superstition

One of the types of folklore in which Superman is featured is superstition, or folk belief. There are evidently some people out there who believe there is a Superman Curse. Evidently, just pretending to be Superman for a paycheck will lead to the end of your career or life. The evidence are the untimely demises of Christopher Reeve and George Reeves. Also cited are the less-than-thrilling post-Superman careers of Dean Caine, Kirk Alyn, and others. There's an article about it in Glenn Yeffeth's The Man from Krypton (in the Smart Pop book series). It takes the form of a letter to Brandon Routh on the eve of his debut in Superman Returns.



George Reeve contributes the most to this belief, it seems. Snopes has a page devoted to the rumors surrounding his death. There is evidently a book about it, which I have not yet read, and a recent movie called Hollywoodland, which I have not seen. I really need to catch up on my movie watching.



This picture is a custom figure, built by someone called Sillof, who does this sort of thing a lot. Custom figures are more common than I realized. The Superman guy from the Confessions of a Superhero documentary does this sort of thing as well. Here, Sillof imagines a Victorian Superman, based, he explains, on the idea behind Gotham by Gaslight, which imagined Batman solving the Jack the Ripper murders, if I recall correctly.