Super Saturday: People in Your Neighborhood Pt. 1

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood? In your neighborhood?
Say, who are the people in your neighborhood?
The people that you meet each day

It's been about 5 years now since I moved from New England, where I grew up, to Bay Ridge Brooklyn. Obviously I was pretty ignorant of the whole concept of different New York neighborhoods, locations, and geography until I moved here -- and so all of the New York references baked into classic superhero comics, by the original creators who were born and bred here, were entirely lost on me growing up. It's only in the last few years when I go back and re-read some of the classic issues that can I pick up on all of the local color and specifics: sometimes it's even a bit jarring how close to home they hit, literally.

Here's one, a discovery from my favorite run of my favorite creator with my favorite superhero -- In Walt Simonson's 1980's run on The Mighty Thor, one of the very first things he does is to discard the mortal identity of lame-legged doctor Don Blake (giving the transformation power instead to newcomer Beta Ray Bill), and then he has Thor turn to SHIELD for a new civilian identity (which is just Thor in work clothes and glasses). He also needs a new job and dwelling: although as Nick Fury tells him, "I got an apartment for ya, but ya haveta settle fer Brooklyn. Even SHIELD can't find nothin' in Manhattan". [Thor #341, p. 7].

So he winds up in Bay Ridge:


He's in a third-floor apartment (just like I am), off an avenue that looks pretty much just the same as the one near me (maybe a bit wider):


Now, one of the freaky things around here is that this fall, a new guy started waiting tables at the bar/restaurant on the corner of our block, and this guy is totally the spitting image of Chris Hemsworth. It's so completely uncanny that I'm entirely distracted whenever I go there to eat now:


So apparently that's one of the super-people in my neighborhood, and I've got to say that's pretty darned cool.


Hey, come on now -- my bedroom looks exactly like that and you don't hear me complaining!


[Pages from The Mighty Thor #343, p. 24; #344, p. 6; #373, p. 4 by Walt Simonson]