Care To Capes

Little research has been done on the commonalities of foster youth and pop culture’s favorite caped crusaders. Origin stories written in comic books focus on the events leading up to a character's moment of elightenment. These events typically tell the tale of a young kid who was born or placed into adversity. The entertainment industry most often provides the audience with onscreen adaptations of the moment a character overcomes a tremendous obstacle, recognizes his or her own strength and becomes empowered.

The big-screen shows us a teenager going through the motions of young adolescence and later developing strength and resilience to successfully transition to independent adulthood. In knowing this, we can draw connections between youth in foster care and their heroes. © Image by Marvel.com

Foster youth and superheroes share similar origin stories, fought the battle of adversity, suffered hardships during adolesence and their outcomes are often parallel. By conducting a brief overview of the lives of Spiderman, Falcon and Quicksilver we can draw connections between their history and the experiences of youth in care.

At the age of 6, Spiderman became an orphan, was bullied and experienced economic limitations. He was later placed into kinship care with his aunt and uncle. Falcon lost his whole family at age 19 and by age 20 he was considered a criminal. At infancy, Quicksilver was orphaned, abandoned by age 1 and became a fugitive at age 17. Despite the obstacles experienced by all three characters between the age of adolescence and the moment of enlightenment, the outcomes of each character were successful and full of positive development; an outcomes result all transition age youth deserve.