Benetton to release the eightieth issue of its COLORS magazine to celebrate the Superheroes of our day: men and women, weak or strong, rich or poor, all united by a common wish: the good of people and of the world. ‘Real’ people who do extraordinary things for others, and who, in different ways, contribute to improving society. COLORS has met some real-life superheroes, who face the baddies of our everyday world with courage and self-sacrifice: the damage caused by the collapse of economies and by rampant pollution, the destruction caused by wars, the poverty of ignorance and atrocities.

Like Kru Nam, a Thai woman who fights against child prostitution, or Cambodian Khmer Aki Ra, a former child soldier trained by the Khmer Rouge regime to lay land mines, who, at the age of twenty, realized the consequences of his actions, and decided to try to put things right, dedicating his life to clearing his country of mines. Luis Soriano is better known under the name of ‘Biblio Burro’, a kind of mobile library—with his two donkeys, Alpha and Beta, he takes books and education to the remote villages of the Colombian jungle. Another key figure is Julian Assange, ex-hacker, who was recently thrown into the limelight after challenging the secrecy of the world’s most powerful governments and corporations by publishing their unethical activities on the website WikiLeaks.

This issue of COLORS will go a step beyond photographic reportage, and will be completely illustrated by renowned and emerging international artists. Several major figures have contributed to the production of Superheroes with their stories: Gino Strada, founding father of Emergency; Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, a humanitarian organization based on the idea that, where resources are scarce, an innovative, sustainable and collaborative design can make the difference, and the Cuban journalist Yoani Sánchez, chosen by Time Magazine in 2008 as one of the hundred most influential people in the world, as the creator of Generación Y, a blog translated into 21 languages, in which she regularly publishes stories on life in Cuba, marked by a tone strongly critical of the government.

Also in this edition, a special homage is dedicated to the extraordinary feats of Angelo D’Arrigo, ‘the bird man,’ holder of the world record for flying a hang-glider over Everest, and over the Mediterranean. Angelo amazed the world with his exploits, which combined adventure with respect for nature and protection of endangered species. Angelo died in 2006, soon before his planned trip to Peru, where he was to fly over the Andes with his two condors, as part of a repopulation project for the species. COLORS will imagine this adventure.

Due for release this spring in four bilingual editions (English + Italian, French, Spanish and Korean).