Job description: If you have superhuman powers or at least a burning urge to save the world, then you'll probably have a passing familiarity with Spandex. Show me a true silver screen hero, and I'll show you a man in tights. Of course, in medieval times, tights were the Levi's 501s of the day, and it's in early films depicting these periods that heroes in hosiery start appearing.
In terms of the modern superhero's penchant for silky sheerness, the fervid imaginations of comic book artists such as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are responsible for combining magnificent physiques with form-fitting garb: Nietzsche meets nylon. And it hasn't been lost on modern film directors that a nice set of tights can showcase the callipygian assets of a well-formed leading man. 'Tights really frame men,' says Graciela Mazon, who dresses roly-poly Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler in the upcoming Nacho Libre. 'You can capture the virility ... a man's legs in tights are a sculpture of movement.'
Then there's the school of thought that superheroes are metaphors for closet gays in a hostile world, only able to fly freely and express themselves while in flamboyant costume.
Recently seen in: Superman Returns, directed by X-Men's Bryan Singer, in which comely Brandon Routh dons the blue tights and red cape of the ultimate superhero. In the role made famous by the late Christopher Reeve, Routh fills out the suit impressively as he returns to Earth to patch things up with Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) and get in a fresh stoush with Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey).
Most likely to say: 'You may sometimes be an outcast, but you will never be alone.'
Classics of the genre: For old-school swashbuckling in silk tights, it's hard to go past Errol Flynn in Robin Hood (1938), a paragon of swaggering machismo and devilishly handsome to boot. Proving that the pen is mightier than the sword, Joseph Fiennes cuts a dash in leggings as the bard in Shakespeare in Love (1998), displaying shapelier ankles than his co-star Gwyneth Paltrow. Reeve was square-jawed and superb (and typecast for life) in Richard Donner's blockbuster Superman (1978). The pathos of Reeve's real-life fall to Earth serves only to enhance his appeal as the one true Superman for many fans.