The groundbreaking animation spectacle The Iron Giant (1999) culminates in a well-known climax wherein the titular 60-foot robot saves the sleepy town of Rockwell, Maine by flying into low orbit and absorbing the full brunt of an atomic warhead. As he rockets towards what appears to be a megaton-heavy demise, he scrunches up his emotive mechanical face and announces “I’m Superman.” In the character’s final moments this line reiterates the core connection between the Iron Giant and his companion Hogarth Hughes, a plucky Mainer every-boy who bonds with the misunderstood robot through 1950s pop culture. It’s an emotional scene that launched a thousand prepubescent tears and a formative moment for many millennials who dreamed of telling and drawing stories themselves.