I GREW up with Superman and Batman.
As a stripling, I could spell "kryptonite" before I could spell "concrete". It used to irk me that my dad took the Daily Express instead of The Daily Planet, though in his defence, it was a vice he gave up when it became a tabloid (the former, not the latter; the Planet stayed resolutely broadsheet, albeit it had a confusing tendency to birl on screen whenever it broke a big story).
The Man of Steel was the business; he could fly, he was faster than a speeding bullet (which would ping off his chest anyway), he had x-ray vision and superhearing; he had a snazzy costume, a decent job and a novel use for phone boxes.
Batman, aka The Caped Crusader, was only marginally behind him in my estimation. He couldn't fly, but with the use of clever technology, he was able to zip about all over the place; his alter-ego was impossibly wealthy, and he had the considerable advantage of being on TV in the 1960s.
Those two, both DC Comics characters, fought for my attention with the likes of Desperate Dan, Billy Whizz and Roger the Dodger from DC Thomson. For some reason, Marvel Comics barely made an impression on the Leith of my early youth. And so it wasn't until I reached secondary school age that I was introduced to Spider-Man, Thing, Hulk, Wolverine and Captain America.
These days, though, you can't move for Marvel superheroes; the parent company was bought by Disney in 2009, and since then they've been in more movies than Delia Smith has had hot dinners.
My ignorance when they are announced is shocking. When they came up with Iron Man, I thought: at last, a superhero who does housework; surely his sidekick will be Foldandputaway Man. But no, he's just another reformed arms dealer seeking to rebuild his image. If he were British, he'd just buy a peerage and be done with it.
It may have escaped your notice, but Disney held a press conference at the weekend to hansel the next big thing (or rather, the next tiny thing). Get ready for Ant-Man, who will be played next month by Paul Rudd. Ant-Man (no relation to Spider-Man, the Green Hornet, Sting or any of The Beatles) is the possessor of a suit that allows the wearer to shrink in size but increase in strength. Eat your heart out, Gok Wan.
More mature readers may recall another tiny critter who packs a big punch, Hanna-Barbera's 1960s cartoon superhero Atom Ant. I guess there truly is nothing new under the sun.
Edit: sorry Superman, I mean Earth's puny yellow sun, not Krypton's ginormous red one. Yours, a disciple.
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