One of the hardest parts of having divorced parents for us was arranging visitation. My mother had the right to have me for two weeks, the same as my dad had the right to have Jeff for two weeks, and so that we had time to spend together as brothers, they decided to make them consecutive instead of concurrent. So after Jeff had been with us for two weeks, I went back to the upper peninsula of Michigan to spend two weeks with my mom. That meant missing little league, but nothing could be done about it.
We all piled into the Ford Econoline van and headed for the U.P. The idea was to camp out on the way there, to break the trip up a bit. My dad had built a bed in the back of the van for him and Peggy to sleep on, while my brother, both stepbrothers, and I would share a tent. We had an old canvas army tent that always smelled musty. For this occasion, though, my dad bought me my very first sleeping bag. It was super comfortable, because nights up north, even in July, can get pretty chilly. My stepsisters stayed behind to take care of the dogs and the house.
We found a campground in Mackinaw City to spend the night, and it was just a blast. They had a trout pond that you could fish, and you paid by the inch for however big the trout was. Then they had a restaurant where they would cook your own fish for you. Or, obviously, you could cook it yourself at your campsite. Now, that was way too fancy for us. We had to settle for feeding the fish. If you put a dime into a machine that looked like it would dispense gumballs, it would spit out a handful of fish food. Then you would throw it into the pond and the fish churned up the water like piranhas. It was great entertainment to us. But looking back on it now, what a racket it was. People paid them to feed their fish!
When we crossed Cut River Bridge along US 2, we stopped again and walked down the steps below the bridge. It’s a gorgeous valley, especially when fall colors are out. But it was still nice in summer, when everything was green.
When we got to my mom’s trailer, I was so happy to see her. I hadn’t seen her in over six months. She gave me a big hug and had me bring Jeff’s and my stuff into the house to our old room. Although it was a mobile home, it was a 14′ x 70′ with a pop out extension. It was still around 1200 square feet all told. They had a lot right along the shore of Lake Michigan, where they someday planned to build a house. Mom and Steve always had big plans, and were constantly looking for happiness with the location of their home and work. At this moment, they were both working in Newberry, about 27 miles away, a 40-minute commute one-way. My mom worked for the Department of Social Services and Steve worked at the state liquor store. Back then, the Michigan Liquor Control Commission handled the distribution of liquor to bars and stores and also kept a retail outlet in the front. At least they could commute back and forth together that way. It wasn’t always the case, because they would try to get transfers to their newest destination, and one would get the transfer and the other wouldn’t, causing them to both commute to different places.
Jeff and my sister Wendy had a babysitter that they went to during the day, but I didn’t have to go. I’d been staying by myself in Tustin for some time. But just to break up the monotony, I went to work with Steve at the state liquor store a few times. I got to wander fabulous downtown Newberry, which took about 20 minutes down the street and back, but it was still much larger than Tustin. It was then that I decided I would try an experiment. I bought a comic book just to see if Steve would take it away from me. I bought Detective Comics #472.
Detective Comics #472
In this comic, Batman had been subdued and replaced by a guy named Hugo Strange! I’d never heard of Hugo Strange, but there was a panel that referred to the last time Batman had tangled with him…in Batman #1! The art style of this comic was completely different than any other I had seen. It had elements of old Batman stories, like starting a paragraph of narration with an encircled colored letter. It looked like the older reprint stories, when Batman didn’t have the yellow oval around his insignia. But further, it was cartoonier than Neal Adams and Irv Novick, but still appealing to me. The artist’s name was Marshall Rogers, and to my surprise, the writer was the same as my favorite Justice League of America comics, Steve Englehart! That was so cool. I really hoped he wouldn’t destroy my comic.
There was a scene in which Robin ripped his tunic open, and for a little bit, it modernized Robin’s look a bit. It made it look like he was wearing an open shirt, which was quite in vogue in the 1970s.
