Lima's unlikely superhero

In this photo taken June 14, 2012, Avelino Chavez wears his signature Superman costume as he walks to work in Lima, Peru. Chavez, 52, took on the Superman persona 15 years ago, when he lost his job as a security guard, and says he has had work ever since. Chavez also says he only earns about $160 US dollars per month, but that he has the strength of a superhero. Chavez currently works to promote a travel agency.

Photo by Associated Press.

FRANKLIN BRICENO, Associated Press

LIMA, Peru — It's not easy being Superman.

It only earns about $160 a month for Avelino Chavez, who dresses up daily as the caped hero.

But oh, the adventures!

The 52-year-old Chavez can't fly but does seem to be everywhere in Lima: at political rallies and speeches, at a wedding shoot for Peru's famed opera tenor Juan Diego Florez, hawking tours and flights on behalf of a travel agency in the central Plaza de Armas.

"Hola Superman!" people shout to him.

"Hola, Superamigo!" he'll shout back.

Chavez became a superhero 15 years ago after a failed go at bullfighting and jobs as a craftsman, laboratory worker and brothel security guard.

"I lost my job but realized that I could be Superman. I went to the story and bought a blue shirt and a cousin of mine who is a seamstress sewed the cape, the boots, the belt and the red tights," he told The Associated Press.

He hasn't lacked for work since.

One political party even asked him to run for Congress a decade ago. He agreed, but didn't win the seat.

Chavez says he tries to "maintain order in the city." In 2002, he says, he recovered from a thief a purse the man had stolen from a woman.

"My Kryptonite is my security," he says, referring the fictional element that protects the comic book character whose identity he's fused with his own.

As a younger man, Chavez said he sometimes dressed as Carlos Gardel, the Argentine crooner whose tangos "cut to the soul" or wore a beret that made him feel like the revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

But Superman proved the ticket to steady work.

Single and childless, Chavez lives in a rented apartment in a poor neighborhood in Lima's center.

He says he doesn't have a girlfriend.

"But when I get a girlfriend I would like to make love on the moon."

Associated Press photographer Martin Mejia contributed to this report.