A Matter of Time

Did you ever feel like there was something missing in your life? I have, but more to the point, I think I am beginning to understand what that something is: Time Travelers.

Let me talk about how all this started. So the other day I was watching reruns of Smallville, (judge me accordingly for admitting that), and the episode I was watching was 8x11 Legion. It takes place much later in the Smallville mythos (Once Clark is through his angsty high school years and Michael Rosenbaum has left the series for promises of a mediocre film career.) The episode revolves around a time-traveling trio from the future, (Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl.) If you know anything about DC Comics you will recognize the names from the 31st century's Legion of Superheroes. They arrive in the Kent family barn to save the pre-Superman and to help him stop Brainiac in order to ensure the continued existence of a mediocre franchise.

Of course, this also gives the writers license to play with the characters and leads to all the obvious cliches and plot points you would expect in an episode about time-traveling superheroes who land in a late 90’s WB TV show. Among other things the three time travelers ask the questions that most fanboys were asking for eight years (Where is his cape? Where are the horn-rimmed glasses? Why can't he fly?), but most importantly they mention to Clark a hint of his future. They talk of a man who will not only inspire the world but the destiny of humanity for centuries to come.

This leads to me to a very important question of my own, Where is my time traveler? Clark Kent gets three (albeit stupidly named) visitors, John Connor had the Terminator, and even Bill and Ted had George Carlin. So where is my future-man who will come back to save my life so that I can one day go on to be a man that will inspire millions of people and save the human race from annihilation? I mean shouldn't that have happened by now? I'm 35 years old and according to my research most time travel experiences happen in a person's early to late teens, certainly no later than 22 or 23.

You would think even if I am not destined to save the world, the least the time traveling community could do for me is to send my future son back in time to ensure that I meet the woman of my dreams. I mean its 2019, Emmett Brown invented the time traveling Delorean back in 1985 and the time traveling steam-powered engine (for some reason) in 1885... so where is my future progeny? The only explanation I have is that maybe my son is just too busy being a famous novelist/starship captain.

Or, it could be something else, entirely... I mean I could wait around for someone like the Doctor and his TARDIS to come and whisk me away through time and space (it would have to be David Tennant) or maybe we all can't wait for our time traveling children to do all the work for us. After all whenever you look at anyone who has a had time traveling experience, Clark Kent, James T. Kirk, Marty McFly, any of the Doctor's companions, I think it is implied that these people already had something special about them even before their eponymous journeys.

Thus, the Time Traveler trope becomes almost circular. the aforementioned protagonists are special, because they were already special in the future. Bill and Ted are literally destined to change humanity, because George Carlin told them that they were, and for not other reason. the future says this person is someone who is important, so they send a Arnold Schwarzenegger back to kill him, and thus he becomes the important person they already said he was.

So maybe the solution to what lies ahead is not in a traveler from our future, but from our belief in our own futures. Also who really wants to put up with all the rigors of time travel and paradoxes, and possibilities of making out with your teenage mother. So maybe its not so much about what we are destined to be so long as we understand who we are today.

After all, Doc Brown and Natasha Bedingfield said it best, The future is unwritten.