Lima's unlikely superhero

AP Photo/Martin Mejia

In this June 14, 2012, photo taken, Avelino Chavez, wear­ing his sig­na­ture Super­man cos­tume, pro­motes a travel agency in down­town Lima, Peru. Chavez, 52, took on the Super­man per­sona 15 years ago, when he lost his job as a secu­rity guard, and says he has had work ever since. Chavez also says he only earns about $160 US dol­lars per month, but that he has the strength of a superhero.

It only earns about $160 a month for Avelino Chavez, who dresses up daily as the caped hero.

But oh, the adventures!

The 52-year-old Chavez can't fly but does seem to be every­where in Lima: at polit­i­cal ral­lies and speeches, at a wed­ding shoot for Peru's famed opera tenor Juan Diego Flo­rez, hawk­ing tours and flights on behalf of a travel agency in the cen­tral Plaza de Armas.

"Hola Super­man!" peo­ple shout to him.

"Hola, Superamigo!" he'll shout back.

Chavez became a super­hero 15 years ago after a failed go at bull­fight­ing and jobs as a crafts­man, lab­o­ra­tory worker and brothel secu­rity guard.

"I lost my job but real­ized that I could be Super­man. I went to the store and bought a blue shirt and a cousin of mine who is a seam­stress sewed the cape, the boots, the belt and the red tights," he told The Asso­ci­ated Press.

He hasn't lacked for work since.

One polit­i­cal party even asked him to run for Con­gress a decade ago. He agreed, but didn't win the seat.

Chavez says he tries to "main­tain order in the city." In 2002, he says, he recov­ered a purse stolen from a woman by a thief..

"My Kryp­tonite is my secu­rity," he says, refer­ring to the fic­tional ele­ment that is a weak­ness of the comic book char­ac­ter whose iden­tity he's fused with his own.

As a younger man, Chavez said he some­times dressed as Car­los Gardel, the Argen­tine crooner whose tan­gos "cut to the soul" or wore a beret that made him feel like the rev­o­lu­tion­ary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

But Super­man proved the ticket to steady work.

Sin­gle and child­less, Chavez lives in a rented apart­ment in a poor neigh­bor­hood in Lima's center.

He says he doesn't have a girlfriend.

"But when I get a girl­friend I would like to make love on the moon."

Posted by Scott Mahoney on Jun 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.