Smartly written and performed, Superhero Celebrity Rehab is genuinely hilarious and, occasionally, sweetly poignant.

Superheroism 101, Lesson 1: never choose a sidekick who is either more super or more heroic than you are. If you’re TV’s Batman, for instance, you pick a teenage kid and dress him in a yellow cape and green hotpants. No one’s ever going to wonder which one of you is the boss. Britt Reid, also known by his crime-fighting alter-ego The Green Hornet, seems to have forgotten that lesson in the new big screen adaptation of the long running radio/TV/comic character.

Because when you have photos of Marion Barry wearing a cape, how can you not publish them? Context for the cape, which is part of the Save Our Safety Net campaign, can be found here. Save Our Safety Net spokesperson Joni Podschun helps Ward 8 D.C. Council member Marion Barry put on his superhero cape. The group is asking Council members to wear the capes to signify their support of a new progressive tax on…

Score a serious, if whimsical publicity win for the folks behind Save Our Safety Net, the group of activists that’s been pushing the D.C. Council to enact a new millionaires tax as a means of solving the city’s budget woes. Working in conjunction with the Fair Budget Coalition, the group managed to convince at least four council members to dress up like superheroes at a rally outside the John A. Wilson Building on Wednesday. Yes,…

Photo by Brian Knight Photography Like, literally. Our sister site Londonist brings news of London Mayor Boris Johnson, who on Tuesday night jumped off of his bike to save a woman from an aggressive gang of teen girls. The victim of the attack, who actually voted for opponent Ken Livingstone in last year’s mayoral election, called Johnson “my knight on a shining bicycle” in comments to The Guardian. Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker, who is…

The long campaign for the D.C. mayoralty, begun roughly Tuesday, draws to a close today — with no clear front-runner in sight. As voters head to the polls (voting is open until 6 p.m.), many are still asking questions about the candidates. They’ve all got their strengths — some endowed by radioactive spiders, others by cybernetic implants. But aren’t these capes all carpetbaggers? Can any of them represent the District? Spider-Man: In many ways,…

Not technically D.C.-related, but given that this may actually be the best local TV news story we’ve ever seen, there was just no way we could pass on it. WLWT in Cincinnati reports on the “growing trend” of “real-life superheroes” in this piece of pure comedy gold. Make sure not to miss the interaction between Cincinnati’s top superhero, “Shadow Hare,” and a Cincinnati cop about halfway through. Absolutely brilliant. Much to our disappointment, the…

With great power comes . . . free comics! As everybody knows, or ought to know, the first Saturday in May is when comics publishers and comic book store proprietors throughout the Marvel and DC Universes celebrate their independence from bullies by giving away books for the low, low price of bupkis. Wait, strike almost all of that. First off, the perception that comics (or “sequential art,” to use the term preferred by Will Eisner,…