The Heros of Our Time

Often times when someone mentions a hero people today think of the Marvel superheros or the big brawny men who can lift cars and fight bad guys. But how did this perception come to be, when they were so different back in Greek and Roman times? The evolution of a hero comes with a changing society and the evolution of the technology of the day.
The definition of a hero and their heroic deeds has greatly changed, and is most easily seen through the different cultures of time periods. In Greek and Roman times a hero was someone who was of godly decent, they fought monsters and won prizes. People like Hercules and Achilles who performed great deeds and saved their nations from catastrophic events caused by jealous and angry Gods. Then as time went on the Renaissance came to be and the definition of a hero changed once again. Instead of demigods fighting monsters it turned to nobles, rising horses, acting as knights in shining armor. They would lead their individual armies on raids of enemy castles, they would win riches for their kings, and they would save damsels in distress. Every now and then they would go and fight dragons, which shows the influence of past cultures on the heroes of the time.
Now, in modern times we have our comic book and movie superheroes. Crime-fighting, building jumping, supernatural people with special powers. However, when we look to real life heroes we look at our teachers, military, doctors, and policemen. One woman who was considered a hero was Kaci Hickox, who went to Sierra Leone to treat Ebola patients. She was revered and idolized for her noble acts of risking her own safety and health to help these underprivileged people. In many people's minds she was a modern day Mother Theresa and a hero in our eyes.  But when she returned home she was put into a quarantine by the state of New Jersey, for safety precautions. Our hero was outraged, trash talking the state in the news as she was forced to stay away from people for 21 days. Now the people could see the true insides of our hero, was she rightly outraged, or was she overreacting? After all it is a deadly disease that society should be protected from, but she was tested negative for the disease twice already. 
Then there are the heroes of way before the Romans and Greeks, back in the time of the Celts and Geats. The story of Beowulf depicts a hero and is conquest over a number of monsters. The hero of his time was supposed to be superhuman strong and boast about all of his achievements, as Beowulf himself was very much so. This old English literature is commonly referred to as a base or beginning of heroic tales and the archetype of heroes. Beowulf went out, fighting monsters and dragons, which may have influenced the future generations in their need to have an unrealistic monster or Gillian that can only be defeated by these superhuman heroes. Then as the ages went on the heroes evolved and as did their foes. The hubris of the Geat hero turned into a fatal flaw for the future heroes, and is no longer a part of modern days culture. 
After reading this book  and the article I have decided that modern day heroes have evolved gradually and slowly with the times, going through phases to reach where we are from the old heroes like Beowulf. As culture changed and technology evolved, the stories and heroes adapted to change with them, keeping tales of old alive. I think that before the heroes were more a comforting tale to tell people to reassure them, but as times went on the tales became more realistic and some people were able to actually fulfill these deeds. And now in modern day we consider people heroes as many every day people who do these things we admire. They are more now idols than heroes, but maybe these idols are the heroes we truly need in today's society.