This was the first time I really started to see Robin as being grown up. In the comics, he had been away at college for almost eight years at this point, but Englehart wrote him as pretty much an adult. Since I had identified strongly with Robin for a long time, I could sort of feel that way, too. And much to my surprise, Steve didn’t do anything about the comic book. He didn’t say a word.
The two weeks went by quickly, and it was time for me to go back. But I was in for quite a surprise, because we weren’t going back to Tustin. Mom and Steve dropped me off at my Grandma and Grandpa McClain’s house in Mesick. While I was gone, Dad had moved us out of Peggy’s house. All of my stuff and Ladybug were at my grandparents’ house! My aunt had had a huge room in their basement, the size of the entire footprint of their house, and for now, my dad and I shared that space. I was shocked. But Dad explained to me that there was stuff going on over there that he didn’t want me exposed to, and so here we were. He had sacrificed his marriage to protect me.
The first thing we had to do was to build Ladybug a dog house. She could not stay indoors all night. Grandma and Grandpa were taking care of my aunt’s dog, Nikki, who was part Samoyed and part Malamute. She slept outdoors, and so would Ladybug have to. We built her an A-frame doghouse out of extra plywood from my grandpa’s scrap pile. We painted it red, with the leftover paint from the two garages, which we had painted when Grandma and Grandpa moved there in 1970. I drew a cursive L on the front over the door, and we filled it with straw, which “Bug” could nest in. My dad assured me that it was only temporary, and that I could keep her indoors when we got our own place.
I could scarcely believe what had happened. I was now going to live with Grandma McClain, my favorite person on the planet? It was like a dream come true. I tried to do my best to be helpful. I mowed their lawn, trimmed the weeds around the house and both garages, helped with the gardening. I wanted my presence to be a positive one. I spent time with my grandpa out in his mysterious garage, that I never really felt welcome in, until then. He taught me about tools and how to use them and let me use anything in his shop that I wanted to, with one rule: that I put everything back where it belonged when I was done. I learned how to measure, cut, and fasten wood. I learned how to sand, grind, and sharpen. I could tell that he loved having someone out there with him; it had been a long time since he had taught my dad.
It was then that I took what I consider my first step into the adult world. I started drinking coffee. Usually, my dad would sit at the table with Grandma and Grandpa, and they would drink coffee and tell stories. I would drink milk and eat cookies. But now, I wanted to try their coffee. I took it with cream and sugar, but my dad did too. I felt so grown up.
I got to go back to Tustin to finish the last few Little League games that were left in the season. It was bittersweet, because I knew I wouldn’t be seeing my latest friends anymore. At that last game, my dad and Sherman bought packs of the brand-new grape Bubble Yum for us. It was enough for everyone to have their own pack. Naturally, we stuffed our mouths with bubble gum. How we must have looked. We had our team dinner at the end of the season at the Cadillac Big Boy (where else?) and I said goodbye to my friends, and finally, to Tustin.
I was used to moving around and making new friends. I had gone to nine different elementary schools from grades K-6. But when we moved in with my grandma and grandpa, my dad promised that even if we moved, I would graduate from Mesick High School. I would not have to change schools again.
My brother Jeff came down to visit in June, after school got out. It was the first time I’d seen him since going to live with my dad, six months earlier. We had shared a room for virtually his entire life, so not seeing him for six months was quite different, especially with all the changes that had happened in my life. It was comforting to have him with me again.
Marvel Memory Album June 1977
My dad was at work most of the time, so he took us to my Grandma and Grandpa McClain’s house to stay for the weekdays, up in Mesick. On one of those days, Grandma took us “to town,” as we always called it. That meant lunch out and special gifts! Cadillac had many retail choices not offered in either Tustin or Mesick. Cadillac had the always-amazing bookstore, as well as KMart, and Giantway. Giantway was a department store like KMart, but you could buy groceries there as well. It was where we got almost all of our toys on visits to Grandma’s house. Jeff got a Mego Kid Flash figure for his special gift on this trip.
