There are a few things to remember when you consider the path of a superhero:
Most of these super-heroes have enemies. Pah, who am I kidding, they all have enemies. And you know what? These enemies are always trying to destroy the super-hero, for some reason. Either by gassing the entire town, kidnapping the girlfriend, luring the super-hero up into a mausoleum, throwing him off a high tower, shooting him with the world's longest gun, killing the parents, spraying acid in his face, setting the goons on him, or just CACKLING MADLY.
These villains always lose. ALWAYS. Just remember that. There's always some tiny flaw in the plan (usually, hiring bodyguards with jaws made of glass) that our brave or punch-happy hero can exploit to save the day and look manly. You never see the super-hero losing, do you? Never see Spiderman being shot by the one guard with a good aim, plummeting to a wet death on the streets of NY. Well, perhaps in the new comic-books you do. The new comic books (the Dark Ones) think that the way to give these superheroes credibility is to have them being beaten up, raped, and murdered. Real good one there, lads. Except for one problem: SUPERHEROES ARE HUMAN BEINGS WHO CAN (usually) FLY. YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS ESTABLISHING CREDIBLITY ANYWAY.
Secondly, these superheroes usually sort of base themselves on animals. Why? I don't get it... what the hell have animals ever done for us? I mean, when you think about it, nothing. Sure, we can test out new types of acid on their eyes, but really, are the animals actually DOING anything? Or are they just lying there on a comfy bench, having acid poured on them? Exactly. I don't see why these superheroes don't base themselves on other humans. Hell, I'd cheer for Stephen Hawking Man, with his wheelchair of magic and his electronic voice of doom. Or, hell yeah, Jeff Brazier man, a superhero who doesn't do much except star in celebrity versions of shows. I don't know.
But, after all this, there's one superhero who has been sadly ignored by the comic book writers. A hero who is, at this moment, being destroyed and worn down by his enemies (of whom there are millions). A hero who is not based on an animal. Or a plant (its not Daisy-Man). Or, indeed, another person. No, this is far more sophisticated than that.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:
Like, wow. The apostrophe is the most misunderstood and mis-used characters in the English Language. Why can you dipshits not see that you DON'T NEED AN APOSTROPHE WHEN YOU ARE WRITING IN THE PLURAL? I mean, it's not hard. You just... argh. I don't see what's so hard about not misusing apostrophes, yet everyone does it. Hell, I bet I've done it (in my younger years, before I was advanced enough to know of the grammatical holocaust that I was causing). But nowadays, every time I see the misuse of an apostrophe, I literally WINCE and want to cry.
Buy some fresh rose's!
Its time to order a new round of drink's!
Isnt it nice to see all my friend's sitting around and eating their plate's of french fry's?
Christ, that physically hurt to write. Here are The Apostrophe's Three Unwritten Rules... Written Down:
1: If it's a plural (that means there is MORE THAN ONE, sweetcheeks), NO APOSTROPHE.
2: If it's a shortening of two words (Isn't, don't, etc) then you INCLUDE THE APOSTROPHE.
3: If it's possessive, ie BELONGING TO CHARLIE, you put the 's AFTER THE PERSON IT BELONGS TO. ie. charlie's.
4: When using it, remember this:
a: If you are using a contraction of 'It is', then use 'it's'.
b: If you want to say 'belonging to it', then you say 'its'. It's the only time that an apostrophe is not used for a possessive. Yes, I realise that that's an irregularity in the language, but tough luck. It's like ONE irregularity in the entire language. If you don't like it, go cry in the corner at the difficulties of remembering ONE GRAMMATICAL POINT. I mean, what the hell else are you going to use the brain cells for? Exactly, nothing. Therefore, I win.
5: If you break any of these rules, I will kill you.
Of course, I won't. I wouldn't have time to travel the world looking for people who use apostrophes (notice, no apostrophe there, because IT'S A PLURAL). So instead, I created The Apostrophe (yes, I know it's upside down, shut up) to do that for me. The Apostrophe (I call him Apo, but that's just cos he's my friend) walks the globe, six-shooter at his side, looking for dastardly users of bad grammar (we call them in the apostrophe correction business "Grammevils") and then killing them nastily. Here's an example of a particulary exciting episode that Apo went through when walking through the mean streets of Brixton.
