I’m surprised anyone ever chooses to be a superhero. It’s a pretty thankless job most of the time. You go around sacrificing your personal life and relationships for the sake of the public good, and, on pretty regular basis, the community turns against you, even demonizes you, for what you can’t do or be for them. Oh sure, you get super powers, but how can it possibly be worth it? Being different just gets you a one-way ticket to social ostracism, it seems. The book Stranger in a Strange Land (which is not what we read for today, incidentally), is pretty widely known, but mostly for its unconventional treatment of less-than-monogamous sex. I think those who bring only that impression away from the book are missing Robert Heinlein’s more profound message of social commentary. 
Michael Valentine Smith was not like anybody else, but fascinated by what is generally considered mundane. He just wanted to see and experience the simple pleasures of life, and maybe use his gifts to give something back to the human community. If you’ve read the book, you know the thanks he gets for that. And isn’t that sad? It’s just tragic that humanity tends to crush what it doesn’t understand simply to allay the fear the unknown creates. In Tomi Ungerer’s Moon Man, the guy in the green-cheese orb longs for a chance to visit Earth and dance like the people do. When he gets here, the welcome is less than friendly. When will we learn?
http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Man-Tomi-Ungerer/dp/1570982074
http://www.tomiungerer.com/