Mego Kid Flash
He might have been inspired by the comic book I had bought at the bookstore, Secret Society of Super-Villains #9, which featured the character as a guest star.
Secret Society of Super-Villains #9
I still remember this comic for being notable about a trivial detail. I wondered about the pop can tab shown on the first story page:
What’s on Kid Flash’s pop can?
You have to understand that back then, most pop cans opened with pull tops, which you would then throw away, or sometimes, if you were bold, sink into the soda contained in the can. I do recall one or two people cutting their lips as the aluminum tabs made their way back up to the top of the cans, and I definitely remember cutting my own foot on one.
pull top
It would be a few months before the new tabs made their way up north. We were also a little backward in another way. When Grandma took us to KMart, Jeff had to go to the bathroom, and since he was only six, I went with him. The toilet still cost a dime to use! Pay toilets were still a thing in Michigan back in 1977, but instead of asking Grandma for a dime, I had him climb under the bottom of the door. After that, we continued our shopping.
Cadillac KMart, circa 1978
I didn’t ask for a special gift, since I got to see Grandma all the time, but I did ask if I could get a comic book. She agreed, of course. It was then that I bought my first Marvel Comic: Godzilla #1!
Godzilla #1
What you have to understand about Godzilla is that I had never, ever seen a Godzilla movie. Not a one. But my friends in second grade in Traverse City had, and based on nothing but their descriptions, I had drawn Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra more times than I could count. So, to see an actual depiction of Godzilla in a comic book was like a sign from above. I had to have it.
Our trips to town always involved going out to lunch, but it was usually a stop at McDonald’s. But this time, Grandma had something different in mind. “Would you like to go to Arby’s?” Neither Jeff nor I had ever been to an Arby’s before. I was aware of it from riding past the giant cowboy hat signs quite often, but no one had ever suggested going there. It was a total mystery! We, of course, agreed, and were excited to try something new. Grandma got us the traditional roast beef sandwiches, which I thought smelled appetizing, but the real adventure was the choice of sauces to put on them. She told us to try just a little of each on the corner of the sandwich before making a choice. Arby’s sauce was okay, kind of a mediocre barbecue sauce. Horsey Sauce, on the other hand, was another story. Of course Jeff asked if it was made from horses. Grandma laughed, and assured us both (I was too scared to ask) that it was not. I was hesitant, because the bottle said, “horseradish.” I knew from experience that horseradish was nothing to fool with. I had made the mistake of taking a bite of it from a spoon once.
The tabletop sauces at Arby’s
But when I put that white, creamy sauce on my roast beef and took the first bite, I was transformed. I had never tasted anything so flavorful, so indescribably powerful. It was like my brain exploded into a kaleidoscope of flavor. I immediately covered the rest of my sandwich with Horsey Sauce and devoured the entire thing. And then I asked for another, and I did the same thing. Now, in those days, there were no take-home packets. There were squirt bottles on the tables, and the workers dressed the sandwiches made to go, themselves. I whispered to Grandma, and suggested taking one of the bottles with us. Grandma said that although we couldn’t do that, she could make me some Horsey Sauce when we got back to her house. I was doubtful.
When we got back to her house, the first thing Grandma did was relate the story to Grandpa. He roared with that great belly laugh he had, and after she made him his afternoon coffee and he settled in on the couch for his daily nap, she got out the Hellman’s Mayonnaise, and a jar of horseradish. Grandma added horseradish a little at a time to a cup of mayo until I thought she had the mixture just right. And for the rest of the week, I ate Horsey Sauce on everything. Ham and cheese, tuna salad, hamburgers, hot dogs, it did not matter. Horsey Sauce made everything better! When we had leftover turkey sandwiches at Thanksgiving, there was only one thing I wanted on them. When I made the deviled eggs, guess what I put in them.
I’m not going to lie to you. That day changed my life forever. I have four different kinds of horseradish sauce in my refrigerator right now, including a bottle of authentic Arby’s Horsey Sauce. It is still easily my favorite condiment of all time.
