I grew up loving superheroes. The majority of my childhood was spent wanting to be a costumed defender of justice. American superheroes invaded my life since my visit to Florida in 1980. After that I consumed whatever comic-book I could get my hands on, eventually settling on a primary love of
DC's Batman and
Marvel's Spider-Man. Very mainstream, I know, but I guess that is just because both have a lot to say about the human condition. Nevertheless, there were other deviations and fascinations along the way. One muse I discovered when I was six years old came in the form of "
The Leopard from Lime Street". The titular character was sometimes referred to as "Leopard Boy", probably due to his age, and occasionally as The Beast of Selbridge, which is probably a take on the
Alien Big Cat urban myths that prevail around the English countryside. However, I mainly knew him as the Leopard Man. The character's origin was a blatant imitation of
the Spider-Man story and some of his gadgetry, most notably his clawed leopard line, resembled items from
Batman's utility belt arsenal, but he had many unique qualities too. So, a somewhat unbalanced merger of my two all-time favourite comic-book superheroes contained in the form of a relatable English school boy. Was it any wonder that it caught my imagination?
