Have you ever wanted a hero to come rescue you from life? From your own mess? From circumstances beyond you control?

I have a good friend who, when I was talking about why we need heroes, told me this story. When he was five years old, he wrote a letter to Superman asking for his help, asking to be saved. He was being beaten up by bullies every single day. His lunch was stolen. His school supplies were stolen. He had told the teacher but nothing changed. He told the yard duty but still nothing changed. So, my dear friend, as a frightened terrified little boy, turned to a hero: Superman. Superman saves the world all the time, so he could save my friend too. I  imagine my friend as a little boy with his thick Coke-bottle glasses sitting down at his desk and crafting his letter with the intense concentration and care that only a five-year-old child trying to make their penmanship look proper can give. I used to call that making “good letters” when I babysat. My friend tells me he even took the time to draw a stamp on the envelope. He tells me that he delivered the urgent plea to the one man he knew he could trust, his father, and asked him to mail it. I laugh at my friend for being so conscientious as to draw on a stamp because he didn’t have any, and he reveals to me that his father found the letter, still sealed, in the glove box of his work truck and returned it to him.

We want heroes. We need heroes. We are all the five-year-old asking Superman to come right the wrongs. Heroes take up a special place in our culture. They are everywhere. In the news, our movies, our books, our lives. Heroes are in every narrative. They are revered, idolized, celebrated, but their prevalence proves that they are, most of all, needed. Heroes serve an important societal function: they offer hope. This hope can take many forms, it can offer security, wisdom, nurturance—but one thing that all heroes offer is justice. Heroes fight injustice. They triumph over adversity. Heroes are an active agent against unfair, immoral situations and they win. This is why we need heroes. We need to know that people can triumph over adversity. We need to believe, so that we too can do it.

Captain America is one of Bridger Walker’s heroes. Bridger Walker, a six-year-old little boy, stepped in front of his sister to protect her from a dog, and he was mauled in the confrontation. His story has gone viral. So viral in fact that Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America, took notice and praised Walker as a fellow brother in arms.

Who inspires you to be your best self? Is it a person? A fictional character? Both? Would you call them a hero? We turn to heroes in a time of crisis. When the bullies won’t stop coming or the dog is charging forward. Right now, we are in a time of untold crisis. We are reeling from adversity. We are tired. We are overwhelmed. It feels like we can’t win. And this is why we are especially looking for heroes now. We are left asking who will overcome, who will step up.

Who the hero is, what they are fighting against often reflects the values of idolizer. Billy the Kid or Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, RuPaul, John Lewis, or Alexander Hamilton. But in our idolization of these great figures, what connects us to them is our humanity. We don’t love Hamilton because Lin-Manuel Miranda made him cool or listed all the great things Hamilton accomplished. We love Hamilton because Miranda showed us that Hamilton struggled, that Hamilton had flaws, in other words that he was human. We love that Hamilton was able to rise up anyway. Nothing came easy to Hamilton and he didn’t always win. But still he was able to triumph over adversity. He was a hero. But here is the thing, Hamilton isn’t around anymore to do it for us. He already did his part as a founding father. Now, we are going to have to rise up on our own. The point of heroes, the point of Hamilton is inspiration. If Hamilton can, so can you.

Our contributors this issue have tapped into the wealth of heroic figures. Spidey taps into the familiar pop culture figures and tropes to express and process real-world problems, like childhood cancer. In What She Wears and Lies I Tell My Father we hear from the heroes’ point of view, in this case the caregivers, and we see them struggle with their own humanity as they forge on in their duties. The Dilemma of Old Furnaces and James show us heroic figures from the outside. We are observers of these quietly heroic persons, overcoming and redefining what is possible, redefining reality. The End Is Within Sight shows us the hero’s journey we are all on as humans. A slow realization that you have triumphed over adversity, that you too, are a hero.

This issue should answer the question, Where are all our heroes? They are right here, in you and me. We are in a time of crisis, there is hardship all around us, and we need heroes. The fight is too big for one person to do alone. Together, we need to push through this adverse time to a better tomorrow. Let us all be someone’s hero. You can do it however you want. You can put on a costume or wear your regular clothes. You can use your voice, your money, or your influence. And I know that you may be struggling with your own problems but heroes rise up. It will be tiring. Change always is. We won’t always win. If we did it wouldn’t be a fight. But justice, a fair and equal world, a better world is just the kind of world that the late civil rights activist John Lewis was talking about when he referred to “good trouble, necessary trouble.” This is the duty that John Lewis entreated to us before his passing. Fight for justice and be a model for the rest of the world. In other words, go be a hero.

AM Larks is the fiction editor of Please See Me.

Illustration by Janet Biehl