I'm a Superman Fanboy

To say I love comic books would be an understatement. As I’ve said before, I’m what you’d call a "passionate enthusiast" with disposable income. Whenever a new friend or co-worker finds out I’m a comic book collector, they usually ask me, “Who is your favorite superhero?” Honestly, the answer is “it depends”.  I’m a fan of the comic genre, which means that I enjoy good writers, artists and story-lines. I fall in and out of love with various books all the time; for instance, right now I’m reading/collecting "Indestructible Hulk" and "Aquaman", but that doesn’t make me a life-long Hulk or Aquaman fan. All it means is that currently I find both books to be well done and I'll keep buying the book until I stop enjoying it. I think that in order to call a superhero your “favorite” you need to have deeper tie than just finding it to be a good read. I think most of us comic book fans gravitate to a superhero when we are young and then stick with them as long as we buy comic books. When I was a kid, I had two main heroes that I wanted to be, Spiderman and Superman.

It's certainly not out of the ordinary to have either of those two as your favorite superheroes. For some people saying that you enjoy Spiderman and Superman is kind of like saying Pepsi and  Coke are your favorite brands of cola. It elicits a giant “duh” from comic book fans and the average person alike.  So, why did I love these two characters? If you were to do a straight up comparison of the two they represent different things to a kid. Spiderman is the smart mouthed kid with super powers. He could leap from building to building, shooting webs and having fun. As a kid, it was easy to pretend to be Spiderman. We could climb on the back of the family couch and make the “Spidey Hand Motion” while making the “chawawawa” sound. Spiderman in essence was our youth; we could be wild and crazy, but still a hero. I enjoyed Spiderman, but I don't collect his comic books. I kind of drifted away from the character over the years and just when I wanted to go back, they really screwed up the story for me. This might not make sense to some non-comic book people, but "A Brand New Day" was the last day I ever thought about collecting a Spiderman book. I might sound like a snob and it probably is proof that I wasn't a hardcore Spiderman fan, but when they introduced a plot device that esentially wiped out all of the previous "Spider-history" I couldn't follow. Of course, there are stupid plots in every characters history and I can look past them for one of my favorite characters of all time, Superman.

Superman…geez, I don’t even know where to start. He was the strong, invincible, flying leader of all the other heroes. Just one of those reasons would be enough to make him any kid’s favorite, but the reason he was my favorite had little to do with Superman and everything to do with Clark Kent. Clark was unpopular; he was perceived as weak and was, in short, a nerd. He was what every small kid with glasses wanted to be, a hidden hero. I can remember trying to give myself a “curl” at a very young age, just around when I got my first pair of glasses and I was picked on for the first time. 

Typical hero idolization aside, I have always been amazed at the difficult choices it must take to be Superman. The character represents the ultimate force of good, which has to be the hardest easy choice that anyone can make. In my opinion, this is the real beauty of the Superman character, he can take the negative conotation of being referred to as the “big blue boy scout” and makes it a term of endearment. Historically Superman has been written as a character that makes the choices we should make and makes them with ease. It's a really simple concept for kids to grab. Sometimes good and evil to be as simple. In a world full of brooding anti-heroes, it's nice to be able to give kids a hero whose motives are black and white, letting the shades of grey wait until they are older.  So, I’m proud to be a Superman fan. I’m proud to enjoy something that appeals to my inner child and occasionally my outer one. So, for every Dark Knight, it’s nice to occasionally have one that represents the best of us, at least until Hollywood decides otherwise... I’m looking at you Zack Snyder, I'm really excited for "Man of Steel"...don’t mess this up for my inner child...