Fans Make Brilliant Superhero Costumes For 2009 Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
A while back, I wrote a travel blog about my trip to Metropolis, Illinois, the official home of Superman. I enjoyed it so much I decided I had to go back for the Superman Celebration, a four-day festival held in June every year. I only went Saturday, but that was the day with the most events and definitely worth the trip.
The Superman Celebration is an interesting hybrid of events. It’s a superhero convention, but it’s also a town festival and a carnival. There were lots of vendors selling arts and crafts along with Superman memorabilia and the kinds of food carts you’d expect to find at a carnival with hamburgers, pizza, funnel cake, ice cream, etc. and most everything was surprisingly reasonably priced. There were carnival rides and all kinds of things to see, like a BMX bike show, classic car and motorcycle shows, a dead-lift competition, a video game tournament, a dog show, and a kid’s pageant. I was impressed that the people who put it together had the locals in mind as well as us geeks.
But as far as geeky conventions go, it was among the best I’ve been to. There were comic book artists and writers speaking and signing and actors signing and doing a Q&A (Justin Hartley and Phil Morris from Smallville were especially entertaining). There was also a Superman jeopardy game, and I’m happy to report that I got three of the audience questions right and took home some random prizes that had nothing to do with Superman at all (a calculator and two of the same T-shirt from a local business). I got to see the original 1966 Batmobile and I bought a replica batarang, made from one of the original molds they used to create the real props on the show. I also met a fantastic independant artist named David Wong who sold me several great original Batman and Harley Quinn prints at a reasonable price.
The coolest thing about the whole show were fans with homemade costumes. I took lots of pictures of impressive costumes, but I think my favorite is the four guys who went together and did all four characters from Reign of the Supermen– Steel, Cyborg, Superboy, and the Eradicator. Enjoy!
LLAP
-Cap’n Logan
