A few weeks ago when I was in NYC, I met up with some of my old friends from grammar school. Thanks to Facebook, we were all able to reconnect and set a meeting in the Bronx. I had a great time and we all talked about the past and what happened to this person to that person. I made me think of so many things, both good and bad.
One could argue about how happy I was during my childhood, between watching my parents marriage crumble and the constant thought in my head that I was never good enough. I had always thought I was the ugliest one in class. I was mad short. My teeth were messed up. Getting braces was just another problem. I got picked by both boys and girls. So, grammar school wasn’t all that fun in my opinion. On the other hand, I learned to defend myself with words. I learn how to be sarcastic and cruel when I needed to be. But, in the end. I think we all just took it for what it was worth. I mean, we were kids after all.
My reflection, however is based on the fact that I feel that people (and I use the term people loosely because I am not sure it is based on anything more than a feeling) thought I would not amount to much. I generally got that sense. I remember thinking about one of the girls in my class that I had a crush on for many years. She was one of the popular was in class and all the good looking boys liked and for the most part she gave them their attention. Well to make a long story short, she belittled me more than one. She also belittled my friends too. I remember thinking that I will not let her do that to me again. I will never give another girl or woman the opportunity be make me feel that I was not good enough.
Even through High School, I would see her every so often and she would kindly wave as she walked by. I am always the nice person, I waved back (although I wanted to throw a rock at her). But, still the feeling was that I will make sure that I am better than she ever thought I would be. This is a feeling that I began to develop over time, not just for her, but for anyone that felt I could not do something. I am not blaming her for this drive I have to be better because again we were just kids. But, it is always a thought in my head.
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Black Super Hero Profile: Mr. Terrific
At a young age, Michael Holt showed remarkable intelligence, reading and assimilating the works of Bohr, Einstein, Planck, and Feynman, the pantheon of theoretical physics, at the age of six. He studied advanced science, space, and time “while other children struggled through Sesame Street. Holt displayed “a natural aptitude for having natural aptitudes”, as he called it, easily picking up and retaining complex skills and abilities that other men spent their entire lives perfecting. Before he began his career as a superhero, he already possessed 14 Ph.D’s (two in Engineering and Physics — including doctorates and masters degrees in Law, Psychology, Chemistry, Political science, and Mathematics) and was a self-made multi-millionaire with a high tech firm called Cyberwear (subsequently sold to Waynetech) and was a Gold medal winning Olympic decathlete. (taken from wikipedia)
I like personally like Mr. Terrific because he is by far the smartest Black Superhero. He has no powers other than his brain. He is the Chairman of a Super Hero group called the Justice Society of America. His trademarks are the T-Spheres that follow him everywhere. The are made of nanites the he created. To my knowledge he is one of the few Black Superheroes that have encountered open racism in his tenure with the JSA.
I give him a 4 of 5 because to me he is definitely on of the better superheroes that exist.
Anthony Otero 
