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.
I didn’t see Star Wars the month it opened. I didn’t see it until later that summer. But the funny thing is that I read the book first. I was a voracious reader, and not just of comic books. I read anything I could get my hands on that sounded cool. And when I saw a novel called Star Wars, I picked it up.
Whew! $1.95!Not quite what ended up happening, but that’s not uncommon in Star Wars stories.
When you read the Star Wars novelization now, you wonder what “George Lucas” really knew about his own movie before he made it. But, as is laid out here with more detail than I would ever include, Lucas didn’t actually write the novelization. A prolific author named Alan Dean Foster did.
The first thing that struck me when reading was that the droids’ names were spelled phonetically. There was no C-3PO or R2-D2. They were See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo, respectively. It was as if each one had a first name and a last name instead of alphanumeric designations. They were called Threepio and Artoo throughout. I remember passages that described Luke getting knocked over in the cantina into some foul-smelling liquid. But the thing I remember most is the phrase, “Servomotors whined in protest,” which occurs no fewer than three times in the book.
I knew it would take some time before I saw the movie, but my imagination had already begun to run wild with the new science fiction hero. After all, the subtitle was “From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.”
I was in my dad’s apartment in Cadillac, Michigan, on a wintry night home from college for the break. Stevie Nicks’ The Wild Heart played on his little boom box on cassette.
After LPs and 8-tracks, we had cassette tapes!
It was a Christmas present from my aunt, who knew that Stevie Nicks was my favorite member of my favorite band, Fleetwood Mac. I must have spent a thousand hours listening to Rumours on headphones while I read comics at my grandma and grandpa’s house. But now I was a newly minted 19-year-old and I was waiting for Ron Radaweic to come and pick me up so we could go to the bar. We could do that back in those days in Michigan. You just had to be 18 and if you knew the right people, you could drink. Not legally, of course, but Northern Michigan was never really known for its stringent law enforcement. I was not a drinker, either. But the bar was where I would find other people my age. So, there I stood, in the dark, wearing my Western Michigan University hoodie and Levi’s 501 jeans with the button fly, ready to mingle and serve as wingman for Ron. We had worked together the previous summer at 4Winns Boats, doing boat upholstery, and he was one of the first friends I had made post-high school. His parents owned the very first video rental store in Northern Michigan, and we had spent many an evening picking out films that neither of us had seen in the theater. He was back from Michigan Tech, way up in the U.P. in Houghton, and we were going to live it up for a night back.
My dad was out for the night, gone off to wherever ancient 40-year-olds go, and If Anyone Falls came on. I was just thinking about Stevie’s first solo album, Bella Donna, which came out in 1981 when I was back in high school, and we listened to that a thousand times on bus rides to and from games, as well as in the locker room…on eight-track. Yeah, that’s right. Eight-track. I had bought a portable eight-track player for a dollar at a garage sale that supposedly didn’t work. I cleaned off the battery of corrosion with Coke, and put fresh batteries in it, and voila! We had music with us on the road. But high school days were now seemingly long behind, and I was a college man. So much of my identity in high school had been wrapped up in the orange and black school colors and the Bulldog mascot and the town, Mesick. I could walk anywhere in two counties and be recognized by name by the time I was a senior. My grandma would always look at me in amazement and ask how they knew me. High school sports were big in Northern Michigan, and I had played every one that I could: Football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring. I was good enough to get my picture in the papers and cover my varsity letter with medals, but not good enough to get a college scholarship for it. But that was okay, because I had just enough brain to take care of that; or so I thought. While I had finished as class salutatorian in high school, I had just gotten my ass handed to me in my first semester of college. I thought about that as Gate and Garden began.