As the sixth grade school year drew to a close, my dad asked me if I wanted to play Little League baseball. I don’t think “excitement” is the right word to describe how I felt about that. I had always loved baseball far more than any other sport. I played it in any form at recess in every school I had ever attended. Playing “pickle,” “500,” or playing a full game, I would do it all. I had never had the opportunity to play organized baseball outside of one instance in third grade, where there wasn’t so much as a practice before we were thrown into a huge city tournament, I guess to gauge enthusiasm for that age. But now, I was going to get to play on a team, with actual uniforms, and best of all, my dad was going to be the assistant coach.
As it turned out, I was one of the stars of the team. The head coach, Sherman Holmes, put me at first base, because I was the tallest one on the team, and I could reach higher and farther than anyone else. I loved playing first base, because I got to be involved in every play where a ball was hit on the ground. My favorite player when I was younger was Bill Freehan, the catcher for the Detroit Tigers, but I had no experience as a catcher with the gear and fast pitches, so I gladly made the switch. On my team was virtually every boy from my sixth grade class. We were the only team from Tustin, and we played other teams from around the area, like Leroy and Luther, two other smaller towns that would eventually feed into the Pine River Area School District. But for now, we were just Tustin.
We won most of our games, lost a few, but I can’t describe how good it felt to finally be part of a team, and to be accepted. There was a point, one day before a game, when I was hanging out with one of my teammates, riding bikes around town, and he did something so unexpected, my jaw probably dropped; he lit up a cigarette. I still remember what he said to me: “Don’t tell your dad.” I swore secrecy, and never told a single person until now, as I write this. He offered me a cigarette, but I hated them. I hated the smell. Both my dad and his wife smoked, and both of my stepsisters smoked, and I hated that, too. This boy was up to serious mischief, too, as he also showed me that he had a whole paper sack full of snap n’ pops. By any other name, they were little wads of paper with a tiny bit of gunpowder that would make a satisfying crack sound when you threw them on the ground.
“Snap n’ Pops”
When we got to Little League practice that day, he put a whole bunch of them in the front pocket of his blue jeans. And it went probably just how you’re imagining it. As our shortstop, he mishandled a ground ball, and it hit him right in the front pocket. A really loud crack sounded from the impact, and he doubled over in pain. They had practically all exploded on impact, staining his pants dark with smoke. He wasn’t seriously hurt, but the entire team lost it right there on the field. He had bragged about his contraband, and we immediately knew what it was. That poor guy is probably still traumatized about it to this day.
Meanwhile, my run on Justice League of America continued with issue #145.
Justice League of America #145
The most memorable thing about this comic book for me was that it was the one that taught me about the impermanence of death in comic books. This Count Crystal guy successfully murdered several members of the Justice League, including Superman. I mean, literally, the narration includes the phrase, “Superman’s ghost.” And by the end of the issue, the Phantom Stranger brings them all back to life, so no harm, no foul, I guess.
But there were mixed signals with another comic that came out that month, Showcase #94.
Showcase #94
This comic book described the deaths of the original Doom Patrol. I knew who they were from various reprints, but had never read of their collective demise until now. While The Chief, Negative Man and Elasti-Girl were still dead, Robotman was resurrected to form a new Doom Patrol, which I thought was very interesting. So maybe not all comic book deaths were the same, after all?
As the school year came to a close, I said goodbye to my non-baseball-playing friends as well as Mr. Hunter, and looked forward to seeing them in junior high the next year. Unbeknownst to me, that was not to be.
When I was a freshman in college at Western Michigan University, I had a federal work-study job as part of my financial aid. That meant that I had to go to an office and choose from among a number of available jobs that would allow me to work, and hopefully do classwork at times during the job’s normal hours. I found the best job imaginable. I worked as a projectionist for the Student Entertainment Committee.
