Further evidence, if any were needed, that I may never grow up: I’m on the verge of wetting my pants with excitement about Superman Returns, which opens next week.

I haven’t been this excited since 1978. It was a whole week after Superman: The Movie opened and my parents STILL hadn’t taken me to see it. After the telly—we were living in England at the time, you see—had shown yet another a clip of the film, I informed my mother that I would die if we didn’t go to the theater the next day. Mum, quite understandably, countered that if I didn’t stop talking about Superman, I would never see the film.

How times have changed! The Superman: The Movie DVD is sitting next to my computer, Christopher Reeve is with us only in spirit, and I am a grown (if not mature) man with a “dentist appointment” next Thursday.

*I think this settles the “gay Superman” question once and for all, don’t you?