When I got to college in August, I discovered that my dorm, Eldridge Hall, in Goldsworth Valley III, had more people living in it than lived in my entire hometown. It was culture shock, to be sure, but not as much perhaps as the fact that I was still recognized by the guys on the floor of my dorm. Just down the hall from me was the cousin of the baseball player whose line drive I had caught to save the Class D state championship game in 1982. “Circus Catch,” they called me. The only thing I wanted to do when I went away to college was to forget all about high school, and yet there I was, infamous for it. I tried to focus on my studies, but I’ll be honest, some of my high school classes had not prepared me well. Chemistry was killing me, even though I’d gotten an A in it in high school. The professor was literally a rocket scientist. He had worked for NASA and he wanted you to know it. I struggled with it, but my roommate and suitemates sat in the back didn’t. They used their brand-new TI-55 calculators to share answers. With three 8-digit memories, they encoded the answers to the first 24 of 25 questions on the test. 1 was A, 2 for B, 3 for C, 4 for D, and 5 for “none of these.” I refused to participate in their academic dishonesty, and I paid the price for it. By the end of the semester, I was in desperate trouble. I needed a B on the final just to pull out a C in the class. I studied 14 straight hours for the final, trying to figure out what I’d been missing, and pulled a BA on the final, to get a CB in the class. Enchanted played next.
Why was I even waiting for a ride? Because I had sold my car midway through the first semester. I was very popular with my roommate and suitemates because I was the only one of us four who had a car. Most freshmen couldn’t have one, but I got permission. The 1974 Ford Pinto station wagon ferried those boys back and forth whenever they could persuade me. But one night, as we were piling into the car, I noticed that the “Bulldog Country” bumper sticker on the rear bumper of my car had been torn off. I didn’t like that, but it was no big deal. It was only a bumper sticker, and I was trying to separate myself from my hometown anyway, right? Well, we got about five blocks down the road, and there was a bad vibration, and it got worse. I pulled over and found that all the lug nuts were loose on the driver’s side front wheel. I jacked the car up and tightened them. What a weird coincidence. Then a horrible thought crossed my mind, and I checked the rest of the wheels. All the lug nuts had been loosened on every wheel! I was shaking. Naturally, I thought that the athletic rivals who called me “Circus Catch” had done it, but I had no proof. I drove the guys to their destination and went back to the dorm. I parked the car and never drove it again. I called my dad and told him to come and get it and to sell it for me. Whoever had done it knew it was my car, and I’d never feel safe in it again. Nightbird ended just as the snow started getting heavy.
I popped the tape and flipped it over to play the title song, The Wild Heart, and reflected that the first semester hadn’t all gone badly. I had rediscovered my love of comic books. I had given them all up when I was a freshman in high school because the only place to buy them in my little hometown was a local grocery store, where the girl that I liked, a junior, was a cashier. For me to buy them, I’d have to pay her the money and endure the judgment. It was easier to give them up. But at Western Michigan, I was shocked to discover that there were girls who liked comics too. One of them was in the first class I took, Honors English 105, Writing and Science. She lived in my dorm on the 6th floor (I was on the 5th) and she told me that there was a comic book store in town. I laughed. “What do you mean, a comic book store?” She told me that there was a store that sold nothing but comic books. I couldn’t believe it. What a wild fantasy world! But on my 19th birthday, I visited it for the first time. I was writing a paper for the English class and I interviewed the owners. They had new comics as well as old back issues. My mother had sent me $10 for my birthday, and I spent it all that day. I bought old issues of Batman from the 1960s for a quarter each, as well as the Limited Collector’s Edition featuring the Superman-Flash races, which I had never seen before. I wrote a paper like I had never written before, so excited was I by the discovery and got the highest grade in the class. I vowed to make a trip to that store regularly from that point on. And I took more of an interest in the young lady who had told me about it.
As I Will Run to You, Stevie’s duet with Tom Petty began, I took a good look around the apartment. There was not a hint of my existence except for my cheap plastic suitcase (black with red piping like the Batmobile) on the floor over by the futon I was sleeping on in the living room. I thought back to just a few weeks previous, on that same 19th birthday, when my dad had failed to call me. I was crushed that night, but the more I looked around, the more I thought to myself that it was no coincidence. Out of sight, out of mind. My dad felt that his obligations to me were over once I had graduated from high school. The only thing he missed about me being around the one-bedroom apartment was half the rent and utilities he made me pay to stay there in June, July, and part of August. I didn’t leave so much as a coffee cup in the kitchen when I left. He had me take everything with me. That’s when it finally hit me. I truly was an adult, standing on my own two feet.