Every Friday and Saturday night, the SEC showed second-run movies in Sangren Hall, in two lecture rooms that each had projection booths. My job was to haul four 16mm Bell & Howell projectors from the SEC office about 200 yards away, as well as the film, which was in three (or more) canisters. I would set up the projectors and run the films. Each reel would last about 35-40 minutes, and then I would have to manually transition from one projector to the other, flipping the A/V switch at roughly the same time to transfer the sound from one projector to the other. Then I would rewind the reel, take it to the other classroom, and prepare to start that same reel over again for the second showing. That provided me with roughly 25-30 minutes of free time before I had to go back to the first room for another reel change. During that time, I hung out with the Student Entertainment Committee.
As you might imagine, these guys (and it was indeed made up of all guys) were nerds. They loved film, and surprisingly to me, comic books. I hadn’t read a comic book in four years at that point, having put away “childish things” in order to make myself more attractive to girls my age. But here at school, away from the small town I grew up in for the first time, I found peers who still liked comics. They were talking excitedly one night about the newest Thor comic book, #337, that featured a new writer/artist named Walt Simonson. I was vaguely familiar with Thor from the 1966 cartoons, as well as the Marvel Christmas comics I had. It looked really good to me, too.
Thor #337, art by Walt Simonson
Then they were talking about Wolverine’s wedding in the newest issue of X-Men. I had barely heard of Wolverine. He was a guest star along with the other new X-Men on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. My only exposure to him portrayed him with an Australian accent, sticking his claw through an arrangement on a table and saying to Firestar, “‘Ey, babe, wanna piece of fruit?” These were not the X-Men I knew, and that was not the Wolverine I saw on TV. I thought, wow, I have a lot of catching up to do.
As time went on, I found out that comics weren’t the only nerdy things they were into. They also played a game called Champions. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded interesting. They said it was like D&D but with superheroes. I had never played Dungeons & Dragons, but I knew what it was. My junior high math teacher, Mr. Neahr, tried to recruit me to play when I was in 7th grade. But back then, I was really focused on trying to get along in a new school, and the kids who played in his group were social outcasts. I politely declined, and played sports instead. But now that I was away from my small hometown, I was a little bit more daring, and asked if I could try this Champions game. They had me make up my own superhero and they wrote the character up for me, using their only copy of the rules. I made a character called Darklord, who could manipulate darkness, even using it to make a coherent blast attack. He moved through darkness by teleporting.
Darklord, pencils and colors by me, inks by Barry Winston
One Sunday, we went to one of the guys’ house in Paw Paw, and played. I enjoyed the game at first, trying to see things through the eyes of my character and acting as he would. I understood the basics of rolling dice to simulate success and failure, but their incessant bickering turned me off from playing with them again. I still hung out with them and read their comics while I was working, but I never played Champions with them again.
I would, however, let my imagination wander during classes sometimes, picturing Darklord in action. I would even sketch in my notebook in the margins. I still felt awkward about the nerdiness of comic books and games, but one day, my mind got changed forever. In my honors English class, Writing and Science, a very attractive girl wearing a dance leotard and a long skirt saw me drawing in the margins of my notebook and commented about the art. I was mortified. But she said she actually liked comic books. I could not quite believe my ears. I had seen her around because we lived in the same dorm, but there had been no sign that she was a comic book nerd. I don’t know what that sign would have looked like, but she didn’t wear one. And from that point on, I was never afraid to let my nerd flag fly. She told me about a comic book store on the other side of town, close to where her parents lived, and suggested that I go there. I asked the most obvious question: What’s a comic book store? She laughed and described it, and I probably looked at her like her head was on backward. Whoever heard of such a thing? But I got the address from the Yellow Pages, and on my 19th birthday, I took two city busses, transferring downtown, and took the $10 my mom had sent me for my birthday, and went to the comic book store.
