Superhero

Comic book writer John Arcudi hates superheroes. Always has. Always will. A strange admission for the creator of one of the year's most critically acclaimed superhero graphic novels, a god somewhere (WildStorm, $24.99). "I was never really interested in superhero comics when I was a kid," says the Philadelphia author in an eyebrow-raising statement. "To me, the whole idea of superhuman beings is so ridiculous. . . . I find them absolutely impossible to understand.

From Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Jerusalem come the directors in the seventh annual New Filmmakers Weekend at the Gershman Y with films that trace the genealogy of a settee, the anatomy of a photograph, and the fantasy of a youth. Pearl Gluck's documentary feature Divan is the saga of a settee owned by the filmmaker's great-great-grandfather in Hungary. In exploring the history of the mystics and rabbis who slept on it, Gluck spins a story that connects old and new world. In their short The Unbelievable Truth, Nathan Caswell and Jeremiah Zagar explore how often the drama of getting that photograph sometimes exceeds that of the event framed.

Ke'sha'ndre, called Sha'ndre by his friends, enjoys being active - playing basketball, swinging on a swing set, riding a waterslide and going to the park. Recently, the 6-year-old visited the Garden State Discovery Museum, where he eagerly explored everything. He listened to his heartbeat, made an imprint of his face, piloted a car along a pretend turnpike, and visited the animal clinic, where he hooked a leash on a stuffed dog and took it for a walk. Ke'sha'ndre gets along well with other children and with adults.

With her Eastwood-worthy snarl, a purple wig that would do a Vegas stripper proud, and the martial arts chops of a John Woo assassin, 11-year-old Mindy Macready, also known as Hit Girl, is a force to be reckoned with. A potty-mouthed pip-squeak trained in weaponry and weird sidelong glances by her cop-turned-vigilante freakazoid father - Big Daddy, played with typically nutty gusto by Nicolas Cage - Mindy doesn't have the title role in Kick-Ass, but her presence is everything. Chloe Moretz, a 13-year-old who has already amassed more than 30 credits on her IMDB page, gives a performance of prodigious cool.

We all agree that Batman is a swell superhero, but still, something about him fails to satisfy. According to the endless hype, Batman is supposed to be this vigilante character who's acting out our collective fantasies of overcoming the seemingly insurmountable problems in our chaotic lives. If that's what he's trying to do, maybe he should find another line of work. Because most people today have trouble identifying with Batman. Serious trouble. It's not the double life, and it's not the danger, either.

Among those surprised at the sleeper success of "Despicable Me," no doubt, were the folks at DreamWorks Animation, and not in a good way. "Despicable Me" covers much of the same ground - halfhearted evil genius finally gives in to his sentimental side - as their new 3-D movie "Megamind," and does it a little better. "Megamind," though, is by no means a knockoff, and if you get past the eerie coincidences (characters named Minion, the lead's mangled diction), you see that it stakes out different territory, playing around with superhero mythology (especially Superman)

THE CLOSER. 9 tonight, TNT. IN TNT'S "THE Closer," Corey Reynolds plays Sgt. David Gabriel, who occasionally bumps heads with his boss, Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick), over his by-the-book approach to solving crime. Offscreen, though, Reynolds is all about the comic books, not the rule books, and the only head-bumping he's likely to be doing is against anyone who might stand in the way of his dream of playing the Green Lantern on the big screen. Sgt. Gabriel probably doesn't go home and read comics, Reynolds conceded during a recent swing through Philadelphia, "but one thing that I love about portraying a smart, well-spoken, articulate character who's a good guy on television is that it sets me up . . . in the way I want to be seen.

Tony Stark, a most dissolute and disarming arms manufacturer, builds flamethrowers in the basement. For kicks. The bucks aren't bad, either. Sporting wit (and goatee) sharp as a survival knife, Robert Downey Jr. is the billionaire bon vivant in Iron Man, the fast, funny and deliriously entertaining flick based on Marvel Comics' self-made superhero. Unlike genetic and environmental supers, this weapons whiz gives himself superpowers. A hard-drinking inventor/playboy/businessman, Tony is a hybrid of Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner, 1950s fantasy figures gene-spliced for 2008.

He's a painkiller junkie in head-to-toe leather the color of spilled blood. He swoops through the cityscape in the dead of night, whacking slimeballs with his fancy billy club. He wears a pointy-eared cowl. And he's got Ben Affleck's dimpled chin. Daredevil, based on Marvel Comics' sight-impaired superhero - a blind man whose remaining senses are preternaturally fine-tuned - has been brought to the screen with a mix of jaunty humor and jagged violence that should have worked more effectively than it does.

This summer's comic-books-go-multiplex lineup is pretty darn rich, what with X2, The Hulk (Marvel's big green guy), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (based on Alan Moore's miniseries about a team of 19th-century supersleuths), and American Splendor (adapted from Harvey Pekar's autobiographical underground comics). But if this quartet doesn't sate your superhero appetite (and, in American Splendor's case, your appetite for schlumpy, neurotic nerds), then here are a few more costumed-crusader titles from Hollywood: Catwoman Ashley Judd was talked about for the role, but now it looks as though X-Men's Storm, Halle Berry, will star as DC Comics' foxy feline in a planned 2005 release.

