Despite the difficulties I was facing in school, I still enjoyed life with my dad. On Fridays, even when we didn’t go to the football game, I got my allowance and was able to make a few minor purchases at the local grocery store.
This was one of my favorite comic books, featuring the first appearance of a character called The Huntress. I had always been a sucker for origin stories, and this one also had the origin of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Green Arrow’s origin drawn by one of my favorite artists, Mike Grell.
There had been a book that I had coveted for a long time that I saw in the Cadillac bookstore, but with a cover price of $10.95 (over $50 in today’s money!) no one in my family would ever consider spending that kind of money on a “funny book.” But every time I visited a bookstore that had it in stock, I read it, until I had practically memorized it cover-to-cover.
And a few years before that, my grandma had bought Jeff and me another one of the oversized “treasury” comics with the origins of super-villains!
I think what appealed the most to me about these origin stories was seeing how tragedies shaped the heroes and villains. I had just suffered five years of physical and emotional abuse. I hoped that if something as tragic as seeing my parents killed would make me a hero, and not a villain. I had my doubts, mostly because I had spent five years being told I was worthless, lazy, and stupid. When I saw the origin of Luthor, who blamed Superboy for the loss of his hair and swore revenge, I thought he was being petty, compared to what I had gone through. These were some of my most private thoughts, because at that time, I still had never confided in my father what had happened to me and what was probably still happening to my brother, Jeff. Steve had threatened me when I left to live with my dad. He said that if I ever told what he had done to me, he would kill my brother, and I had no reason to doubt him. Carrying this burden was never easy, and even now, some of my dearest friends from that time tell me that they had no idea what I had experienced. It’s because I feared what would happen if I revealed that information. Looking back, it’s no wonder that I escaped into comic books as much as I could.