Fanfare Comics and Cards shared part of a two-story home with a country-western radio station on Westnedge Avenue. It was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, but it might as well have been Disneyland to me. I had always bought my comic books either at the grocery store, the book store in Cadillac, or at the flea market in Copemish. But here was every current comic book on the market on shelves against one wall, while on the other side of the room were tables of boxes of old comic books, protected by some kind of plastic bags. Thousands of comic books! I went through the old boxes, picking up one of my very favorite old ones, Batman #203, which was 50 cents. I found some other old Batman comics that I recognized from my childhood too, and just started a pile. I picked up some new comics, including the latest issue of Thor. They didn’t have the issue that everyone had talked about, #337. That one had been sold out for a while now. But I got the third and fourth issues in the storyline for myself. I bought the new issue of X-Men, and I also found The New Teen Titans #39, which showed Robin and Kid Flash quitting on the cover. I had loved the Teen Titans when I was younger, all the way back to the Filmation cartoons in 1967, so I had to know what that was all about. In other words, I was hooked.
New Teen Titans #39, art by George Pérez
When I went home for Christmas break just a few weeks later, I happened to find a boxed set of Champions at my beloved book store in Cadillac. I didn’t even flinch at the $12 price. I grabbed it.
Champions boxed set
I also found the second part of the Walt Simonson Thor story, #338, in the bookstore window. And then I looked up. There, attached on a vertical plastic strip, were 10 copies of Thor #337, at cover price, 60 cents. I only had enough money for one because I was trying to budget my money for the whole month of vacation, and I bought it. I was satisfied with my purchases, and I went home to read.
Inspired by the comic book store in Kalamazoo, I checked the Yellow Pages from Traverse City to see if there was a comic book store there. And sure enough, one had just opened. It was called the Comics Cave, and it was a lower level store along Front Street. Somehow, I persuaded my grandma to take me up to Traverse City so I could check it out. When we had lived in Mesick, Traverse City and Cadillac were roughly equivalent trips, but now that she lived in Cadillac, it was quite a hike. But she indulged me, and we made the hour long drive. I couldn’t get over the fact that there was something like this so close to where I had lived. I had felt forced to give up my nerdy interests because of peer pressure, but if someone was able to keep a store open dedicated to comics, then I might not have been alone after all. On the wall of the Comics Cave was something I had to have, even if it meant spending my last dollar. It was a New Teen Titans poster with art by George Pérez. I bought it with my last five dollars and stashed it away to put up in my dorm room when I returned. I still have that exact poster today.
New Teen Titans, art by George Pérez
When I got back to school in January and told the guys from the SEC about my Thor purchase, they yelled at me, asking how I could leave all those copies of Thor #337 behind. I didn’t understand why, but they explained that that one comic book was selling for $5.00 now. I didn’t believe that. Who in the world would buy a four-month old comic book for $5.00? They said, “WE ALL WOULD.” So, the next day, I called my dad and asked him to go to the book store and buy them all. When he called back, he said they were marked down to 35 cents apiece. The next time I saw him, I gave him his three dollars and change, and for the rest of that spring, if I needed spending money, I sold off one of the extra copies I had. I got a $45 return on a three dollar purchase!
As fate would have it, the girl from my English class who lived in my dorm and I had the same calculus class up on main campus on Tuesday and Thursday nights. She was a tiny young woman, 5′ 2″. She asked me to walk her back from class in the evenings because it was dark by the time class was over, and there were some poorly lit stretches between Rood Hall and Goldsworth Valley III, where we lived. I agreed. And before you know it, we were dating. I was literally the last of my suitemates in the dorm to get a girlfriend, but with my nerdity on full display, I felt like I had been luckier than they were. Less than a year out of high school, where I couldn’t keep a girlfriend despite giving up comics, I had a girlfriend who also liked comics. We made weekly bus trips to the comic book store and read them and talked about them all the way back. Go figure. I was now a nerd for life.
