Superman Returns: a late post

Its the longest standing relationship we have had, its a mutli coloured multi layered relationship, with a man of steel. We may have forgotten him for a while but it comes back to you like cycling. The curl down the forehead the all familiar S sign, journalists jostle to add spice to the sound bytes that bored starlets offer, many chests have an uneven S splayed across them, some the effects of toil at the gym the other of a surgeons scalpel.

If you were a superhero what powers would u like, what does S stand for on supermans chest...behind me the theme music of superman plays loudly, its almost uplifting and so is the escalator conversation... Who is that, what's she wearing, is it a fake, give me a man any man will do....

Do we need superheroes, or idols at all. Is there any sense in believeing....

My son often runs around with bedsheets wrapped around him, it reminds me of similar games I had played. But he is now easily bored. He can choose between vampire slayers n web slingers, his problems r more complex and so is his world.

For me I could wrap my troubles up in a bedsheet around my neck and fly away into a land of make believe. I was robin hood, green arrow, daredevil, batman. Believeable superheroes but never a superman. That you couldn't be but could only aspire to...it was the holy grail.

The movie is good, to a superman fan who knows his invulnerability infront of our mortal fears and his vulnerability to our mortal love resonates. Yet for a generation whose idols change as oftwn as there underwear it is a quick fling that doesn't last beyond 2 hours. Where is the long lasting impression that cinema used to etch on the canvas of our mind.

My son has switched loyalties again. Its now X men. Kaching his wolverine claws rip through imaginary air.

Yet sometimes I am his secret super hero. When I fix a broken toy, or lift him sky high and catch him before he falls. Or when I pass a difficult level in a game.

I hope this love affair lasts forever and before mortality gets the better of me I can etch a few legends in his mind and in a few others.