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Pitch: A New Kind of Superhero


Anyone else feel like today’s superheroes are a bit… Ridiculous? Stale? Boring?

(I know at least some people do, because superhero movie performance in the last few years has been inconsistent at best. So to Marvel, DC, and all the other superhero-movie-makers, here’s my pitch.)

Maybe it’s because the superheroes aren’t very super in the first place—what’s the over/under on how many civilians The Avengers have killed over the course of the franchise? (And anyway, what’s so inspirational about having magical powers granted to you for no good reason?)

I say it’s time we whip out the chalk, wheel out the drawing board. Get back to the basics. What if we created a superhero who was (1) actually super and who (2) everyone could look up to?

The idea is, and you may want to make sure you’re sitting down:

Mr. Does What He Says He’s Going To Do Man.

Sure, the name might be hard to fit on a movie poster. We can fix that in post. I just want you to pay attention to the big idea going on here.

What does MDWHSHGTDM do, exactly? Well, that’s easy: what he says he’s going to do.

Now I’m no script-writer, so bear with me on this one, but here’s an idea for a scene.


We open with some stock footage of a city that is, unmistakably, San Francisco. We zoom in on an office building. Inside is one of those fast-growing startups, one of those companies that reaches a $1B valuation by making your life 1% better 1% of the time.

At the table, the startup’s marketing team is meeting about an urgent project. MDWHSHGTDM is the lead designer. The meeting ends as these sorts of meetings typically end: everyone commits to something.

Our hero commits to having designs done by the end of the day. Eyebrows are raised.

Now we montage. The day goes on. Most of the people on the team are making idle conversations on Slack, scrolling TikTok. But our hero is doing something strange: he’s working.

And, at the end of the day, MDWHSHGTDM sends the designs.

The others on the team can’t say as much for themselves. Person A didn’t ship any work and didn’t even communicate their lateness. Person B didn’t ship any work but sent a “sorry - taking longer than expected!” message. MDWHSHGTDM basks in the glory. Scene end.

The rest of the movie includes some variety of the following:

  • When he says he’ll follow up later, MDWHSHGTDM actually follows up.
  • When he’s set back by some unpredictable force, he communicates it right away.
  • When he knows he’s busy, he sets reasonable deadlines instead of bullshitting.
  • When he wants to say ‘no’, he actually says it instead of some vague excuse.

And you know the bat-signal, from Batman? Well, MDWHSHGTDM has his own version: any time someone sees a coworker not doing what they said they were going to do, they tag our hero in Slack as a reminder of how we should be behaving. Long after MDWHSHGTDM‘s death, the symbol remains as an inspiring reminder for future generations.


… So, what do you think? I don’t know, maybe it needs some workshopping. Again, not a screenwriter.

What I do know, however, is the following:

  • Most people I’ve ever met could learn more from MDWHSHGTDM than any ‘real’ superhero.
  • You don’t have to wait for a real-life role model or a superhero to teach you how to behave. You could simply invent a role model and then ask yourself, “What would they do?”

(If anyone does want to make an overbudgeted, over-CGI’d movie about this, though, email us.)

Thanks to anonymous Scott for inspiring this essay.

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