Italian superheroes, every one

Tube stops: Lepanto, driving, Tiburtina, Termini

Superheroes, superheroes, superheroes. Something that I've had in common with most of the friends I've met, since I stepped off the plane back in March 2010 was the superhero multiverse of Marvel and DC comics. Each person has a particular superhero or heroine at the core of their slightly indulgent but very necessary reminiscing about their childhood that they have brought with them into the present day. For yours truly, the Uncanny Xmen formed such an integral part of growing up at school: battles to regain the planet were enacted across the school yard and the common storylines about being discriminated against by mankind for reasons of genetic differences was obviously something that resonated with millions of fans around the world.

And so to Italy, the land where revelling in the pastimes of youth is simply fun, not a refusal to become an adult; a regression into carefree nostalgia. Women may complain that Italian men act too much like little boys, needing a replacement mother figure. Not so - it's just that being young again is rejuvenating, a reminder that if you take life too seriously, you're heading in the "wrong direction", i.e., towards the grave rather than taking a few steps back from it.

So many superhero films came out since I came to Rome: X-Men First Class, Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America...the list goes on. Maybe the world has caught on and we are all seeing the world through new, young eyes? (As an aside, a new film is coming out that looks at one man's explanation of the world's collective mythologies as mapping the eternal quest of the hero/man in vanquishing his demons/problems - definitely one to watch!)

We had our own 'mini-adventure' recently, trying to see Green Lantern at the cinema. I even think the adventure involved a mini, but due to there having been a personal injury at the time, my memory is hazy! Meeting up with Date, we took the tube to Lepanto one evening, heading towards the cinema in Piazza Cavour. The film however had been cancelled, replaced by screening films from a recent film festival. By this time, I had met F, an officianado of the Italian film dubbing scene, whose last house was paid for by the Smurfs (not literally, because they...ahem...aren't real.) Also M, whose infectious passion for DC comics made me wary: here I was, a Marvel comics guy through and through, about to be exposed to a DC superhero film alongside DC fans (Date incidentally is a massive fan of Wonder Woman (also DC), although he too would suspect that recent tv portrayals of WW have gone somewhat amiss. After all, a tv adaptation starring Liz Hurley as a villain and a revamped costume that looks more 99p drag-queen Halloween costume than crime-fighter would never have done that well.)

2011 and 1975: to be honest,

neither wins in terms of practicality.
Unless it's easy to keep loose change in your bra.
(I wouldn't know, I've never tried.)

So we call M and his friend who have left, to see if other cinemas are showing the film. After half an hour's frantic phone calls on the street, at which time I'm arranging for A to come and join us for dinner at a yet unknown location, we decide to go to F's car to drive somewhere. We drive around the block: no other showings, we hear. We park the car back where we started and whilst Date is getting out of the car, the car seat hits my thumb, smashing the nail up and causing it to bleed quite a bit. Pain. Disappointment. A lack of spandex: we're in trouble.

Instead, we decide on food at a nice restaurant near Lepanto where Claudio and Alessandro join us, as well as A and another friend of S. So it's deep-friend antipasti (which we were charged per person for, a BIG regret on our part), pasta courses and off to a traditional English pub for beer in pints, wood furnishings and a happy yet still bleeding Englishman.

Colonel Bulmers relaxes at sun-down.

Gurl loves her some fashun!

Put the bicep away, Claudio, you'll only
encourage more people to drink wheat beer!

I'm excited too, it's an actual pub pub!

This is easy pub conversation: my Italian has improved a lot, thanks to a combination of mind-bogglingly boring pronoun exercises and through having the courage to try and say anything: even if it is a tongue-twister in Italian or English. And though I know I'm leaving Italy, it's during conversations like these that I realise I want all my friends in the same place altogether, forever. To chat, reminisce about the memories created together, the laughter, antics and the uncomplicated simple dreams we may have. Maybe that's the real childhood superhero dream: being in two places at once.