He dared to build the Hall of Justice in his backyard — now there's a superhero museum in Indiana

ELKHART, Ind. - As with any decent superhero origin, the Hall of Heroes Superhero Museum here began in ambition and humility, overreach and wonder: Allen Stewart loved superheroes and comic books and spent every dime from his paper routes on superhero comics and toys and refused to throw anything away. His fever never abated, not as a teenager, not after he entered the military, not after he started a family, and so, when he became an adult and made some money in local real estate, he decided to splurge: He decided he would build the Justice League's Hall of Justice in his backyard.

This was a dozen years ago.

He hired the only contractor in Elkhart who also watched the old "Super Friends" cartoon on Saturday mornings and knew what he was talking about. He bought gold lettering for the facade from Hobby Lobby. About $100,000 later, BOOM - his middle class neighborhood of wide green lawns and vinyl-sided ranches had a Hall of Justice.

Now you would think that anyone in Indiana with a two-story, full-scale reproduction of the headquarters of the Justice League sitting in their backyard would be problem-free.

But life was not perfect.

Stewart's Hall of Justice sat at the end of a gravel path, not a reflecting pool; its facade was stucco, not marble; it wasn't accented