From antiquity to pop cult, saluting the superheroes

Get ready to celebrate WOW! Superhero Day on Sunday at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

WOW! completes Penn's yearlong celebration of movies, animation, and graphic novels about heroes, vigilantes, and supervillains, the comic-book storytelling that pushes boundaries and inspires us.

"It's such a large part of human culture, people can come make the connection between ancient and foreign cultures and our own," said Louise Krasniewicz, a pop culture anthropologist and creator of the Ancient Heroes and Superheroes Tour offered at 1:15 p.m.

"Heroes serve the same purpose in the present as they did back then: asking what makes us human, because humanity is something easy to lose. So we designate people to do special things, and remain good. This is the story connecting us all over the world."

WOW! Superhero Day is free with museum admission. In addition to interactive workshops, a superhero marketplace will have games and comics for sale. Folks are encouraged to come dressed as their favorite comic-book character.

Among featured talks is "The Physics of Superheroes, or Why Can't We All Ignore the Laws of Nature?", at 3 p.m. Could Spider-Man have saved his girlfriend before she fell to her death? Could the Hulk perform feats of magnificent strength with his proportionate muscle mass? Is teleportation possible?

"People still think that a heavy object and a lighter object fall at different speeds. This just isn't true," said lecturer Bill Berner, a 25-year veteran of teaching high school and college physics. "People still think like they did in ancient Greek times. Students often walk in class with their own preconceptions of physics; they invent their own physics based off what they think is common sense. This is a unique chance to address the concepts of superhero physics with demonstrations and props. It's a fascinating way to share the basic behavior of our world."

Krasniewicz thinks the show will help broaden interest and get more people producing comic-book media. Illustrator Akinseye Brown, a board member of East Coast Black Age of Comics, hopes to open this portal of storytelling as a way to encourage more literacy.

"I hope to show strangers how to come up with a spontaneous story by using interactive exercises to create their very own superhero or comic book," Brown said. "Hopefully people of all ages can walk away with components of good storytelling. It's an opportunity to appreciate the love of combining literature and art."