Create your own superhero on Saturday as the African American Museum in Philadelphia concludes its four-part series, "Outlined in Black: Creating Superheroes - A Comic Book Workshop for Youth and Young Adults. " The workshop, taught by acclaimed illustrator and artist Eric Battle, is inspired by the life of enslaved African American Robert Smalls who became a Civil War hero and a five-term U.S. Congressman from South Carolina. Families also can learn about the significance of black superheroes and the meaning of heroism.

His skin is a preposterous shade of yellow more appropriate to a Kool-Aid flavor. His bald oval head is crowned with a topknot tied with a red bow; he has squinty eyes and buck teeth that extend over his lips and the most garish yellow-on-green outfit you'd ever find in a circus supply store. Meet Chop-Chop, a comic book character who made his debut in 1941 in the first issue of the long-running superhero comic series, Blackhawk . Ugly, almost inhuman, the rotund guy would make for a great villain.

'I WAS WATCHING this TV show recently," the ever-entertaining Evan Turner was saying before last night's game between the Sixers and the San Antonio Spurs. "Where the girl was asking the guy for his trust. And he said, 'I haven't trusted anyone since Michael Jordan in the fourth.' "That says it all. When I was a little kid, 8 or 9 and you really believed in superheroes, I really believed that MJ was a superhero. One time against the Grizzlies, the Bulls were down by 12. And he brought the Bulls all the way back, put them on his back.

It can be hard to discern the method in Ed Forchion's brand of reefer madness. What, for instance, did the "New Jersey Weedman" have to gain - especially while facing criminal charges related to his favorite flora - from announcing that he's been mailing marijuana to the governor? The package might have been mistaken for a gift - which Gov. Christie claims he never received - if it didn't accompany a letter laced with invective and promises of further illicit activity. While revealing that Forchion is as skeptical of spelling and punctuation rules as he is of the nation's drug laws, the letter charmingly mixes the outlandish with the formal.

EW YORK - The makers of "Captain America: The First Avenger" are in a must-win pre-emptive battle against superhero fatigue. Their not-so-secret weapon? A patriotic-themed marketing campaign complete with fireworks and red, white and blue doughnuts. "Captain America," which opened in theaters Friday, follows a string of action-hero movies this summer that have been successful. So, when promoting the film, Paramount and Marvel Studios weren't taking any chances that moviegoers would write it off as just another superhero flick.

"Super" stars Rainn Wilson as a jilted loner who hears a heavenly voice that instructs him to be a costumed crimefighter. We'll avoid the term "superhero" since he has no superpowers - he walks up to bad guys and hits them over the head with a plumber's wrench. It's the only tool in his utility belt. All of this is presented with a gory, punk realism by writer-director James Gunn, a Troma films grad who explored vaguely similar superhero ideas with his "The Specials. " His new movie has more in common with elements of "Kick Ass" - Frank (Wilson)

PROSECUTORS said yesterday that they plan to charge Lindsay Lohan with felony grand theft of a $2,500 necklace reported stolen from a jewelry store last month - the most serious count the actress has faced in more than three years of trouble with the law. District Attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison said the charge will be filed today. Lohan, 24, is due in court for an arraignment this afternoon. Last Wednesday Los Angeles police said that Lohan was under investigation for taking a necklace from a Venice store later identified as Kamofie and Co. Detectives obtained a search warrant to try to retrieve the item from Lohan's home, but it was turned in to a police station before any search was made.

IF YOU FIND the idea of Seth Rogen as a crime-fighting superhero to be ridiculous, you have company - so does "Green Hornet" director Michel Gondry. Gondry's completely facetious action romp trades in Rogen's comic persona of sloth, arrested development and underachievement - Rogen's been an incompetent stockroom worker ("40-Year-Old Virgin"), web designer ("Knocked Up"), pornographer ("Zack and Miri Make a Porno"), police officer ("Superbad") and security officer ("Observe and Report")

There's no stopping television. In the olden days, the second Sunday of January might have been a pretty good time for football games, but after that, the No. 1 spot on the couch-potato hit parade was best reserved for a long winter's nap. Not anymore. Four series premiere Sunday night, backed by some big-time talent. Evil must be conquered and an invasion addressed. Not turned away at the shore - that also would be old-fashioned - but embraced and satirized, too. And there are burgers to flip.

Most people, if they were set to turn 88 next month, would be content to have good physical health and their mental faculties intact. However, Stan Lee has proven yet again that he is not most people. He remarkably, continues to produce exceptional work in the comic field. He also continues to break industry records. It was recently announced by BOOM! Studios that the latest creation with his fingerprints, "Stan Lee's Soldier Zero ," has sold over 24,000 copies so far, BOOM!