Although May 1977 is forever tied to Star Wars, it wasn’t for me because I didn’t see it that month. I was still in school, in Tustin, and we just didn’t go to the movies that much while living with Peggy and her daughters. Freaky Friday, Airport ’77, Black Sunday, The Car, we saw none of them. The weather was warmer, though, and that meant two things: Playing baseball and picking up some extra money mowing lawns. I mowed our lawn for free. I didn’t even get an allowance, nor did I expect one. But the neighbors I could walk to paid me to mow their lawn, which didn’t take any time at all. I was a champion lawn mower from way back.
When my mom and stepfather bought a house on Gun Lake Road just outside Hastings, where we had lived in a rental house for just over a year. I was still in third grade when we moved. To stay in the same elementary school, I had to ride a bus full of high schoolers, and then transfer to an elementary bus at the high school. I got quite the education riding the high schoolers’ bus. When I would get to the high school each morning, about a hundred kids were lined up along one wall, smoking. They had a designated smoking area. I was scandalized! Almost as scandalized as I was living with my dad and Peggy. Her daughters, aged 17 and 16, both smoked–in the house!
But back to Hastings. My mom and stepfather were so proud of that house by Gun Lake, though. It was a three-bedroom ranch-style house on a one-acre lot. And yes, that meant the lawn was just short of an acre and it fell on nine-year-old me to mow it, which I did every Saturday. It took three hours and three tanks of gas to mow that yard. And how much did I make for my effort? Two dollars. I did it all that spring and all that summer. Bought a brand-new fishing rod and reel with my money, too. So, to be paid two dollars in 1977 for mowing the neighbor’s lawn, which took me at most 30 minutes, I thought I was getting away with grand theft! No longer limited to church money, I was free to make major purchases every week! The first one was indeed grand.
Limited Collector’s Edition #C-51, cover by Neal Adams
When I saw this Neal Adams wraparound cover featuring my favorite character, Batman, with Robin lying apparently dead on the ground, I HAD to have this oversized comic book. What had happened to Robin?? I had to know. Now, I hadn’t been able to read any Batman comics for the previous five years, so I didn’t know that this book reprinted Batman #232, #242, #243 and #244. Ironically, the last comic book I got before my stepfather burned all of mine was Batman #238, which almost immediately preceded most of these stories, and also sported a Neal Adams wraparound cover.
Batman #238, cover by Neal Adams
So, this story was completely new and surprising to me. I had no idea who this Ra’s Al Ghul character was, but he looked completely terrifying on that cover. And I was not disappointed. Ra’s Al Ghul had discovered Batman’s secret identity! His daughter and Robin had been kidnapped by the same people! This was a darker Batman than the one on the TV show, but I had been in on the ground floor for that transition from pop-art star to dark detective. I also loved the goofy Batman of the 50s in reprints. It was perfectly acceptable to my 12-year-old mind that these were all the same character. I read this whole comic probably 20 times the first week I had it. And it took its place with pride among the other Limited Collector’s Editions I owned.
If you’re not familiar with the Limited Collector’s Editions from DC Comics or the Marvel Treasury Editions, they were glorious in their time. While an ordinary comic book from the Bronze Age measured 7.25″ by 10.5″, the LCEs and Treasuries were printed in luxurious 10″ by 14″ dimensions. The others that I had were all bought for special occasions like Christmas presents by my grandma, and they still hold a special place in my heart to this day, but that’s a story for another time. This was the first time I had bought one with my own money and I was about as proud as I could be.
Edited by George R. R. Martin, Wild Cards is an anthology series of novels, written by a number of different authors, with over 30 volumes at this point, with contributing authors such as Roger Zelazny, Melinda Snodgrass, Lewis Shiner, Walton Simons, Chris Claremont, John J. Miller, Victor Milan, and more. With names like these attached, it seems strange to me that so few people have heard of it.
