You may remember my post from a couple months ago, about the real-life superheroes who have identified themselves via a site called the World Superhero Registry. I’ve recently heard from one of the superheroes featured in that post (or at least, from someone claiming to be that superhero): Entomo, the “Crime-fighting/Environmentalist/Detective” who “patrols the streets of Naples and promotes environmental awareness.”

(That’s Entomo’s logo over there at the right. According to a page at the Entomo Resource Center, this is “‘Broken Time’,” that is, “A stylized capital sigma resembling an hourglass.” Earlier, we knew only that he had chosen the sigma because (a) “I sum up all the powerful, silent and venomous small creatures inhabiting this world,” and (b) “I’m a synthesis, the human-like swansong of millions of races.”)

I knew something was up when my blog stats started to zoom over the last couple days — only on the “Everyday Heroes” page, and nearly all of them Google Image searches for entomo… and from various places around Europe, but nowhere else.

Still, I was surprised to hear from the man himself. Here’s what he said (which appears as a comment on that earlier post):

This is Entomo-
Please do not make fun of me. I am a Superhero. I have no time for child games. I patrol the dark streets of Naples, even though all my pictures are of me in my living room. I also have a partner. Pay no attention to the fact there is not a picture of the both of us together. So… do not make any comments. I am a very sexy Superhero and the ladies love me, despite my bug size man proportions.
I inject Justice

Update (2009-03-21): Curioser and curioser… For more about the above passage, see this comment, below, and my post of today.

I want to reassure Entomo and any other superheroes — as well as their everyday alter egos — that I was not “making fun.” (Regular readers here know that I rarely make fun of anyone, really, but myself.) As Entomo himself says in his writeup about the reasons why people adopt a superhero persona:

…you’re providing people with a real symbol, and yourself with somewhat of a “self-avatar”, one million of times stronger than your former “civilian-self”.

Inspiration plays a major role in this, of course. You can inspire people to believe in a symbol. You can inspire people to believe they can create themselves a symbol and embody it… and it’s not a lie. It’s all true. It’s the projection of an internal truth.

Everyone can lead his/her own destiny. We’re pawns of ourselves on the great, universal chessboard. It’s up to us to establish if the great game of reality must end in good or evil.

So no, I was not amused. On the other hand, I was (both originally, and now) what you might call bemused. Which is to say: confused; bewildered; perplexed.

In short, remember yesterday’s post, which concluded with the head-tilting dog? I think I just feel like that dog.