Nothing Ever Changes echoed around the empty apartment, as Ron pulled up in his Honda. The evening was uneventful, for me at least, as we tried to talk to people in the bar. It was packed, of course, with all the college kids back for break, and after about an hour, we got ourselves invited to a party at someone’s house. Again, not my scene. I always felt uncomfortable in crowds of people I didn’t know, and that remains true to this day. I patiently waited for Ron to finish his rounds and asked if he could drop me back at the apartment. He agreed, but then went back out into the night to seek his fortune elsewhere, leaving me alone with my thoughts again. My dad called a little after midnight, and told me about possibly getting back together with his third wife, Peggy. Wonderful, I thought. At least he’ll be happy without her kids around. When I lived in her house, I was the youngest of the five step siblings, and if I was gone, they all would be too. Sable on Blond? Gross. I couldn’t wait to go back to school so I could miss that reunion.
The next morning, I went to breakfast with my grandma at the Big Boy down at the corner of Pearl and Mitchell Street. Grandma McClain lived in another one-bedroom apartment in an adjacent building to my dad’s. He still wasn’t home yet from his excursion, so I entertained her instead. I had my usual Mexican Fiesta omelet, and she had scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. My grandma and I had always had a special connection from the time I was born. I was the only grandchild for the first six years of my life, so naturally, she spoiled me a bit. She was only around my brother for about a year of his life before my parents split. I was just about to start seventh grade when my dad and I moved to Mesick to a mobile home across a field from hers and Grandpa McClain’s house. And it was she who had provided the positive influence and unconditional love that had helped to heal the deep traumatic scars that had been inflicted on me in the five years under my stepfather’s roofs. She was focused now on her newest grandson, my aunt’s son Jeremy, who had just been born the year before. I listened to her tell all the stories about him, and I was happy that she had somewhere to focus her energies now that I wasn’t around. I didn’t feel replaced, per se, but I did feel relief that she wouldn’t feel alone with my dad off chasing after another potential wife. After breakfast, we went down to the bookstore that I had been frequenting since childhood and had found so many of my precious treasures that I still value to this day. On this visit, I found a copy of the boxed set of Champions, a superhero roleplaying game that I had had an opportunity to play that fall, that opened my eyes to a whole new world. I also found a copy of Thor #337, by Walt Simonson, that many of my new comic-loving friends had raved about. With the recent trip to the comic book store in Kalamazoo and the idea that I didn’t have to be bound to the restrictions I had placed on myself in high school for the sake of impressing girls, I returned in January to a whole new life, and a whole new me. I hung up my Mesick Bulldogs varsity jacket for the last time and started wearing my late grandpa’s parka, which I had inherited for the really cold days.
The lyrics from Beauty and the Beast rang true in my mind. I had changed.
We often visited my grandparents on Sundays, which was great for me because in the evening after I got bored listening to the adults talk about their adult things, I was left alone to watch The Six Million Dollar Man battling the Venus Probe–in color! As I’ve said before, we only had a black and white television, so even as I watched Star Trek after school every day, it was not quite the same, in is monochromatic monotony. But Grandma and Grandpa McClain had a 25″ color TV, the very height of living room luxury!
The Six Million Dollar Man was my childhood idol. When my stepfather took away all of my comic books and burned them in front of me (“They’ll give you bad dreams.”) I needed a hero. Steve Austin was that hero. If my stepfather had read the source material, as I did, he may have had a different view.
You see, the Six Million Dollar Man from the TV show was an astronaut who was severely maimed from the crash of an experimental spacecraft. The Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) replaced both legs, his right arm and his left eye with bionic (cybernetic) parts. Steve Austin then had tremendous strength, could run at 60+ miles per hour tirelessly, and could see great distances and in the dark. In short, he became a secret agent with super powers.
The television show was clearly made for kids. Steve became the last man to walk on the moon, a famous astronaut. He refused to kill people, and usually only hit people with an open hand. The physics of the show were often questionable. There was no explanation given how when his non-bionic hand was handcuffed to his bionic one, he could simply pull his arms apart and the handcuffs would snap.
Eventually the TV show would spin off The Bionic Woman, featuring Steve’s girlfriend Jamie Sommers, a tennis pro who just coincidentally fell victim to nearly the same kind of injuries while skydiving. She got a bionic ear instead of an eye. There was also a Seven Million Dollar Man, who went bad, a Bionic Boy, with leg implants that compensated for his paralysis, and of course who could forget Max, the Bionic Dog?
