[center][h2]An Excerpt from [i]SAVED: A REFLECTION ON THE AGE OF SUPERHEROES[/i][/h2] [h3]By Richard Jones[/h3][/center] [hr] Martin Quinn's home is unassuming from the outside, a place one could find anywhere across the American south. It's a single rancher on a quiet, wooded street in suburban Mississippi, an Ole Miss flag flying proudly off the front porch like many others. Out front is parked an aging Ford F150, an odd sight in today's arc reactor-fueled age. Quinn takes pride in the old car, commenting to me that no matter what it costs or how hard it is to find gas, he's going to keep it just for the roar. Inside the house is a different story. Everywhere one looks, their eye passes over some piece of memorabilia from the career of Steve Rogers, the hero of course known as both Captain America and Nomad. Posters, commemorative trading cards, and propaganda comics from World War II line the walls. Martin assures me that almost everything is authentic, and I can't help but wonder how much he spent on amassing such a collection. "Oh, it ain't nothing," he smiles, picking up a replica of Rogers's helmet from World War II, one of the few real pieces he could never track down. "Small price to pay to pay tribute to the greatest American hero we ever seen." He stands and walks to the mantle and stares at a newspaper clipping of the night that Rogers, under his Nomad alias, saved the man's life. On that night, a rogue mutant by the name of Ed Whelan, now known by the alias "Vermin" to the world at large, crashed through the front window the bar that Quinn had frequented in those days. In the commotion, he had been thrown from a bar stool, injuring his leg and presenting him as easy prey. Instead, Rogers did what Rogers always does. He saved the man in a flash, before following the creature out the back door. It was a night of transformation in the life of Steve Rogers, one where he went from AWOL to an outright fugitive. Martin has no time for the people that put a bullseye on Rogers's head however. "Don't have no time for those bastards that framed him," Quinn almost spits on his own living room floor when the discussion of what happened to Rogers after that night is broached. "Ain't no one gonna tell me that man is anything other than a hero. He saved me that night. He saved millions during the war. Hell, he saved us all more times than we can count. All of them Leaguers did. And there's people out there that says they're the problem. Ridiculous." Martin Quinn is not alone in those view points. While many in seats of power have often found superheroes and all that happen in their orbit to be a public menace, many of those they save believe very differently. In the heroes of our age they see the best possible versions of themselves. They see what the Greeks must have seen in Hercules, which I now realize may not be the best example as I myself have seen Hercules catch a falling plane from the sky. Before I ramble too long, with [i]SAVED[/i] I aim to tell the definitive story of our very strange time, all told by the people who experienced it from the ground, as gods and monsters battled around them.