You know who is the most boring superhero in the history of comics? Superman. There is nothing dramatic, surprising, suspenseful, or even interesting about Superman. First of all, he's a complete Eagle Scout – he has no chip on shoulder to make him brooding and dangerous like Batman or Wolverine, he doesn't struggle with motivation, a la Peter Parker. He's not even an out-of-control weapon of mass accidental death like The Hulk. There is no dark side to Superman and therefore the shining light of his pure unadulterated gallantry, no matter how blinding and brilliant it may be, is cause for nothing greater than an apathetic shrug of the shoulders.

Hell, even Winston Churchill was a riotous drunk, whose hobbies included experimentation with opium and ridiculing socialites. And that mustachioed gentleman who landed that plane onto the Hudson River, the one whose name no one can remember? I bet he's downloading raunchy Asian porn onto his computer right now. Every hero has something wrong with him. That's what makes a hero a hero – the ability to rise above one's own weaknesses and do something extraordinary and wonderful. But Superman doesn't have an interior darkness to supercede. It's no great feat for Superman to be the ultimate standard of all that is good and right, because he apparently has no ability to be anything else. He's practically programmed to always do good. Did you applaud your TV this morning because it turned on when you pressed the power button? I didn't think so. Superman is the most insipid of heroes because he is a completely flat character.

But his flatness as a character could be forgiven if there were anything that acted as an obstacle in Superman's way whatsoever. But there isn't. The lone son of Jor-L is arguably the most handsome man at The Planet and on the planet, even when he's wearing his nerd glasses to disguise himself as Clark Kent. He has adoptive parents who love him dearly, a college education, which he must have gotten from being smart enough to earn a scholarship somewhere, because two aging farmers are likely not going to have the kind of scratch needed to send their baby boy to a decent four-year university. He shares a bed with the hottest girl at his office, who is much more than merely “office hot,” and they're both pretty successful in their careers, because you never see Superman getting ready for the day in a cramped studio apartment with a roach problem. Lois Lane would never sleep over, if that were the case. No, he lives in a nice place in downtown Metropolis, probably above or nearby an awesome French bakery that serves perfect espresso, and he has fancy clothes and a flat-screened TV. You've never even a see a damn wrinkle in the slacks of his Clark Kent suit.

So, he has no character flaws and he has no real problems, and if that weren't enough, he is the Swiss Army Knife of superpowers. Pick a superpower, any superpower that you would personally like to have, and Superman has more than likely got it. Flight, X-ray vision, super breath, super speed, heat vision, super hearing, super smell, and invulnerability to everything but one element, which no one has been able to get in abundance, not even Superman's archenemy Lex Luther, and it obviously has not been able to kill him yet. Nothing has been able to kill him yet. In fact they did a whole series about “The Death of Superman” in the nineties, and it turned out that he was in a regeneration chamber up in the Fortress of Solitude the whole time he was supposed to be dead. He wasn't ever actually dead. Nothing kills him.

So if nothing kills him and nothing can beat him, and even his personal life is in tip-top shape, then I ask you – what is the point of ever picking up a Superman comic book? You already know what's going to happen. Someone is going to try and rob a bank. Superman will no doubt hear about the plan with his super hearing and then fly over to the bank in question with his super speed. He'll bust through the walls and then, when the brigands attempt to shoot him, their bullets will bounce right off his chest. He will pummel the ever-loving crap out of them, tie them up and then revert back to his Clark Kent disguise before anyone is the wiser. I mean, you kind of always know that the eponymous protagonist of any narrative is probably going to see all crises through. But no matter how many times Batman narrowly escapes death, there is still a chance that he might not make it the next time. No matter how many times Dexter evades capture, he is not innately impervious to everything that could possibly lead to his capture. Superman, by nature, has a margin of error the width of a quark. Boooring.

