and herself, from the influence of a dangerous mind controller by the name of Kilgrave. Jessica Jones definitely takes the trophy as the most non-superhero superhero. She just wants to go about her business and make her two ends meet but she inevitably finds herself roped in again and again, swirling back into her past trauma. If anyone, she has the most thankless and difficult job of them all, especially considering she does everything in the shadows and doesn’t ever seek acclaim or praise. Multitasking, and juggling jobs till your back hurts, they don’t necessarily pay out in rich rewards and acclaim, all you really need is to appreciate yourself.
Finally, you don’t have to be a superhero to multitask, to be able to handle more than one jobs at a time. Most of us handle several roles and tasks all together on a daily basis without even realizing it. Most of us live as heroes without even realizing it.
