When it comes to comic book fans, it may be hard to find one greater than Brad Ricca.
The author and case western professor has been following superheroes most of his life, especially the Man of Steel.
“Superman? He was the first one, the first one to put on the tights and have a cape and have these kinds of strange powers,” Ricca said.
Ricca is a member of the Siegel and Schuster Society, a group named after Superman Creators and Clevelanders Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Recently, the club collected more than $50,000 to bring the international icon back to where he originated and in a high-profile spot at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport.
“There’s going to be a statue. There’s going to be a video playing with some really cool stuff, some of it you’ve never seen before,” Ricca said. “There’s going to be some text boxes, giving the facts of when it happened and where it happened in Cleveland.”
Onlookers don’t need a plane ticket or x-ray vision to see the display. It will be located in the baggage claim area of the airport, on sight for everyone to see.
“It’s desolate down here,” said Cleveland resident Faye Turner, describing the area near the baggage carousels. “I think it’s a great attraction and it’d bring colors and it’s going to be great.”
The exhibit will be unveiled at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 11. City officials, including Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Laura Siegel Larson, daughter of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, will speak at the unveiling. The event is free and open to the public.
“It will become kind of like a landmark,” Ricca said. “There’s going to be this Superman statue there and people can say, ‘meet me a Superman,’ you know. There will be lots of photo ops.
“We love Cleveland but the skies are gray, you know, three-quarters of the year and sometimes it gets really kind of hard to get through the day,” Ricca added. “They came up with it during the Great Depression, so it really makes sense that this really strange, imaginative character of such hope and aspiration comes from a city like this.”