Stuporman

Who was that mysterious stranger that saved the day in Metropolis? And who actually cares?

Metropolis, IL holds an annual Superman celebration mid-June, and for the grand finale this year, Metropolis planned to set the Guinness Book of World Records record for the most people in a Superman uniform! (gasp, the excitement). Even though there was no existing record, there were a ton of rules established for setting the first one. The minimum necessary was 100 people and they had to wear authorized Superman costumes. No red towels for a cape with a hand-drawn “S” was permitted. The Guinness folks are a might fussy (for self important reasons, I guess) and it had to be a SuperMAN costume - no SuperGIRL costumes were allowed (take that, ladies!).

The registration started at 3 p.m. with the final event scheduled for 5 p.m. At three, the folks showed up and had their costumes scrutinized. Like some Superman story from the mid-1950s, the town was populated with fat Supermen, skinny Supermen, Supermen old, young, men and women, boys and girls - but there were not enough of them. By Sunday, a lot of people had left already. Around 4 p.m. only 68 people had signed up, and Jamie Reigle, who runs the Superman website CMOS Collectibles, was bummed by the shortcoming.

“We wanted to break the record, but we were coming up short and there were no more costumes for sale anywhere,” he said. “Then, about 10 minutes later, this guy walks up to my stand, just popped up out of nowhere. “He says, ‘Hey, you want to buy some Superman costumes,’ “ Jamie said. “He said he had two cases of Halloween Superman costumes, still with original price tags on them.” Jamie said he thought about it, and about the chances of saving the day, but wondered how much it would cost him. “Then the guy said I could have them for five bucks each,” he said. “I said I absolutely wanted them.”

Jamie took the boxes over to the center of town, where the Supermen Armada was gathered in front of the giant Superman statue and said he had Superman costumes for five bucks each. With the minutes ticking down, Jamie handed out the costumes as fast as he could. The clock hit 5 p.m., and 122 people wore Superman suits - Jamie sold 24 of them.

“Metropolis set the record,” he said. “Of course without my 24 suits, they would have been short by two, so I‘ve got to take some credit for it.”

Way to go, supernerd! You helped accomplish a meaningless record, and weren't bashful about letting folks know.