As a kid, I was never really into comics. I watched the occasional Saturday morning cartoons, but beyond that the unique arcs and storylines of the Marvel and DC universes is something that I’ve only come to understand more of in recent years. Usually while a male paramour is rabidly trying to explain the schism of the X-Men and Inhumans due to IP rights and I just stare blankly and finish my bourbon.
That said, I’ve always been a fan of the hypothetical “if you had to pick one superpower, what would it be?”
Previously, my answer was always “the ability to take other folks talents” – which I know is like wishing for a million more wishes, but I figured I had precedent since the X-Man (or Woman? I don’t really know the proper vernacular here) Rogue pretty much had that same ability. And listen, I know there was a whole plotline where she couldn’t have sex or she would kill dudes by touching them. But I mean, couldn’t she just get some gloves? I digress.
My previous convictions are irrelevant anyway. The next time someone asks me what superpower I want, my answer is just going to be “Serena Williams.” Because you simply cannot convince me she isn’t a superhero at this point.
We all know that Serena is the best women's tennis player alive, and arguably the best of all time. (If you don’t agree, feel free to e-mail me your rebuttal and I’ll detail in painstaking fashion the exact amount of ways you’ve got the game fucked up. And then I'll find you and openhand smack you behind your left ear.) She’s inexplicably come back from presumably career-ending injuries in better shape than before. All while not even being a full-time professional athlete.
What I didn’t know is that when Serena isn’t busy assaulting folks on the tennis court, she is out here fighting crime.
Seriously. Serena busted out of a restaurant and chased down a petty thief without even batting an eye. I can’t even bother to give the teenagers who insist on playing music out loud from their cell-phones during my daily morning anything more than a stinkeye. The cops certainly wouldn’t have recovered it for her, even if she had Find My iPhone turned on (as I painfully learned the time my phone was stolen from a DSW). Props to her for saving the world from a 3,000 word Gawker article breaking down the leak of myriad of texts and voicemails of varying levels of simpitude and whiny passive-aggression of Aubrey Graham.*
At this point, do I even need to really make a case for Serena to be the next Avenger? I mean, what does Captain America do really besides be big and hot? We can kick him off the boat and bring some much needed diversity to the roster. Hulk doesn’t even want to be an Avenger! Let him go find love with Scarlett Johannsen. Avengers 4 (Or would the next one be 5? Or is it X-Men 5? What happened to simply numbering sequels? Subtitles are so hard to keep track of.) should have Serena front and center with a weaponized tennis racket and that catsuit she wore at the US Open.
Get on it Marvel. She has plenty of free time between the Australian and French open.
*I imagine they would all be along the lines of “I took Dior Kisha from VLive home after the show today, but I felt empty inside afterward because it wasn’t you.” Drake’s entire MO is romanticizing trash behavior.