When I received the Six Million Dollar Man action figure from my Grandma B for my 11th birthday in 1975, I was the first one in my fifth grade class to have one. I was the envy of all. You could look through his “bionic eye” through a viewfinder in the back of his head. He could lift the included engine block when you pressed a button in his back. Oh yes, my stepfather let me have it over having another doll, but by that time, I was learning to ignore him.
Six Million Dollar Man action figure, image taken from Ebay
During the summer when I was 11 years old, my grandmother took my brother and me to a bookstore in Traverse City, Michigan. Horizon Books was just a hole in the wall on the south side of Front Street then. When we asked if they had any Six Million Dollar Man books, the clerk showed us the original novel upon which the Six Million Dollar Man was based: Cyborg, by Martin Caidin. My grandmother asked if it was appropriate for my age and the clerk replied that it was. I was so excited to see this book that I couldn’t even wait to get back to her house to start reading it.
Cyborg, by Martin Caidin
To my dismay, I found a mistake. The book claimed that Steve Austin had lost his left arm, not his right! I immediately took a pen to the book, crossing out “left” and writing “right” in the margin above the line. And Steve didn’t work for the OSI, he worked for the OSO (Office of Special Operations). What was this?? My grandmother calmly explained that when books were made into movies or television shows, details could be changed like that. Satisfied with (and more than a little surprised by) that knowledge, I went back to reading.
The Steve Austin of the novel was a whole different character from the one in the TV show. This Steve Austin could not see out of his bionic eye, but it did hold a camera that could take up to 20 frames of film. The camera was activated by a button just under the “plastiskin” at Austin’s temple. His arm could not lift great weights because it was still attached to muscles and ligaments in his shoulder. He used it primarily as a bludgeon. But one huge difference in the arm was the CO2 airgun in his finger that shot cyanide-tipped darts. They definitely never had that little contraption in the television show! He also had a supply of flares that he kept in his hollow wrist joint. There was a plug he could pull out to gain access to them. Austin’s legs were also far different. He couldn’t run 60 miles per hour, but he could run without tiring, since his respiratory and circulatory systems were only working to supply oxygen and blood to one limb. His feet had swim fins that could deploy from the underside, just behind his toes.
Austin was much more ruthless in the novel to say the least. He undertook two missions, one to steal a Soviet MiG and one to infiltrate a Central American military complex. He was basically James Bond with built-in gadgets. The novel also dealt with other, more adult concepts, like impotence. Steve Austin’s doctors had specifically chosen an attractive nurse to try to persuade him that he wasn’t a monster. The novel also dealt with suicide, the first time I had ever been exposed to that word. Austin tried to kill himself, after requesting steak and orange juice to eat. It was a ruse to get a glass so that he could break it and free himself from the restraints that kept him in his hospital bed. That’s some pretty serious stuff.
After finishing this book, the TV show never quite had the same lustre again. When Austin battled the Soviet Venus Probe in January, it looked pretty ridiculous, to be honest, even as I enjoyed both parts at my grandparents’ house. Earlier in the fourth season, Bigfoot had returned, as well. And now, armed with a little more maturity provided by literature, I was a little disappointed. Even the comic books were a bit muted now. Fortunately, there was also a Six Million Dollar Man black and white comic magazine that had more adult stories in them. In fact, in the fourth issue, one of the stories was practically taken verbatim from the first novel.
So, at the same time my interest in children’s comic books was being rekindled, I was taking a more mature look at fictional characters through novels and magazines. This would become a common theme throughout my adolescence, and in fact, even into adulthood. I still enjoy childish things as well as more adult entertainment. It’s very possible to hold two thoughts at once.
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.
One of the first things I found different when I moved in with my dad is that I was permitted to take showers. That’s not to say that I didn’t bathe. Of course I did. But for 95% of the time I lived with my mom and stepfather, I took baths, and it was not a pleasant experience.
Because we saved money in any and every way possible, all of us kids took baths in the same bathwater. I went first, and then my brother and sister would be bathed at the same time. When my stepfather ran the bathwater, it was scalding hot. And I had to get in before it cooled off. It was very uncomfortable, and I got back out just as quickly as I could. I had to wash my hair while in the bath, and instead of rinsing my hair under running water, I had to submerge my head in the bathwater, again, still scalding hot.
