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| If you enjoy hooded antiheroes, you really need be watching Arrow, CW Network. |
As I prepare to write the spin-off series to the Gentlemen of Scotland Yard, I've been working on a perplexing character, Detective Inspector Flynn Rhys, CODENAME: DRAGON. Flynn works as a double agent for Scotland Yard. He is the go-to gentleman for covert ops, and the occasional nasty bit of business. These unsavory jobs utilize his skills as an undercover operative, up to and including womanizing (scandalous sexual high jinx), as well as torture and assassination. His work for Her Majesty's government is of such a sensitive nature, he enjoys multiple identities and often wears disguises, or masks. Quite a character I'm working on. Is he a hero, an antihero or villain? I've come to believe, he's all three.
In between writing contemporary erotic romance novels, I have been studying the intriguing nature of masked men: superheroes, heroes, antiheroes, villains. I suppose, like the Greeks and Romans, we must have our minor gods and mythical archetypes, even if they are only entertainment for our leisure. But there is something else that's been bugging me. Why are these characters so easy to relate to? So archetypal? Maybe it is because, like these masked creatures, we often have different roles to play in the world––mother, wife, lover, writer––in essence we all wear several masks. A big part of the fascination is also that no one knows the identity of the masked hero/heroine. Perhaps it's easy to believe for a moment, that the masked man or woman might be you...or me...
Take for instance, Arrow (photo above). After being stranded on a hostile island, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen returns home to fight crime and corruption as a secret vigilante whose weapon of choice is a bow and arrows.
Zorro (Spanish for fox) is the secret identity of Don Diego de la Vega, a California nobleman during the era of Mexican rule. Dashing black-clad masked outlaw who defends the people of the land against tyrannical officials and other villains. He is too cunning (foxlike) for the bumbling authorities to catch, and he delights in publicly humiliating them.
Lone Ranger, is a former Texas Ranger who fights injustice in the old west with his Native American friend, Tonto. This masked hero is an enduring icon of American pop culture.
Batman is the secret identity of Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, industrialist, and philanthropist. Having
witnessed the murder of his parents as a child, he swore revenge on
criminals, an oath tempered with the greater ideal of justice. See a pattern here?
And who could forget the upside down Spidey kiss?
Lots of comic book heroes, and still very few heroines. Except for maybe...
...the unmasked, reluctant heroine, Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and
younger sister, and is forced to
represent her district in the fight to the death, Hunger Games.
Do you have a favorite masked hero, antihero or villain, if so please leave a comment. I will be giving away a copy (ebook or print) of readers choice: any book from The Gentlemen of Scotland Yard series or the Phaeton Black, Paranormal Investigator series.
***Note: Offer void where prohibited. Prizes will be mailed to North America addresses only. If an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) is available, the author may utilize that option for International participants. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants.
