And That's Why People Read

I Love 'batman.' I Love The Adam West 'batman.' I Love The Animated 'batman.' The Character Of Batman Can Encompass Any Interpretation, Which Is What Makes That Character So Brilliant And Why It's Survived So Many Different Media.

American Writers Often Say They Find It Difficult To Write Superman. They Say He's Too Powerful; You Can't Give Him Problems. But Superman Is A Metaphor. For Me, Superman Has The Same Problems We Do, But On A Paul Bunyan Scale. If Superman Walks The Dog, He Walks It Around The Asteroid Belt Because It Can Fly In Space. When Superman's Relatives Visit, They Come From The 31st Century And Bring Some Hellish Monster Conqueror From The Future. But It's Still A Story About Your Relatives Visiting.

Because It All Derived From Superman. I Mean, I Love All The Characters, But Superman Is Just This Perfect Human Pop-culture Distillation Of A Really Basic Idea. He's A Good Guy. He Loves Us. He Will Not Stop In Defending Us. How Beautiful Is That? He's Like A Sci-fi Jesus. He'll Never Let You Down. And Only In Fiction Can That Guy Actually Exist, Because Real Guys Will Always Let You Down One Way Or Another. We Actually Made Up An Idea That Beautiful. That's Just Cool To Me. We Made A Little Paper Universe Where All Of The Above Is True.

It's Stupid, I Know, But I Care. All The Things That Meant So Much When We Were Young. Under The Blankets Late At Night, Listening To Long-distance Radio. All Those Things Lost Now Or Broken. Can You Remember? Can You Remember That Feeling? Perhaps I Ought To Go To A Doctor.

In The World Of The Superheroes, Everything Had Value, Potential, Mystery. Any Person, Thing, Or Object Could Be Drafted Into Service In The Struggle Against Darkness And Evil - Remade As A Weapon Or A Warrior Or A Superhero. Even A Little Bee Named Michael - After God's Own Avenging Angel - Could Pitch In To Win The Battle Against Wickedness.