OK, so maybe it was actually actors Tobey Maguire and Brandon Routh. They were on hand at Abram Simon Elementary to perform some community service as part of the president-elect’s call to community action on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. But the momentous meeting was the kind that comic geeks salivate over.
Maguire was hard at work with volunteers in a classroom at the school trying to figure out how to build the IKEA-style shelving units, when Routh walked by just behind him, but the superheroes-in-street-clothes barely acknowledged each other as they pitched in while wearing their civvies.
In fact, both seemed like they were purposely avoiding the other’s gaze so as not to encourage, well, stories like this, probably. Leave it to MTV producer extraordinaire Ryan Kroft to point out to correspondent Kim Stolz that the super-duo were in the room together for the first time ever.
“I see Tobey Maguire in the room as well — that means we have Superman and Spider-Man. What are your thoughts on that?” Kim asked Routh. “Is there a better team possible, really?”
“Probably not, you know?” Routh answered. “It’s pretty high-caliber. Tobey’s a great guy, and he gave a great speech today at a breakfast we had earlier for ServiceNation. … We’ll team up, and we’ll do good things.”
show||video|333233
Though Maguire was kept busy screwing panels of the shelves together, a short time later, as Routh pulled books from boxes to stack them in the newly built cubbies, he happened across a — no joke — Spider-Man book, and walked it over to his super-brethren.
“I think this is yours,” he said, handing Maguire the book. The web-slinger laughed, and the actors shook hands and chatted for a few moments before Routh walked back across the room to shelve “I Can Read: Spider-Man 3, Meet the Heroes and the Villains.”
“I think I can probably beat them all up,” Routh said. “Just kidding.” Crisis averted.
“Be the Change: Live From the Inaugural” will air live on MTV on Tuesday, January 20, at 10 p.m. ET/PT. MTV News will have wall-to-wall coverage of the event and of the scenes in Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Kenya in the days leading up to the event and in the days that follow.
