#drex

movie!hensper is a mirror reflection of what most likely happened with drex and ray BEFORE we ever got to see them together for the first time in hour of power. and the ways that henry interacts with missy throughout the movie parallels how ray and henry's own relationship began and i will DIE on this hill. the ray and henry parallels are rampant in them and why wouldn't that ray = henry concept transfer over to the one central conflict defining hensper as well? $!!$#?

drex was rays first shot, his first try at getting a grip on superhero-ing. his test run, his fallback plan, because he knew that drex would be too excited by the idea of being more important than he ever had been before to really think about it— for either of them to think about, to be honest. ray was just excited to be a superhero for the first time and drex was excited to be along for the ride. despite drex's turn to a more "evil" side, i don't necessarily think that all of that was just pure evil because actual, pure evil doesn't happen for no reason— I think that he too was frustrated and disturbed by having to exist in rays shadow, only truly living vicariously through his spotlight, to continue letting his life go like this. his turn to evil nature probably wasn't ever inherently evil, if not just being fed up with the shit he'd been served and absolutely SNAPPING because of it

henry, on the other hand, is similar!! henry is actually just insufferably infatuated with the idea of finally getting out of rays shadow. he is signing big corporate deals to devote his service to a company (.... much like how ray sold away his life & service to a government for partially for more recognition and money in the long run........) and is doing everything in his power to stay big no matter what. in the process, he's leaving jasper in the dark and treating him like a fall back plan while he searches for something even bigger. he ends up meeting missy, who's as dazed and excited to work with a hero as henry himself was at her age when he applied to work with ray. he sees himself in her— excited, ready, eager— and is willing to teach her what he knows in order to make a successful hero. when he starts working with her in newtown, she starts falling under the same sort of issues that henry had while with her ("is now a good time to mention i have my trig midterm tomorrow?") and he doesn't realize it, treating her in the exact same damaging ways that ray had treated him ("you're a sidekick now, this is what you signed up for!")

both ray and henry end up becoming obsessed with the idea of becoming greater than they are and then greater than that, of becoming the next big thing. of becoming good and honorable in all senses of the word. ray is indestructible, but now he wants to be a hero. now that he's a hero, he wants a sidekick. now that he has a sidekick, he wants one with powers & one that can replace him when it's his time to go. and when that one quits, he wants an entire team of sidekicks— so on and so forth until he realizes that it will never be enough, hits his midlife crisis, and makes the irresponsible and rash decision to quit forever and completely leave the danger force to handle things alone instead. some unknown force drags him back to his roots and he is forced to go back to henry & that old lifestyle to vince it

henry hart wanted his name to mean something, so he became a superheroes sidekick. when he became a sidekick, he wanted his own form of recognition. when he sacrificed himself to achieve that, he went to dystopia and wanted to make it big. when he brought jasper along to his suicide mission to make that happen, he wanted more fame. when he involved himself in government business to get there and get famous, he wanted even more. so he signed a deal with bizwatch and realized throughout the movie that he didn't appreciate his friendship with jasper enough and through bonding with missy learns how to "correct his errors". he gives jasper a chocolate golden star for his efforts and makes the irresponsible and rash decision to leave dystopia and fight crime with missy in newtown, completely abandoning jasper for him to deal with dystopian criminals on his own instead. a calling to the sense of familiarity that fighting crime for a small town brought began tethering henry back to his roots.