Origin stories

With mythologies so pervasive, every reader of a Superman or Batman comic book started at the same point of common knowledge, like beginning each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Everyone could recite Superman’s backstory: Krypton. Explosion. Rocketship. Ma and Pa Kent. Clark Kent. Metropolis. Daily Planet. Glasses. Lois and Jimmy. Lex Luthor. Same with Batman. Parents murdered. Rigorous training. Wayne Manor. Gotham City. Batmobile. Robin. Joker. 

It made for easy entry and helping matters more was that Superman and Batman, all DC Comics for that matter, were not serialized. Each issue was self-contained, every first page a new day for the characters. 

When I bought my first Marvel Comics off the newsstand in late 1964 (Avengers #10 and X-Men #8), the Marvel Age of Comics -- as proclaimed by Stan Lee -- was only in its third year, having started with Fantastic Four #1 in November, 1961. 

What made Marvel different, mostly, from the competition, but the key difference was that Marvel’s books were breathlessly plotted so that each issue built upon the preceding issue. There were connections between the characters and sometimes footnotes, annotating events that might have happened last month or two years ago. 

Unless you were in at the very beginning, you had to piece together the origins and histories of the characters. It was uncharted territory. As a new recruit, I needed a map, namely back issues. 

Once a comic book reached its month-long shelf life at Charlie Fein’s candy store, it mysteriously disappeared, seemingly gone forever. So I began following up on rumors of other kids in the neighborhood who supposedly had older Marvels that maybe I could trade other comics for, buy (as cheaply as possible) or borrow just to read. 

I kept a mental spreadsheet of who owned what. Jimmy, over on Willow Street, and Teddy on Pine Street had a few old Marvels. Pat on Spring Valley Avenue had issues of Spider-Man going back to #1 that he inherited from a cousin. Billy, a couple of houses up the street from me, owned Marvel Tales #1, which reprinted the origins of six Marvel heroes. I don’t think any of them cared as much as I did, but they wouldn’t budge. 

A new kid in my grade named Steve came over one day and brought some of his comic books. His parents were divorced and his mother, much younger and blonder than anyone else’s mom, dropped him off and met my father to assure her an adult would be present; he was apparently so overcome by Steve’s mom that as she drove away, he let out a wolf whistle that could be heard blocks away. Steve soon moved away. 

There was Richie on Elm Street and Billy on Fairmount Avenue, both a year older than me and owners of impressive comic collections. Billy had an older sister who was a Little Miss America finalist at Palisades Park. She pretty much ignored us. Richie talked back to his mother constantly. Acquaintances forged more out of necessity than anything, I didn’t care much for either of them. 

But I kept following leads. My father took me and my sister to Wehman Brothers, a storefront on Main Street that sold new and used books, old magazines and comic books. A combination hoarder’s paradise and firetrap, lorded over by a cigar-smoking old school book dealer, we waded through piles of well-worn comic books. Archie. Archie’s Pals ‘n Gals. Archie’s Joke Book. Archie and Me. Little Archie. Archie’s Mad House. Life with Archie. At least my sister was happy. 

Louie the Barber, who always had some beat-up old war comics along with the newspapers and Life magazines for his customers to read while waiting, let me go through his garage, a graveyard of stacked newspapers. It was a final, desperate effort. After an hour of digging around, all I had to show for it was newsprint-dirtied hands. And a couple of beat-up old war comics.