There were no toys allowed in the tub. No bubble bath. Just Ivory dish soap, 99 44/100 percent pure. For how uncomfortable the bath was, I wouldn’t have wanted a toy in there with me anyway. It was all business, in and out. And if I was judged not clean enough, as happened more and more frequently as puberty began to set in? Well, the following bath would be given to me by my stepfather, who was, shall we say, not gentle with the washcloth. I might as well throw a trigger warning in right here.
Not only would he practically scrub the epidermis off me, but as dandruff was becoming a problem for me, instead of using a shampoo to treat it, I was given additional rinse time. He would grab me around the neck and the back of my skull and hold my head under water. And hold it. And hold it. He would hold my head submerged until I had to literally fight for breath. These struggles were probably part of what made my mom give me to my dad. She told me much later, when I was 29, that she thought that Steve was going to eventually kill me, and I have to admit, that as an 11-year-old, I thought that, too. There were some occasions where I was close to passing out or drowning. This process continued until the first pubic hair appeared. And from that point on, my baths were my own.
I was also given deodorant to use to combat the effects of puberty: Secret. “Strong enough for man, but made for a woman,” the slogan went. My mother had tried Secret, but it didn’t agree with her body chemistry, so I had to use the rest of the roll-on. Nothing like going to a sixth grade classroom smelling like your mom. It was humiliating to say the least.
When I went to live with my dad, though, everything changed. I was able to take showers without worrying how long I was in there. I was given Speed Stick to use as a deodorant, the same as my dad used. No one in my new family had ever used an anti-perspirant before, so I still pitted out my shirts regularly, but at least I didn’t smell bad. I wore a baseball cap to cover my always-greasy hair. Puberty was a rough go from the beginning for me. It didn’t matter when I showered, night or morning, my hair would be oily in just a few hours. I even wore that cap to school, despite school rules. This is probably another reason why Mr. Hunter was an incredible teacher. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now. That’s the kind of man he was. When I think about him and the teachers I had later in junior high and high school, is it any wonder I became one myself?
As a growing 12-year-old boy, I was pretty nearly always hungry. It became a thing. We would have a cookout, grilling hot dogs, and Dad would buy two eight-packs. Dad, Peggy, and my step-sisters Debbie and Barb would split an eight-pack of hot dogs. The other eight-pack of hot dogs was for me. That’s no joke. I would eat eight hot dogs, with buns, with no difficulty. And I would eat dessert afterward.
It was a joke to them, and I laughed too, but I had just spent several years not being able to eat as much as I wanted at dinner. I was called a pig, and was accused of gluttony. Remember the McDonald’s story with the Happy Meal? It was my job to clean up after dinner every night back then. I would literally sneak a last big serving spoon full of whatever was left as I put away the leftovers and loaded the dishwasher. It was so bad at one point when I was in sixth grade (before I went to live with my dad), that my blood sugar crashed one night and I almost passed out. I spent an entire day away from school, in a doctor’s office, getting my blood drawn every half hour. Four times in the right arm, and three times in the left. I also had to drink some nasty orange stuff. I’m guessing now that it was for a glucose tolerance test? There’s no one left alive to ask, so we’re going to go with that explanation. Anyway, the cure for the condition was simple: feed your child. Unbelievable. There was one upside to spending a half a day at the clinic. They had comic books to read! The one that stands out in my memory was Superboy #205. One hundred pages! And I read it over and over again.
Superboy #205, cover by Nick Cardy
In “The Legion of Super-Executioners” story, Ultra Boy has reportedly gone insane, and is set to be executed by the Legion. Superboy, visiting with his girlfriend Lana Lang on her birthday, tries to get through to Ultra Boy but is overcome by his friend, who ties him up in his own cape. When Superboy discovers the secret that only Ultra Boy, who can use only one ultra-power at a time, is actually the only one not under the control of The Master, he and Lana are set to be executed as well. The story, written by Cary Bates and drawn by one of my all-time favorite artists, Mike Grell, remains a key reason why Ultra Boy is my favorite Legionnaire. The fact that he has to think about how to use his powers makes him a more interesting and compelling character to me than Superboy or Mon-El.
