Dude, slow down. It's Milverine.

So, how come none of you yahoos told me about “Milverine?” I keep seeing it cited within lists of biggest  notable  kook-i-wacky Wisconsin news stories from 2011. The story blew up last fall, and yet I’d never heard of it until today. You’d think there was some sort of all-eclipsing Wisconsin political event grabbing people’s attention in 2011, rendering “news of the weird” style stories hollow and meaningless.

Amazing Milverine/DeLorean combo shot.
Photo: Greg Nelson

What was I talking about? Milverine! Yeah, so, a Milwaukee man who looks kind of like Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and loves strutting about town (shirtless) became quite a campy sensation over the past few years as fans started taking covert snapshots of the bare-chested pedestrian and posting them to not one, but two Facebook pages devoted to the muscular, hairy, superhero-ish local. The original Facebook page has over 4,000 fans. People even started having their picture taken with him (for example, the amazing Milverine/DeLorean combo shot shown here) – and eventually, the man’s real identity was discovered last October. Presumably when someone, like, talked to the guy. Eventually, the Associated Press interviewed him.

John Hamann is a construction worker/amateur cage fighter who lives with his mother and likes opera. Yep, it's even better than you expected. He has never seen his Facebook pages because he doesn’t use a computer. The AP asked him if he minds being compared to Hugh Jackman, and Hamann said:

"He's a phony movie actor, but I'm the real deal, you know? Seriously. These movie actors most of them, besides maybe Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal, all these guys are basically phony guys. They couldn't really fight in real life."

 – totally an actual quotation from the actual Associated Press

The Chippewa Valley definitely has its share of quirky, recognizable pedestrians, but we’ve generally shied away from starting Facebook fan pages and creating funny monikers because this place ain’t that big, and it’s hard to remain safely anonymous. I guess in Milwaukee it’s no big deal to stalk/kind of make fun of cage-fighting loner types because it’s easier to hide. 

*Milwaukee + Wolverine = Milverine