The problem with being a superhero is the melancholy that plagues the alter-ego. When the cape is sent to the dry cleaners to get rid of the blood and the boots are in the shoemaker to get the heels replaced from running faster than light, the alter-ego is left to deal with the aftermath.
Such as it is with the Wraith.
Her alter-ego, mild-mannered writer/director, Susan, is left looking at what the Wraith has done in the past couple of weeks in the name of righting all the wrongs and doing everything right and making sure the balance hangs perfectly in the world. And it all seemed like a good idea at the time, when one is the Wraith. Striking out to put an end to ambiguity and deciding that taking her toys and going home was a good idea at the time leaves the mild-mannered W/D wondering if it really was. And the Wraith doesn’t always consider the feelings of those she is rescuing, regardless of whether they want to be rescued or not. The alter-ego then must deal with the questions and the doubts that consumer her every moment. The Wraith is impulsive and impetuous without thought, without care, because she’s a superhero. She can be. She just doesn’t stick around for the end result.
The mild-mannered W/D does. She looks at the chaos that the impetuous one has caused and wonders if it was all worth it. Maybe being impulsive isn’t the best thing to be. Maybe following an instinct that seems right at the time because it seems that it will put everything into perspective and right the wrongs isn’t the right thing to do. Maybe sometimes just sitting down and thinking things through is the better way to be a super-hero. Sometimes, it seems that the superhero part just makes things more difficult and more muddy.
The alter-ego must deal with the doubt and insecurity that the Wraith doesn’t have to. The alter-ego deals with the loneliness that comes both after the media and frenzy have gone away and with the emptiness that some of the Wraith’s actions cause. The Wraith never questions, the alter-ego is only about questions.
The alter-ego obsesses on things that can’t be changed – that moment in time when the Wraith left the note behind for the friend to find, without thought of consequence, only that it would make things right; that moment when the Wraith lashed out at what she thought was a minion of Sucha Flert, never realizing it was just a silly, lonely girl at a bar, looking for attention. Those are the moments that the alter-ego must deal with on rainy, dreary Saturdays, while the Wraith is resting peacefully somewhere inside her psyche, convinced that she has done the right thing.
This makes the alter-ego incapable of action because the superhero is all action. So the alter-ego cannot act when in situations where action is required. She hesitates, knowing that there are consequences for every word, every deed, because she deals with the Wraith’s consequences all the time. She cannot deal with her own as well.
So the alter-ego sits alone, watching the world go by, wishing that Guy would realize that she is the Wraith but knowing that he never will. Trying to figure out why, if she is a superhero inside, she can’t just seize the moment and be Wraith-like while in alter-ego mode. Trying to just get through the day until the superhero inside can be let out again, to run rampant and reckless, to be free and mindless, to be the Wraith once again for a while, no matter what the consequences.
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