But haven’t Super Soldiers and Assassination Thrillers been done already?

So haven’t assassination thrillers and super soldiers been done before?

Nice title (scoff, scoff) — who’s the chump that publishes on this blog anyways? Asking if assassination thrillers and super soldiers have been done is like asking whether I would like an extra scoop of ice cream. It’s rhetorical, but nonetheless important.

My arguement, one that is currently unknown to the world of academia, is that supersoldier tales are actually an underpinning of our modern culture, and they are that way for a reason. Bigger than life tales always require bigger than life villains, and when that is done just right — presto, instant storytelling perfection. You may laugh but you know its true. Tell me what’s better, Harrison Ford as Han Solo or any movie with Harrison Ford in a shirt and tie. Or how about this one, Sigourney Weaver in Aliens or Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl?

All right, I’ve made my point and that point is that great fiction needs big and complex characters with bigger than life skills, clashing in believable yet extreme battles of wit, will and individual talent, that play out in high stakes scenes while the very future hangs in the balance. All true — but could that ever get taken too far?

In a heartbeat.

Did anyone out there see Robocop? Admittedly I didn’t get it. The second part of my theory is that bullets and steel are never the fictional match of stealth and subterfuge. Think of the first Terminator — a movie with Schwartzeneggar’s plodding automaton would have never even been direct to video without the hundred and sixty pound human in the trench coat and sneakers, armed with an almost useless shotgun as he fought a running retreat by jumping over counters and scurrying behind garment racks in the nick of time as the indestructible Terminator oh so patiently closes in on him.

This is the type of fiction that the world needs more of — but more on that later.