The Cape

One thing that keeps coming up is the importance of Superman's cape. Alvin Schwartz insists that the cape is indestructible (in his book An Unlikely Prophet), and the cape appears to be the most common item donned by children when they pretend to be Superman. it's iconic and essential. You can't be Superman without the cape.

That being said, you can buy a reproduction (so is there a real one out there somewhere?) at a comic shop in cincinatti for $295. The article and shop in question (the shop's name is Up Up and Away, which is what I wanted to call this blog) are promoting Free Comic Book day, which is coming up in a week and a half. In case somebody beside me is actually reading this, and that person doesn't know, Free Comic Book Day is exactly what it sounds like. You go to a comics shop and they give you a few free comics that publishers send to the expressley for this pupose.

The cape is one of the two places where the S-Shield is featured. Its color scheme on the cape varies. But since Superman wasn't the guy's name on his home planet, and yet the S-Shield was explained to be part of the blanket or something that he had when he arrived on earth, people started to wonder what the S was all about. So, somebody came up with an explanation, one that involved creating a new language, Kryptonese (later, Kryptonian--they're #'s 10 and 11 on the list of languages on the site I linked). Kryptonian is becoming pretty common in tattoos, such as in this guy's tattoo of his name:

What's weird is that in that Kryptonian alphabet, there's no symbol like the one on the S-shield. The closest is the equivalent for the letter S. I seem to recall that the S-shield stood for the family, the House of El, if memory serves. I'll have to find out.

RANDOM STUFF

I suppose it's inevitable that the world turns into a musical someday. Half the world is busy lip-synching to some song or other on youtube. So why not revive the old Superman broadway show, with a new book?

This one's come up a few times now. Not sure what to make of it yet. Evidently it's in answer to a question about why the crime rate never ends if Superman is so great.

At long last, action-hero-pant-wearing day has the green light. In the UK, anyway. And it supports charity. Evidently, it's not a day when everybody wears a Superman costume they bought at the story; they simply put their underwear outside their trousers. There will be stickers, and the article makes use of the word "whilst." How very English of it.

A guy proposes to his girlfriend while he's wearing a superman outfit.

"She calls me her Superman because I look after her and make sure she doesn't do anything wrong."

That's not the first time this has happened. The Superman guy in Confessions of a Superhero does the same thing. Then gets married in his costume underneath the Superman statue in Metropolis, IL.

There's something called the superman punch.

I don't watch the show HEROES. I found this reference to Superman in the most recent episode. Are there lots of these sorts of things in the show?

You're noble like Superman, you believe in truth and justice like Superman. You're a little fascist like Superman.

Evidently this is a villain calling a hero superman in an attempt to make the hero out to be a fascist.