I’ve always been a bit suspicious of superheroes. Even as a ten-year-old they all left me cold – Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Batman. Their unlikely outfits and even less likely skills-of-the-future. I liked stuff that was a bit more grounded in my world – comic book heroes with more useful day-to-day skills like Dennis the Menace and The Bash Street Kids.
It would be easy to blame my lack of imagination, a pedantry about what is possible (“maybe this boy should become a lawyer when he grows up”). In retrospect I’d like to cling on to the hope that I was a bit more enlightened than that – realising that the most useful things were those just a few steps on from what was already real. Like those new trainers that make you feel like you can run faster and bounce higher.
