SUPER SHENANIGANS

Photo by Gabriel Bassino on Unsplash

When I was a kid, I was crazy about all things Superman.

Watching all four Superman movies (and even Supergirl, for that matter) was more or less a religious rite in my house. I still have the first and second films pretty well memorized. Even at that young, impressionable age, I was cognizant that the third and fourth films failed to live up to certain standards established by the first two, but I didn’t care. It was Superman, and as far as I was concerned, nothing involving Superman could be anything less than the absolute pinnacle of storytelling.

When it came to comics, I had a bunch spanning multiple periods of publication history, but probably none so loved more than John Byrne’s classic limited Man of Steel series. Byrne’s unique take on Superman was a sort of reboot after DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths event closed out the character's Silver Age incarnation, allowing DC to reintroduce Superman to a younger audience. Man of Steel presented a version of the Last Son of Krypton that was more in line with the public consciousness of the character at the time. While Byrne’s stories might have been hit-or-miss, his incredible artwork remains arguably one of the best and most widely known depictions of Superman in comics and holds up well alongside such legends as Curt Swan, Jim Lee, and Gary Frank.

When it came to action figures, I was lucky enough to acquire two during my childhood. Unfortunately, Both were lost to time, but I’ve never seen their equal since. The first was a part of Kenner’s Super Powers action figure line. Though basic by today’s standards, the figure's mold was (at least to me, anyway) on par with anything Byrne had drawn and set the bar by which I would judge subsequent Superman action figures. But the real showstopper was the figure's gimmick—when the legs were squeezed together, the arms would alternately punch the air, allowing Supes to dole out some much-needed justice to the bad guys. Sadly, after several vigorous play sessions, this figure quickly lost its cape, which was held on merely by a tiny plastic collar clamped about his neck. The figure, too, eventually disappeared, never to be seen again. Sometimes, I still wonder what became of it.

Some years after, I came into the possession of Toybiz’s DC Comics Super Heroes Superman action figure. The mold for this one was nearly identical to the Kenner one, but this figure lacked the punching action; instead, it came with a "Kryptonite" ring. The ring housed a tiny magnet, which, when held up to the “S” emblem on Superman’s chest, reacted to an opposing magnet inside the figure, causing Superman to fall down as if the Kryptonite had weakened him. Like the Kenner one, the Toybiz figure lost its clip-on cape before eventually succumbing to the nether realm over which my childhood home undoubtedly stands.

You would have been hard-pressed to find a Superman disciple half as fervent as me, as evidenced by the fact that I even had my very own Superman costume, consisting of a set of blue Superman long johns with the triumphant red-and-yellow “S” on the chest. I wore these with a pair of red briefs over the leggings, a belt (sadly, it was not bright yellow, but rather a very drab brown), and a pair of red socks pulled up to the knees, often over my shoes so I could play outside. My mother had sewn a cape for me, complete with the yellow “S” shield on the back, and included tie strings to keep it tied around my neck. (I absolutely refused to use these…Superman tucks his cape into the collar of his shirt, damn it. No one knows how it stays there.) Topping off this ensemble was a bit of scotch tape to hold that iconic, S-shaped spit curl in place on my forehead, or, if I was lucky, my mother would make a more substantial one with a bit of hair spray and some fancy comb work.

As you might imagine, the laborious process of dressing up in a Superman costume isn't nearly as glamorous as doing a fast change in a phone booth, but that didn’t matter to me. I was resolute in being as accurate to the character as possible, probably to the chagrin of my sweet mother. (I’m sure she wished on many a star that I would be content with imagining that I had an S-shaped spit curl in my hair, but alas.) Once that costume was on, skinny little Matt Berkshier—the boy with an overactive imagination who was sometimes bullied by other kids for the way he talked and dressed and wasn’t doing so well in school due to an undiagnosed case of ADHD—ceased to exist. In his place, fists heroically perched upon hips, stood a man…a Superman.

And he could do anything.