Make Mine Marvel

On the day: 
14/06/2012 


On the way: 
Amazing. Spider-man. On the train. I catch my breath under my Captain America T-shirt. 
Let me clarify: I am not yet so deluded that I believe your friendly neighbourhood webhead has wallcrawled off the printed page, but it's not every day I see my kind of people, the Fearless Front Facers who proudly show their colours. 
His mask hangs off the front of his skintight Lycra union suit, one foot resting on the big blue togbag in front of him, his arm relaxed up against the window. Spectacular. 
Funny, though, he's much bigger in real life than he appears in the comics. 
Its not just him, though. Right there next to his is the poison green and black of... Hey, who is that? 
The arms end in jagged edged black gloves but there are also broad black horizontal lines across the torso, and the green below the thigh-high boot line ends in a huge pair of orange plastic peep-toe kitten-heel courts straining to contain a 6ft several man's feet. There's something very wrong here. 
And opposite them is seated a man all in black, his identity picked out in grey, standard-issue Oriental brushstrokes and red detail. A ninja. Obviously. 
Hmm. I'm starting to suspect this is not a gathering of the Merry Marvel Marching Society off to celebrate the Avengers Assemble movie. 
Greenman picks up the blonde nylon wig in his lap and tries it on for size. No, this is a stag party, on its way up north, as it emerges. "When in Newcastle..." Spidey mysteriously proclaims, when Greenman inquires about the itinerary. 
The conversation turns to matters macho: exploits in the gym, exploits out of the gym and the stag - what will be drunk, what will be eaten, who will be there, and the poor schmo who who won't be, who begged for an invitation, who the ninja strung along then let down at the last minute. Ha ha ha. 
For all their jutting jawlines and puffed-up pecs, these are no superheroes. 
I sit down and  pull my coat closed over my T-shirt, the big bad Fearless Front Facer that I am. So far so Big Bang Theory.
I step off  the train and set off on the long walk through the rain and the crowds to the office. I don't bother to button up - here no one notices you, no one to send you psychologically scurrying back to the days when a comic book habit was a matter of scorn, and when an unreconstructed jock was figure of fear.  
Then, passing a colourful crocodile of kids, four or five years old, and a couple of cheerful teachers, I hear two words from a pair of boys at the back of the queue. "Captain America." 
I turn. How can I help it? 
"Captain America?" I ask, was that what he said? It's not that they'd seen the T-shirt, even though it was clearly visible. It's just the kind of stuff they talk about. Now these are my kind of people. 
A teacher laughs, a generous laugh,  and points. 
And then a little girl near the front looks up, all big dark eyes, without raising her chin, and asks, "Are you Captain America?"
 I walk on, no longer noticing the rain, like every other Peter Parker, every other Leonard Hofstadter before me. 
Excelsior! 


On the pod: 
In The Blood -Better Than Ezra 


On the front page: 
Rebekah text to Cameron: We're in this together (London Evening Standard)