Confession: I used to read and collect comic books.
I don’t remember exactly when comic books entered my life. I guess I started when I was nine or ten years old. My childhood friend Kevin Fraiser and I would go to a local drugstore in Lexington, Kentucky, and pore over the comic book rack. Throughout grade school, high school and college, I read Superman, Iron Man, Green Lantern, The X-Men (and especially the later graphic novels), Iron Fist, Daredevil and many more. As a young single man I couldn’t imagine how anyone did laundry in the laundromat without a comic book in hand. I’d read them and, like always, throw them away. When I eventually learned that comic books I had paid a dime for and tossed were now collectibles worth $25 to $50, I stopped throwing them away.!
When I first met my wife-to-be, and our relationship was more secure, I revealed the boxes of comic books I collected. She read one issue of Daredevil – I think out of a mixture of kindness and curiosity. I warned her that the subject matter was dark. After reading it, she said she’d would never let a child read these! (She still accepted me.)
How ingrained is my addiction? My wife was reading the New York Times one Sunday years ago when she came across a Superman quiz of 20 questions. I answered 19 correctly and insisted that the answer I gave for the one I “missed” actually was correct because, obviously, the writer hadn’t read the earlier comic books. When I saw my wife’s face, she was giving me one of those “I am not sure I know who you are” looks.
I stopped reading and collecting comic books in 1990 and decided it was time to sell most of my collection. I let our sons take over a few of the graphic novels and #1 editions.
But my love of superheroes never waned. When we went to a superhero movie as a family my young sons would take bets on how long it would take me to say, “Well, it’s not like the comic book.” Over the last 35 to 40 years there have been discussions in my household about kryptonite (the five original colors and their effects as well as those colors added in later years), how stories and timelines in the comic book world changed, how television and movie adaptations were different from their comic book origins.
I loved having superheroes in my life. As I young boy I imagined having abilities to do things I really couldn’t do. For instance, I would love to fly, but I have a fear of heights. I think comic books helped unlock my imagination and taught me to strive for something greater than my limitations. I sometimes fantasize that I am a superhero, or maybe I am a captain of a starship for the Federation of Planets or I can move objects using the Force. There have been times on my long drives I wished I had phaser banks, photon torpedoes and deflector shields. But I digress.
So I am amazed there is any controversy about the latest Superman movie. I haven’t seen it yet, so I have no opinion about this new iteration.
Since his introduction to the world in Action Comics #1 in 1938, every version has Superman arriving to Earth as an infant in a spaceship launched just before his home, Krypton, blew up. He was an immigrant and an orphan – just like many other people who came to this country in 1938. Having no sponsor, he would have been considered an illegal immigrant. The Kents found him still in his spaceship that crashed in a field near their home, adopted him and raised him as their son. The Kents hid the spaceship and kept the secret of his origins from the world.
Here are the lessons I take from Superman and other superheroes:
- That no matter who you are, when you are raised with love, caring and kindness and live your life with love, caring and kindness, you can achieve great things.
- If you are truthful and honorable, justice would ultimately triumph.
- Everyone, even superheroes have strengths and weaknesses.
As a husband, parent, teacher and as a friend, I have tried to live this way, and I hope I have set an example as a husband, parent, teacher and friend.
Perhaps we need superheroes. Every generation keeps inventing its own. Superman, an orphan and immigrant from another planet, fought the Nazis and Fascism. Batman, orphaned by a botched robbery that killed his parents, became the world’s greatest detective. Spiderman, another orphan, lived with his aunt and uncle and as a teenager faced the responsibilities of having great powers. Our fantasy heroes helped us learn about ourselves and showed us a way to protect against the cruelty, corruption, greed and exploitation that existed.
These stories sometimes help us reflect on things that we do deal with. I vividly remember one: Clark Kent, now a young man, standing over the graves of his parents, the Kents, taken by a fatal illness before his high school graduation. His graveside grief that, even with all his powers, he was helpless and could not save his parents still brings me to tears. We all have limits.
I believe using a little imagination and fantasy is good for both the mind and the soul. Sometimes they inspire a solution. But comic books are fantasies. The comic books of the Fifties through the Eighties are different than the ones written now.
Today I don’t recognize the new story lines from the comic books I used to read. All of the movies and television shows strayed far from the original comic books I read and remember. And I am no longer a eight-year-old boy wearing a super-cape in my bedroom at night.
I can’t understand the current controversies. Why do people need something to be outraged about? If you don’t like the story, just don’t read it, or watch it on TV or pay money go see it in the theatre. Superman and all of the superheroes are just pretend. It isn’t real life.
