What about him is particularly Midwestern? • Superman’s values were rock-solid Midwest: stalwart, stoic and having no difficulty seeing right from wrong (and always doing right).

The Daily Planet was a take-off on the Plain Dealer (a Cleveland newspaper) that Jerry and Joe grew up with, and Jerry always dreamed of being a reporter like Clark Kent.

Even Smallville, the hometown his handlers dreamed up later for Clark, was a takeoff on every small town in Kansas and maybe Missouri.

What do you think of the latest incarnation, the movie last year? • It wasn’t what I — or most Superman fans — hoped for, which was that Warner Bros. would give us a new Superman who could last as long as Christopher Reeve did in the 1970s-’80s. The story had too much fighting and too little suspense or romance. It didn’t do justice to his origins and didn’t leave me dying for the next installment. Speaking of dying, in the end, Superman killed his enemy, which violated every rule built up over his 75-year reign.