Today, as part of a pictorial teaching aid in a "five senses" bit, I achieved perhaps my greatest success since arriving in Japan: I introduced my students to the Composite Superman.

"It's Batman!" said some. "No, it's Superman!" said others. "You're all wrong!" I cried, spitting on decades of teaching theory re negative vs positive reinforcement. "It's the Composite Superman!"

"Konsei choujin," explained my co-teacher helpfully. (混成超人)

"I don't like Batman," complained one student.

"Just look at the Superman half, then," I suggested.

But he wasn't satisfied. "Batman's kind of... dark," he said. (Kind of?) "If he's a hero, why does he act so scary?"

"Because 'criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot'!" I recited impatiently. "What do they teach you kids in school?"

"You're our teacher!"

Nor were they happy when I drew a line connecting the sense of hearing to the Composite Superman's Batman ear.

"He can't hear through that," they scoffed.

"Of course he can. It's an ear, isn't it?" I demanded.

"It's just for show!"

"Batman is the world's greatest detective. He probably has sonar in there or something."

"Then that would be the sense of sonar."

"That's a subset of hearing!"

"No it isn't!"

"I'm not even going to argue with you about whether or not the Composite Superman has sonar in one ear, and if so whether that counts as hearing or not," I said. But, sadly, I already had.

[UPDATE 2005-05-28: COMPOSITE SUPERMAN IS NOW OUT IN STORES. COMPOSITE SUPERMAN IS NOW OUT IN STORES.]