Where I'm from: Town of steel

METROPOLIS, Ill. -- At one end of the street, a 6-foot-6 guy named Lars is waving a hammer and pretending to be the Norse god of thunder. Nearby, a reporter for the French equivalent of Time magazine is interviewing a paunchy engineer wearing a cape. And somewhere amid all the chaos, the son of an Oscar-winning actress is preparing to get married in a Superman costume.

That was my hometown on one weekend earlier this month.

Metropolis wasn't always this colorful. Once it was just another little Midwestern community. Most of the time, it still is. But one weekend a year, folks capitalize on the name and throw a party -- for Superman, who lives in a comic-book Metropolis styled more after New York than here.

That's why Thor, the French reporter and an about-to-be-married Superman are in town, along with thousands of others. Interest is especially high this year because of the release, next week, of "Superman Returns" -- the first new Superman movie in 20 years.

Smallville

Some people are here for the junk food, the carnival rides and the antique car show. Most, though, seem to seeking something more.

They're decked out in Superman T-shirts and hats or, in a few extreme cases, costumes. They take part in Superman trivia contests and line up to meet stars of Superman movies and TV shows. They speak eloquently about what the Man of Steel has meant in their lives.

"A town dedicated to a superhero like that is amazing. It's nice to find something you're into and then find a town focused around that subject," said Nick Reding, a Hot Springs, Ark., resident wearing a "Super Dad" T-shirt.

The town hasn't always been so Superman-focused. This celebration started as something of a bitter consolation prize.

My town -- 6,500 people at the southern tip of Illinois -- has nothing to do with Superman, really. His creators weren't born here, and they didn't name the comic book city of Metropolis in our honor. The name is coincidence.

In the early 1970s, a mere 35 years after Superman's debut, the city decided this whole Superman fad wasn't going away. It was time to take advantage of the name and bring in a few tourists.

The Metropolis News changed its name to the Metropolis Planet (it was a weekly, so the Daily Planet was out of the question). The town adopted Superman. There was talk of a big amusement park, and people put up money to open a Superman museum.

But the museum went bust, people lost their money and Superman became a name to forget. Even when "Superman: The Movie" became a big hit in 1978, Metropolis watched from the sidelines.

A year later, a few people decided ignoring Superman was ridiculous, and they organized the first Superman Celebration. It was a tiny affair. The highlight: Townspeople dressed in "gangster" outfits pretended to rob the bank so that a guy in a Superman suit could pretend to stop them. There were also some children's athletic events ("very nice medals were awarded to the winners," the Planet reported) and a flea market.

Things grew from there.

A fast-food place opened and featured a Superman decor, complete with the Man of Steel emerging from a phone booth. A little street was rechristened "Lois Lane." A hideous fiberglass statue was erected. Mercifully, it was torn down a few years later and replaced with a bronze version that didn't look like Bizarro.

Growing up, I was more about Batman than Superman. But you couldn't live in Metropolis without knowing something about the Man of Steel. His picture was on the Welcome sign at the edge of town. His big red "S" decorated the water tower, probably the tallest structure in Metropolis. There were no tall buildings for Superman to leap in a single bound.

Still, my life was probably more Superman-focused than other kids'. My father ran (and still runs) the Metropolis Planet, the town's unofficial welcome center. Tourists would stop by, as would out-of-town reporters doing Superman stories.

Dad would often end up talking about the town's history. In college, I nearly had a stroke when I was flipping through channels and came across some "Inside Edition"-type show and saw my understated father doing an interview -- wearing a cape.

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DEEPER MOTIVATIONS

Today the four-day Superman Celebration attracts about 60,000 people, growing even as the town has shriveled. The hardware stores, bakeries and clothing shops that once lined the main street are largely gone. A riverboat casino has replaced what once was a pleasant little park on the banks of the Ohio River.

The visitors display an amazing array of views on Superman -- fun bit of escapism, all-consuming way of life, metaphor for Jesus, inspiration in hard times.

The Superman who got married during the celebration is Christopher Dennis, the son of actress Sandy Dennis ("Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?").

Dennis makes his living by dressing as Superman and posing for pictures with tourists, in exchange for tips, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His apartment is practically a museum of Superman memorabilia and he seems embarrassed to admit that he sometimes sheds his costume and does non-Superman things like go to the beach.

Most people smile when they talk about Superman. Not Dennis. He's as serious as a surgeon discussing the newest developments in arterial grafts.

"Superman, to me, is a wholesome character. He stands for truth, justice and the American way," said Dennis, his fiancee Bonnie Finkenthal at his side. "I wish a lot more people were like that."

Gary Lindgren is also wearing a Superman costume, but he seems a lot more lighthearted. "You get to be a kid again," said the 49-year-old appliance engineer from Three Oaks, Mich.

That means dressing up like his hero -- George Reeves from the original TV series "Adventures of Superman" -- and meeting his childhood crush, Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane on the show.

For Santiago Cirilo of Clarksville, Tenn., being a kid meant growing up poor but having Superman Underoos to play in. It meant latching onto Superman so much that it was his nickname in college and the Army. Then there's that Superman tattoo.

To him, the Man of Steel is about morality as much as adventure. He goes quite far in this notion: "Superman," he says, "is like the Jesus for kids and for grown-ups staying with their childhood."

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SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS

Of course, different people have different ideas of Superman.

If you're in your 40s or 50s, he might be the fatherly George Reeves. For another generation, he's the romantic Christopher Reeve from the movies. For those even younger, he's the vulnerable Tom Welling of the soapy series "Smallville." Maybe, for the next generation, he will be Brandon Routh, star of "Superman Returns." And for a few, he's the ink-on-paper comic book figure who debuted in 1938.

People introduced to Superman through comic books are growing rarer, though, as comics disappear from daily life, relegated to specialty stores. Comics used to be available all over Metropolis, displayed on squeaky revolving stands in drugstores. Today, there's not a single place in town to buy new comic books.

But cans of SoBe Superman brand energy drink are available -- at $2.99 each. Supplemented by an additional penny back in the days when Metropolis first decided that adopting Superman might be a good idea, that could have gotten you an entire year of Action Comics.

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asap contributor Christopher Wills is an AP reporter in Springfield, Ill.