The annual Superman Celebration kicks off today in Metropolis, Illinois. This year attendees will be dazzled by Special Guests Dean Cain and Billy Dee Williams. Cain played Superman on television's Lois and Clark. Billy Dee played Superman... wait a second.

The closest that Williams has ever come to appearing on a Superman project was in voicing Lando Calrissian in The Lego Movie where Channing Tatum voiced Superman. We should probably expect to see Tatum at future Celebrations.

Celebration organizers justify the inclusion of Williams because he played Harvey Dent in 1989's Batman which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. (Damn, I'm getting old.) The role was famously recast for Tommy Lee Jones in 1995's Batman Forever. Will he show up for autographs at the 2020 Celebration?

Listen, Metropilis, I have as much affinity for the voice of Colt 45 as the next guy, but I don't care to see Batman horn in on Superman's celebration. It's bad enough that Batman outsells Superman at the newsstand, the box office, and the toy aisle, but now Batman is crowding his hangers-on into Superman's festival? That Dark Knight is a jerk.

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Information and souvenir booths open at noon today for the 2012 Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois. (The phone booth won't be open until the "Phone Booth Photo-Op" at 3PM on Friday and Saturday.) This is the 34th year of the celebration, and the 40th anniversary of the DC Comics' anointing the town as the "Hometown of Superman." Forty years sounds like a good excuse to party!

While two former television Superboys (John Rockwell and Gerard Christopher) will be making appearances at this year's celebration, at least one of television's Supermen will be otherwise engaged. Tonight, Dean Cain makes his appearance on the debut of Fox network's The Choice, a "game show" where hot chicks try to entice minor celebrities to date them using their voice alone. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Who thinks this will make entertaining television? The day a girl can't sweet talk a guy into taking her to dinner is the end of the world. Why doesn't Fox just call the show The Cock Tease? You can watch it if you want to; I'll be reading comic books.

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