May the real Avengers assemble!

I am just a sucker for a good superhero movie. I’d like to say that as explanation for the amount I peed my pants after seeing the greatest film since “Casa (freakin’) Blanca”: “The Avengers.”

It has it all. Bullets, muscles, heroes, vengeance and even that hunketty-hunk himself, Samuel L. Jackson.

The trailer alone was worth the price of an ordinary admissions ticket.

And besides all that sexy action, the film goes deeper to explore the classic themes of good vs. evil, insanity vs. justice and underdog vs. oppressor.

These themes led me, of course, to thinking about today’s real-world problems.

Forget about invading alien demi-gods and let’s think about poverty in the inner city.

Enough with these over-romanticized, black-and-white themes, and let’s talk about the standards of today’s education.

If only there were real Avengers to assemble.

This obviously leads us to the list of today’s top Avenger’s real-life identities.

 Let’s start with the easiest one and go ahead and reveal Tim Tebow as Captain America.

Not only is he an unavoidable 2016 presidential candidate, but he’s almost won, like, one Superbowl or something.

The assassin duo of the Black Widow and Hawkeye are obviously the real-life duo of Sarah Palin and John McCain.

The two killers are perhaps the scariest members of the Avenger team because they have no superhuman ability; they’re just really good at what they do, and they scare the pants off me.

I hadn’t been so scared of two people since the McCain/Palin ballot almost took the executive branch.

The Hulk’s modern-day reality man is none other than Wayne Brady — a perfectly nice man who’s a leader in his field, but when you get him angry (as Dave Chappelle can personally attest) you don’t want to be around because he’ll probably eat you. Just picture Wayne Brady turning all green and muscle-y. Yeah, not so hard, is it?

This leads us to Thor. Barack Obama. Both are semi-divine princes from a better place who help save people by being so pure and beautiful. Done.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have to recognize Steve Jobs as Iron Man. May Mr. Jobs rest in peace as the greatest genius on the planet. He made modern office software sexy. Again, done.

So with these heroes in today’s world, how could anything go wrong? May the god(s) bless and keep these fine Avengers that they may always be around when humanity needs avenging.

Oh, and, obviously, they are still led by Samuel L. Don’t be silly; that’s just obvious.

— mileonar@indiana.edu