Super Villain

I had a bizarre dream. I was some kind of superhero, and I had to track down this terrible supervillain, and finally, when I found him, I saw that he had dressed himself up as a terrible patchwork of some other heroes. His costume was part Shazam, part Superman, etc. But he’s gotten it all wrong. He thought that the symbols were all about power. He saw them for what they had, not for what they struggled for, not for what they fought for; he saw only power and strength, and invincibility, and couldn’t see justice, mercy, or kindness, I had to explain to him one by one, he was a messed up composite of around six or seven heroes, and one by one, I have to tell him, that each represented this, not that, it was actually quite wonderful. Still, now I’m awake, and as dreams fade, the details are gone. I don’t remember all the heroes he misunderstood, or the exact composition of his costume, or the exact (mistaken) associations he had made for each, nor the exact substitutions I suggested for each association. We dream, and we forget…