A glorious place, a glorious age, I tell you! A very Neon Renaissance—And the myths that actually touched you at that time—not Hercules, Orpheus, Ulysses and Aeneas—but Superman, Captain Marvel, Batman.

Wolfe is celebrating (with his characteristic, exuberant irony) a modern “renaissance” in which mass culture—especially comic books—supplies the era’s living mythology. By contrasting classical heroes (Hercules, Orpheus, Ulysses, Aeneas) with Superman, Captain Marvel, and Batman, he suggests that the stories that truly “touch” people are not necessarily those canonized by high culture, but those encountered viscerally in childhood and popular media. The phrase “Neon Renaissance” implies both brilliance and artificiality: a dazzling, commercial, electrically lit rebirth of mythic imagination. The quote also hints at Wolfe’s broader interest in status systems and cultural authority—who gets to decide what counts as serious art or enduring legend.