Carlos Alcaraz’s Super Hero Comparison
I’m happy to announce that, after much thought and evaluation, I have finally figured out who Carlos Alcaraz’s superhero comparison is. The wait is over, you can all relax. I’ve done it. You’re welcome.
No, it’s not some classic, if not stereotypical, hero from the Marvel or DC universe. Those heroes are often too cookie-cutter and polished; you know what you will get with them. I needed to find someone who was almost insanely unpredictable. In some instances, the powers and chaos surrounding this superhero may even lead to self-harm and self-frustration. But more often than not, I needed this hero’s seeming madness to work out favorably in the end most of the time. There was only one logical conclusion: it’s Jack-Jack from The Incredibles.
Jack-Jack from The Incredibles
If you haven’t seen the Incredibles or Incredibles 2, I feel sorry for you. Please watch them – I implore you. We’re talking about all-time pieces of cinema. However, if you have seen either of these movies, I think it’s pretty obvious why Jack-Jack and Carlos are the same. Jack-Jack has like a million different superpowers. Sometimes Jack-Jack’s use of his powers doesn’t seem to be an intentional conscious effort to engage them. A power just emerges in real time to solve a problem. These are all things I find myself thinking about when I watch Carlos Alcaraz.
To get the “negative” out of the way, in so far as there is such a thing with Alcaraz (or Jack Jack), every once in a while, Carlos plays a set or two where he’s just missing like crazy or making a lot of incoherent/disjointed decisions. Sometimes I’m thinking to myself, “What are you doing, man? Get it together. You’re so much better than this.”
This is what it’s like to watch Jack-Jack when he’s just being a normal baby doing normal baby things like spilling food all over himself or something. You have superpowers, Jack-Jack, how I do juxtapose that with someone who can’t properly keep food in their mouth? I can’t blame him too much, he’s an infant. A superhero, but still so young he’s not even a classified as toddler. Alcaraz is still “young,” too – as insane as that sounds. Is it weird to say that a guy with 3 slams, a hall of famer at 21, still has room to grow and improve? It may be, but I think it’s the case in some ways, and I say this as a compliment.
Further, it’s laughable, if not scary, to think about what it might look like if he is able to tighten things up even more. For what it’s worth, I find it kind of funny that Alcaraz can play some of the highest-level tennis ever seen and also go through such bizarre 30-minute stretches where I wonder if it’s the same dude. Like a superhero who sometimes struggles with basic, everyday tasks.
Superhero Mode
Turning to the fun stuff, let’s talk about the superhero mode of both of these characters. When Jack-Jack taps into his powers, it’s over for everyone else. In the blink of an eye, Jack-Jack can turn into a human torch thing where he’s just on fire. Then he’s a rabid demon biting at your limbs. After that, he’s shooting green lasers out of his eyes. Next thing you know, he is multiplying. Oh, he can fly too (or at least levitate) and can transport himself into different dimensions. He’s beating up bad guys, or in some instances just trying to get a cookie, with sheer pandemonium.
Carlos can basically do the equivalent of all of that on the tennis court. Tommy Paul said after his loss to Alcaraz that Carlos is just a little different when he starts building energy and momentum, and you almost have to protect against Alcaraz winning one of those crazy points. I would agree. It’s a “don’t feed the gremlin after midnight” sort of thing.
Like baby Jack-Jack, when Carlos gets worked up, mayhem is on the horizon. Superhero Carlos has every tennis skill imaginable at his disposal. He can bully you. He can go nuclear and just start obliterating winners at any moment off either side. You may see him 15 feet back in a return game to run forever and hit passing shots around the post from 8 feet off the court to force the break, only to see him serve and volley twice the next game and not get backed off from the baseline to close out the set. Then he starts with the drop-shotting and cat-and-mouse play.
It’s a fury coming from every direction and you have no idea what to expect next. All you know is that something else is coming. It’s a whirlwind. When you finally come to, and the dust settles and we ask ourselves what happened, I find myself thinking, “Everything. Everything happened.
Like with Jack-Jack, I’m not fully convinced Alcaraz even knows what he is going to do next; I think sometimes he just reacts in situations, and he’s so good that it just works out. He surprises himself with a new superpower, and he just runs with it like “Oh, cool! This is fun. Let’s do this,” and his opponents are thinking “Wait, wait. Hold on. What the hell is happening? Is this allowed?”
There are no rules with Jack-Jack and Carlos in superhero mode. It’s mayhem, but only in their favor. And my favorite part, they do it all while giggling. Carlos and Jack-Jack: havoc, capped off with a giggle. Two of a kind.
