Caped Crusaders

Man of Steel

 For those of us that grew up with comic books, 2013 will be a banner year.  Did you grow up with an interest in all or any of the comic book heroes?  Because if you did, this year has many special treats coming to the big screen.  I purposely have stayed away from the cinemas for a number of years now, and it isn’t all about the violence.  As an example of a good reason to stay away two tickets for an evening show is very close to $30 dollars, and we are not even talking 3D or IMAX Theater.  Should you decide to have some treats like butter popcorn, a hot dog, Nachos, ice cream or candy, you will easily spend another $30 to $40 dollars on two people.

Well, this may just be the year that I break into my old habit of going to the movies.  There is 8 to 10 cape crusader type heroes coming to the big screen this year (the memories these films will bring back alone, is worth the price).  Starting out with my favorite, Man of Steel (Superman), Iron Man 3, Wolverine and on, and on.  I am so looking forward to this year at the movies.  There will of course have to be some romance type movies in between as payoff to my wife if she is to accompany me.  Not at all a sacrifice, through the years of marriage, I have been trained to enjoy a good romance movie once in a while.

I may even try my hand at writing a romantic novel in the near future.  I’ll just have to get in touch with my feminine side before I get started; or better yet I will write it from the man’s perspective.  After all it takes two to Tango.  I guess I will have to use a pseudonym, so I won’t ruin my Macho standing (I don’t have standing and don’t need one).  Writing of any style can be challenging, I hear that sooner or later almost everyone hits a writer’s block, and you struggle until you get past it.

Back to the comic book heroes; since I followed the various comics from a young age, I can instantly catch on to the story line, and immediately see on the big screen what I previously only saw in my imagination.  I am so happy that my grandchildren can now, all this many years later, see what grandpa grew up with.  Trust me while the graphics are great, I had seen the images in my mind many, many years ago.

So many advances in Digital Technology that I am always looking forward to the next development to come out.  Google Glass is the one that I can see enjoying while around the office or house. I’m not sure that I would want to wear that device while driving or riding a motorcycle.  Drivers today have enough distraction with texting, and talking on the cell phone without surfing the web.

I must admit that using our imaginations back before the digital technology age arrived, made us a little less equal, because some of us had more active imaginations.  As a good example of a sharp imagination; I always wondered why at the start of the Adventures of Superman (the television series 1952-58) the announcer would read; "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound," yet when a thug ran out of bullets and threw the gun at superman he would duck. 

Well, I did some research and this is what I found out; an often talked about mistake in the show is that Superman would duck when a thug would throw his empty gun at Superman. While this mistake is often attributed to George Reeves not wanting to be hit by a prop gun, it was actually George's stunt double (Dale Van Sickle) who ducked. And this mistake actually only happened once, in The Mind Machine. If you watch the fight scene closely, you can see that a stunt double is used some of the time and that it is that double who ducked. In 1959 The Adventures of Superman were scheduled to start filming the next season in the middle of summer, but was cancelled when George Reeves was killed that June in 1959.  Here is a little extra information; all the cast characters in the series were paid $200 dollars per episode.  Compare that to today’s television series actors.

If comic book heroes can’t drag you back to the cinema, don’t worry as usual the movies will work their way from the big screen to the DVD rental.  The best is yet to come….