I have to be honest; my initial reaction when I heard about the concept behind You Kick Ass was, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

I’ll bet a lot of other people who read the story think the same. Reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes quote: “There is nothing more elusive than an obvious fact.”

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster- er, a superhero. No kid’s life is complete without the requisite superhero action figures. I don’t care how cool the latest thin-screen portable gaming system Nintendo or Sony manages to put out – and I’m sure they are. No electronic distraction will ever effectively replace the ability of an action figure to properly distract them for the amount of time desired by a parent.

You also can’t aspire to be an electronic game. This is why we invented Halloween – or so my unnamed sources tell me. Before it became the ridiculous spectacle it is today, in which adults participate as enthusiastically as their kids, it was a chance for me to live out the life of the action figures filling up the toy box in my room.

I had quite a few. To “celebrate diversity” meant having three Batman action figures from the Adam West TV show, Tim Burton’s films, and the Warner Brothers Animated Series. Being “sophisticated” meant knowing the difference between them.

When the (inferior) Kevin Costner film “Robin Hood Prince of Thieves” came out, my parents got me the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood action figures. When I asked a family member who shall not be named what Robin Hood’s super powers were, unnamed family member replied he’s the one guy who has a proper relationship with his tax collector and local law enforcement.

Then there were odd ones. One of the most downright strangest action figures were the Crash Dummies series that came out in the early 1990s. Why kids like myself got all giddy about an action figure whose superpower was the ability to fall apart on command is beyond me. Maybe it was because, unlike our siblings, the damage incurred to the figure was not permanent.

Then there were the GI Joe action figures based off of the 1980s cartoon show. Their superhero power was the capacity to survive repeated family summer vacations in which they were subjected to burials in mud, thrown across fields, smashed by rocks, and tossed into creeks tied to a thin piece of string.

But all these action figures had the same superpower: The ability to spark a kid’s imagination. Before they wake up and realizes that there is no master’s degree in superhero saving at the local state university (though you never know, considering the type of degrees they offer today) a kid needs to live out his dream of defeating egomaniacal villains in the most grandiose fashion with whatever superpower he wants.

They can also become an adult and come up with a kick ass idea that lands a business deal with a billionaire.

Now that is a superhero power we all wish we had.

TJ Martinell is a staff writer with the Kirkland Reporter newspaper.