Superman lives in Brasilia. But he himself could have ignored it if he had not gone to São Paulo one day. Social networks did the rest. In 2022, Brazilian lawyer Leonardo Muylaert, 36, was visiting São Paulo Comic Con, a high mass dedicated to comics culture, when another visitor filmed him with his phone. “Is that Clark Kent I see here?” the latter asked in his video, which quickly reached thousands of views on TikTok.
Leonardo Muylaert didn’t even have an account on social networks, and never imagined himself looking like the bespectacled journalist capable of changing into Superman. A few weeks later, he understood that he had become the Brazilian Superman, due to his striking resemblance to the American Christopher Reeve, the most famous actor to have played the superhero in the cinema.
“It was both crazy and funny to see that so many people thought I looked like Superman,” he told AFP. He quickly got into the game: he ordered a blue suit with a red cape online and began traveling around Brazil as Superman – taking care to remove his glasses. From a height of 2.03 m, this smiling colossus visits hospitals or schools, poses for photos with curious people in the streets and tries to bring a message of hope. All without asking for a cent.
He no longer hesitates to appear on the networks: his profile entitled “tallclark” (the big Clark) on Instagram is followed by more than 115,000 people. One of his videos was shared on the social network X by James Gunn, director of Guardians of the Galaxy and the next film in the Superman saga.
Leonardo Muylaert can count on his partner Helenise Santos, who manages his schedule, films his videos and constantly has to answer the question: “Are you Loïs Lane?” During a recent trip to Rio de Janeiro (southeast), he delighted the patients and the medical team at the Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics (Into), a public hospital. “His presence brings a smile to everyone’s face. This gives us new energy to face our intense daily lives,” says Into research coordinator Rodrigo Cardoso.
The lawyer, who studied in the United States on a scholarship to play basketball, handed out gifts to hospitalized children and posed for dozens of selfies. But the future of the Brazilian Superman remains uncertain, due to very prosaic professional obligations. When he’s not wearing his blue and red suit, he returns to his life as a lawyer specializing in civil law. His role as a superhero “fills a void in the routine of office life, which is sometimes very lonely,” he admits.
In a suit and tie in his office in the capital Brasilia, glasses on his nose, he looks exactly like Clark Kent at his workplace in the city, the editorial staff of the Daily Planet. “Sometimes, when we are immersed in paperwork for hours, we forget the importance of human relationships (…). I started helping people and the feedback is incredible, so it motivates me to continue.”