We all have a chair in which we leave our clothes that we have already put on, but we still do not consider that it is to wash A chair that in my case, can accumulate shirts, pants or jerseys in the shape of an Egyptian pyramid and maintain balance until reaching an unsuspected height. That chair says a lot of intimacies about us. Our level of hygiene, if we have had a very busy week or if we are neat freaks.
The other day watching the new contemporary art fair Urvanity art, I came across a work that represented the chair from Superman’s clothes.
A guy who, according to the work, seems orderly and not very consumerist. On the chair there is only his work suit and not the endless number of garments that he puts on top of him to hide his true identity. He does not use the back of the chair. Where normally the human being supports the rear, somewhat wrinkled, the Superman cape is gathered and on top, well folded with the capital “S” in sight, is his suit.
At that time, analyzing Superman, I realised that has many powers that make him a demigod and that they are enviable. Flying, an infinite force or the ability to see through buildings and people.
But nevertheless, like most fictional superheroes created in the twentieth century, Superman has a characteristic with which I do not agree and that causes him to lose the greatest of superpowers: infinite wisdom.
Superman doesn’t age, so he cannot continue to learn. He came to earth as a baby and grew to reach his physical splendor stopping at an indeterminate age between 25 and 30 years. A physical splendor for which the splendor of wisdom has been sacrificed, which in my opinion comes much later and which needs time to increase. In the successive versions that have been made of the superhero in the cinema, we have never met a superman in his forties, an interesting mature man, early retirement in the Daily Mail or what could be a Supergrandfather, a Super-grandfather.
Clarck Kent was born in 1938. Which means that Superman would be 83 today, the age of a grandfather. Grandparents, for many grandchildren, are common heroes. Until they leave or the passage of time reveals their frailties, they are people who we believe have infinite wisdom and in whom we place blind faith. A grandfather gives confidence, advice and some of the best memories. There are plenty of reasons to be honored by an old version of the most prototypical of superheroes who did not fall into the cartoonish. I do not want an 83-year-old Superman who fights with his cane, but I do want one who, for example, was the mentor of a renewed ‘Justice League’. A kind of Yoda with the elegance of Sean Connery. Someone who, when leaving teaching at the Superhero academy, would pick up the grandson from the nursery and take care of him, while the parents work under the yoke of a split shift. Is there anything more heroic than that?
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