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What runs through the mind of a 30 something married man with 5 kids a good job a huge comic book collection, an impressive DVD collection, nearly every movie stub from every movie he's seen since Back to the Future; topped off with a mind filled with endless movie quotes, dabbling in theology, a continuous pursuit of being a professional artist while taking a stab at being a writer? Stay Tuned...

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Fanboys and True Believers #10 Superhero Music

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Contributed by: John Kindelan on 1/18/2008

The Superhero genre has leaped off the pages and made a huge mark in movie industry, especially over the las several years, with blockbusters like Spiderman, Superman Returns, Batman Begins, the X-Men movies. But before it was invading the silver screen it was hitting the music scene.

Outside of the theme's that we all know and have grown to love. "Can he swing from a web, take a look over head, hey there, there goes the Spiderman." Music has had it shares of comic book appearances. The earliest one I can think of that was a success was Donovan's Sunshine Superman, on the bilboard charts back in 1966. Not only did the title of the song feature Superman, but in the lyrics we hear, "Superman and Green Lantern aint got, nothing on me". Which I think is also the earliest refrence to Green Lantenr in music as well.

From there we jump to the hit of 1972 by Jim Croce where we learn "You don't Mess Around with Jim", you also dont "tug on Superman's cape". Several other big name musicians get on board including, Barbara Streisand, The Kinks, Genesis, DIO, and more.

Some of my favorites of the 90's were Jimmy Olsen's Blues by Spin Doctors. The story of Jimmy pining for Lois Lane and thinking he can get her because he has a pocket full of Kryptonite. Superman's Song by Crash Test Dummies, and Superman's Dead by Our Lady Peace are good, a little on the sad side, but okay. Kryptonite made another big appearance in the 90s with 3 Doors Down doing the song "Kryptonite". The song stayed at numbe 1 for 11 weeks on the charts, and wasinspired by the rural town in Escatawpa City, Mississippi called Smallville, referring to Smallville from the Superman Comics. The TV show Smallville on the WB brought us the song Superman by Five For Fighting. It was the shows theme and also was on the charts for quite some time. The song is written in Superman's point of view but never mentions his name in the song.

Most of the songs out there are Superman related. There's a couple Batman, and like I said the Green Lantern reference but the rest of the heroes fall to the wayside.

Some bands even go out of their way to be 'comic book' or have super hero themes. Ookla The Mok a local Buffalo band has an entire album entitled Super Secret with such songs as Arthur Curry, a song about Aquaman, Super Skrull a song about the Super Skrull from the Fantastic Four, and one of my personal favorites Stop Talking About Comic Books or I'll Kill You.

You can see Ookla The Mok's stuff on their myspace page at www.myspace.com/othem The band played at the last Buffalo News Collectibles Show, and hopefully they'll be at the next one as well.

Another band on myspace with a good comic geek song Deaf Pedestrians which my son Dyllan introduced me too. They have a song called "Hail to the Geek".

If anyone know of any other cool comic geek music, let me know I'd love to hear some more.

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