Fans save Superman home from ruin

A walk-on role in Heroes was among items auctioned in a move to save the US property where Superman was conceived.

Writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster dreamed up the Man of Steel while working from the Cleveland house in 1932. However, its literary and cinematic importance went unrecognised and the building was crumbling until a group of fans set up an online auction, which has raised $100,000 (£56,000) for the property's repair.

Organiser Brad Meltzer told Reuters it was a "humbling, spectacular project", explaining: "The house where Google was created is saved. The farm where Hewlett-Packard was founded is preserved. We protected the house where Dr. Seuss lived, where Elvis lived. So the idea that Superman's house was just rotting away struck everyone as inherently wrong."

He said the level of support for the auction had been incredible, demonstrating the ongoing importance of the comic book hero.

"We're all Clark Kent. We all know what it is like to be boring and ordinary and we all want to be able to rip open our shirt and do something beyond ourselves," Meltzer said.