Why am I explicitly diagramming the monotony of the Superman narrative? Because Radiohead is coming out with a new album 2010. It was announced a couple of weeks ago by guitarist Ed O'Brien. Very simply put, “We are working on new material. We'll be doing some more recording. It's business as usual.” This despite Thom Yorke's statements weeks prior, which indicated that the band would actually not be recording a new album anytime soon. O'Brien claims that Yorke was misquoted. “WE WILL BE MAKING AN ALBUM.” The all-caps means that he's dead serious.

O'Brien elaborated. “In terms of the band, we feel way more empowered in terms of our art and what we’re doing. We have been rehearsing for the last four weeks, for this new record. And we are in a very different place, a very new place. And one of the things is we do things without fear. A lot of where we come from manifests itself in the shadow of fear.”

All very nice, and very vague, as is the modus operandi of Oxfordshire's finest. And a new Radiohead album is exciting news, because they generally knock the proverbial ball out of the park more often than they do not.

However: Already before it has been released or listened to – before it has been completely recorded or even christened - we've got a lot of people trolling the comments section of their preferred online music rags declaring that Radiohead's eighth studio effort to be the best thing of 2010. We're not even a week into the new decade and there are people who act as if Radiohead has already contributed the most groundbreaking musical work of the next ten years, simply by announcing a record.

We at IYS love Radiohead, but this is a foolish attitude. It's foolish because anticipation is a very basic, very powerful emotion, which if given too much heed, can dictate how the situation is going to turn out before it even happens. Radiohead may very well write and record the best album of 2010. It might even be the best album of the decade. That's very possible. They are talented and innovative enough to accomplish such a feat. But by automatically assuming that this upcoming opus from Yorke and Co. will the best thing to hit timpanic membranes all year, we discount the possibility of being pleasantly surprised by someone else or – blasphemy alert! - being unexpectedly disappointed by Radiohead. Who knows? Maybe Radiohead's next album will be total pablum. If we give in to this hyper-anticipation, if we waltz in 2010 under the rigid unchangeable assumption that Radiohead can do no wrong, will we ever be aware enough to recognize a poor effort by Everyone's Favorite Band? And if we can't recognize a bad Radiohead song, or even the faint possibility of a bad Radiohead song, then do we really recognize and appreciate when Radiohead makes something truly great? We know satiation because we have known hunger. We know joy because we have known sorrow. We should recognize “Life in a Glasshouse” because we have known “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors,” “Morning Bell” because we have heard “In Limbo.”

Twelve years ago when Radiohead were merely a “good” band, this might have been possible. Now we've reached the point where I would not be surprised in the least if Thom Yorke sampled his own farts for a track and people still fawned all over it as if it were the Glorious 9th by Ludwig Van. We're not saying that Yorke would ever do a thing so crass. The cult of Radiohead has rendered the experience of hearing their music so that were it sub-par, very few would know it, and even fewer would dare say it out loud.

This is not Radiohead's fault. It is the fault of every superfan who automatically assumed that their favorite band could do nary a wrong. It is the fault of irresponsible listeners who, rather than hear music with a critical, discerning ear, would simply tell the naked emperor that his new outfit is really flattering. Somewhere along the way Radiohead became the undisputed “Greatest Band in the World” and the rules changed.

The rules have changed from “Radiohead is an awesome band and they're capable of making really great records” to “Radiohead is incapable of doing anything uncool or bad and everything they touch turns to solid gold.” Like Superman, who is categorically incapable of failing, Radiohead has become rock music's summum bonum. We submit to you, dear reader, that such an attitude renders the listener incapable of truly appreciating the band's more outstanding efforts. Such an attitude causes most of us to listen only casually, causes us to take Radiohead's good work as given, the same way that we rarely look skyward on a sunny day and really admire just how blue heavens can be, in the same way that Superman's feats of heroism are truly amazing, but when it becomes a daily occurrence, the wonder and awe cease and he becomes routine and mundane. What's the point of really listening to Radiohead when we've already all decided that whatever they release is automatically the best record of the year/decade/century/entirety of human life on earth?

Please let's listen responsibly, people. Let's not make assumptions. Let's not turn Thom Yorke into the Man of Steel.