The premise is simple: In 1946, just after the close of World War II, an alien race from the planet Takis decides to test a viral weapon on the population of Earth, because humans are nearly genetically identical to them. The weapon falls into the hands of a human, who uses it to hold New York for ransom. A high-flying teenage hero of the war called Jetboy tries to foil the plot, but the virus gets released over the city. The Wild Card virus has severe effects. 90% of the people affected by it die horribly, which is known as “drawing the black queen,” 9% survive but are deformed and called Jokers, and the lucky 1% gain super powers and are known as Aces. The effects that this virus and these people have on the world is what the series is all about. The setting of the books spans decades. It begins just after World War II, and runs until present day. There are stories that take place during the Korean conflict, the McCarthy era, Viet Nam, Watergate, and pretty much every interesting time, providing a parallel history to our own. One of my favorite parts of it is that the Dodgers still play baseball in Brooklyn.
The characters in Wild Cards, even the ones with powers, shy away from the tight costumes and flashy code-names from comic books. Well, they stay away from the costumes anyway. One of my favorites is The Great and Powerful Turtle, who is a shy man with telekinetic powers who builds armored shells out of junk cars for protection. The Sleeper starts out as a poor kid in junior high who changes powers and appearances every time he goes to sleep. He soon becomes addicted to stimulants trying to forgo his transformations; some of them are not very pleasant. Captain Trips is a counter-cultured biochemist who gets his powers from various powders that he creates. His “friends,” as he calls them, are different personalities that he becomes when he takes them. They are all named and themed after 60s songs.
Senator Gregg Hartman has a persona named Puppetman who controls people after physical contact and uses these puppets for political gain. His politician’s signature handshake, is often the catalyst for his control.
Deadhead eats people’s brains and gains their memories. I actually created a villain called Abattoir back in the early 90s who gained powers by eating the hearts of his victims, much to my friends’ collective chagrin, and I fully admit that I got the idea from Deadhead.
Demise is a contract killer who survived drawing the Black Queen and shares his death psychically with others. But his real gift is his regenerative ability, but it’s portrayed a bit more realistically than Wolverine’s. Demise ran into problems a few times during the series when his bones are not set correctly and they heal in the wrong position, requiring them to be painfully re-broken.
There are any number of telepathic characters in Wild Cards, not the least of which is Dr. Tachyon, the sympathetic Takisian dedicated to helping those afflicted with the Wild Card virus. Well, he’s dedicated when he’s not drunk or deported; or both. He feels guilt over failing to persuade the American government to take the virus weapon seriously as he tried to prevent its use.
You can find an index to virtually all the Wild Cards characters at this site. There are spoilers within, so beware.
The book series has its own origin story, as the setting and some of the characters came from George R. R. Martin’s own Superworld RPG campaign, with some of the original authors as players. Most of the actual player characters did not survive intact to appear in the series, but the concepts behind many of them did. Since the series’ publication, it has been translated twice into different roleplaying games, starting with GURPS in 1989, and then Mutants & Masterminds in 2008. Coincidentally, I first heard of it in 1987 when I was running a DC Heroes campaign, and I asked the players to come up with original heroes. One of the players “created” The Great and Powerful Turtle, of whom I’d never heard. When I found out about his trick, I asked him to make another, but having been intrigued by his source, I bought and read the first two Wild Cards books. When he came back with Modular Man, a character from the second novel (which he not-so-cleverly thought I hadn’t read), I invited him to leave the group. But on the plus side, I was hooked on Wild Cards!
It’s also been a comic book published by both Marvel and Dynamite, and it’s currently back with Marvel again. I still have a page of original art from the first Marvel series.
Wild Cards, it seems, has been optioned for film or television more times than I can count. I always get my hopes up, and then nothing comes of it. One would think with that much source material to draw from and the popularity of Martin’s Game of Thrones, it would be a no-brainer for HBO. It’s currently with Peacock, as of 2021, but I’m not holding my breath.
On a funny side note, I have a signed copy of the first Wild Cards novel from George R. R. Martin himself. Back in the early days of AOL, you could just write to him, send him $20, and he’d send you a signed copy. I don’t think you can do that anymore.