The Apostrophe: Episode One of Whatever
The Apostrophe strode along the streets of Brixton, his stetsons whirling, his fez, attached to the top of his head by some sort of eerie grammatical magnetism, glinting in the sun. He was close. He could smell it. It was the smell that drove him forward. The reek of bad grammar. Despite that fact that The Apostrophe had no nose, eyes, ears or, for that matter, third dimension, he knew exactly what was going on. To his left, a child, chasing a hoop along a dirt road with a stick. To his right, a woman was talking on her phone.
Woman: When we go to the party on Saturday, let's bring a bottle of wine.
The Apostrophe shuddered inwardly at the woman't incorrect use of grammar, viewing the event from the point of arrival, and even considered stopping and shooting off her kneecaps. However, he had no time to stop and admonish her. That was the job of his lesser-liked cousin, The BringvsTake Grammatical Oddity, and he knew that he had little time to lose.
He slowly cracked his knuckles and withdrew his magnum. After eating it, he withdrew his gun, a gleaming silver sidearm that had got him through many a battle in the past. He recalled briefly the time he'd broken into a GCSE English mock. Man, that had been a long, bloody battle, and the number of incorrectly written plurals had very nearly overcome him. He fingered briefly the scar on his right arm, then slowly re-loaded his pistol, before sneaking forward.
Suddenly he saw it. Rather he sensed it. A sign, mounted to the front of a sleazy fast-food restaurant. Painted in a lurid red, with gold lettering. And a picture of a lamb.
A lamb with a bow tie mounted to its head.
The sign read:
Ricoes Curry's! Its the place to go for the best curry's!
Snarling, The Apostrophe broke into a run and fired, sending the sign through the glass window of the restaurant. He leapt through the broken and stood over the sign, before unleashing the rest of his magazine into the unfortunate bit of chip-board. After blowing the smoke off the barrel of the gun, he span it a few times round his finger before holstering it and striking a cool pose. Immediately, the street full of people stopped dead. All 400 of them. Even a little deaf, dumb and blind boy who hadn't seen the gunshots and was standing seventy metres away stopped what he was doing and looked in the general direction. Suddenly, they all disappeared, running into shops, leaping over fences and hiding under tables. A man who was driving by on his moped took one look at the gun-toting punctuation, parked, locked the bike to a street lamp, took off his helmet, then leapt head first into a water-trough. The street was deserted.
"Hey, 'Senor, what do you think youre doing, 'shattering my brand new window?"
The Apostrophe glanced to the side, and saw Rico. A grizzly mexican, who for some reason was running a curry shop, Rico looked like the human equivalent a bag of pipe-cleaners glued together with vomit. Partially bald, he had a huge mustache, and was wearing a blood-stained apron. Also, he had a superfluous third nipple that plays absolutely no part in his story. The Apostrophe quickly reloaded his gun. Rico's eyes widened.
"Oh, 'shit! Hey, Joey... its the apo'strophe! Hes come for u's at la'st!"
Joey, a huge muscly beefcake of a woman, appeared at the front of the restaurant, wielding a shotgun.
"Oh know you dont, you 'stupid grammatical point! Your way's are over now... its time for a new world order!" she cried in a manly voice that reminded many of the hiding passers-by of Steve.
She fired point blank at the Apostrophe, who only just manged to dodge, before leaping behind a barrel of fish-guts. Joey chased after him, firing madly into the air. Behind her, Rico drew a semi-automatic from his apron and followed, wooping madly. A stream of Mexicans brandishing siege weapons (and one moron who'd brought along a samurai sword) followed out of the restaurant.
"Hey, 'senor, you gonna DIE man, then were gonna kill you and 'shoot you to bits! Tee-hee-hee!"
This was serious. The apostrophe was trapped. Fortunately, he managed to kill all of them after some really exciting stunt-work, and ended up marrying the damsel. Unfortunately, he then divorced her after she had an affair with a full stop. Bastard. He returned to his life of vigilante correction of grammar, alone... forever.
Do you know what I could have been doing instead of writing this? Yes, that's right, revising for my History GCSE. But no, I had to sit and write about apostrophes for a good hour. God, I hate you people. Now comment. VALIDATE ME.
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