The nurses there were so nice, that since they saw me reading this comic over and over again the whole time I was there, they let me keep it! I hid it away so that Steve wouldn’t take it away and burn it like he had all my others. When I moved in with my dad in January, it came out of hiding and was stored with the others that I rescued from my grandma and grandpa’s house.
Now that I was free to eat as much as I wanted, I did. They started teaching me to cook as well, which allowed me to experiment with different food. The only rule was that I had to eat what I made, even if I didn’t like it. And I did. One of the things I already knew how to make was pancakes. My dad’s second wife had mad chocolate chip pancakes one time when I was visiting, and I really liked them. But when we were out of chocolate chips? I opened a can of sweet corn and added kernels of corn to the batter. Topped with butter and sugar instead of syrup, I thought they were delicious. No one else did, but that just meant more for me.
Another of my inventions was inspired by candy. I loved Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups when I tried them. It became one of my favorites, as they already were one of my dad’s. So, when we had chocolate sundaes one night, I added a big scoop of Jif creamy peanut butter to my sundae. All the women acted like they were grossed out, but my dad liked it too. He got what I was trying to do and he joined me. It became a loving moment that I never experienced with my mother or stepfather. That simple gesture meant the world to me, and cemented the bond between us.
The next day, my dad started teaching me to drive. He had a 1976 Ford E-150 Econoline van that he planned to customize, as so many people back in those days did.
A 1976 Ford E-150 Econoline Van
It has one sliding door with a window on the passenger side, but the driver’s side was just a blank panel behind the driver’s door. There were only two seats in the front, and none in the back. We put an old swivel living room chair in the back for when we drove up to Mesick to visit my grandparents. Seat belts? What for?
The van had a three-speed standard transmission with the gear shift on the steering column, so when I learned to drive, it was with a clutch. Since we lived on a dirt road in the country, it was fairly safe. And within an hour or so, I was shifting through all three gears and driving smoothly. I was never so proud of myself in my whole life at that point. Twelve years old, and I could drive a stick! I couldn’t wait to tell my friends at school. Having grown up for five years being told I was stupid and irresponsible and would never amount to anything, this was like heaven on Earth.
To this day, I think of my dad kindly whenever I eat ice cream with chocolate syrup and peanut butter.
I’ve said before that my teacher at Tustin Elementary, Mr. Hunter, was excellent, and I’ll say it again. Tustin being a small town, Mr. Hunter thought it important that we engage with the larger world outside, and widen our reading choices. He took it upon himself to drive us kids, three at a time, to nearby Cadillac, so we could get library cards at the much, much larger Cadillac Public Library. When it was my turn to go, I couldn’t have been more excited. Not just because I was going to be able to see more books, but also because of the random selection of my travel companions. One was my friend, David Horan, but the other was my crush, Janet Johnson.
When we got to the library, I signed up for my card and selected a biography of Harry Houdini. I had just seen a TV movie called The Great Houdinis, and I wanted to know more about him. And what a treat. We got to stop at McDonald’s for dinner, and I used some of my gift certificates from Christmas!
On our way back, we dropped David Horan off at his house, and then I got to talk to Janet all by myself. I thought she was gorgeous with her dark hair and eyes. Unfortunately, she was going with Ron Bianchi. Still, I asked for and got her phone number, figuring nothing would ever come of it, but you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And the following Saturday, I summoned the courage to actually call her. It was the first time I ever called a girl on the phone. I was so nervous. I have no memory whatsoever about what we talked about, but I’m sure it was innocent and sweet.
Don’t worry, Janet gave me this photo from the 6th grade yearbook.
The next day, Sunday, I bought Justice League of America #144.
JLA #144, with the classic giant villain/tiny hero theme
Following the events of World’s Finest #245, this issue of JLA had another appearance of J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter! I had remembered him being part of the Justice League back when I was a little kid, but he seemed to be making a comeback with two appearances in consecutive months. He had also appeared in three recent issues of Adventure Comics, according to the blurbs in World’s Finest. They even made him a cool logo:
Manhunter from Mars logo, designer unknown
In this particular issue, though, Green Arrow bursts in on Green Lantern and Superman, who were playing cards, demanding to know why the JLA’s records were apparently a lie and that the League had been formed before Hal Jordan had even become Green Lantern. As the story unfolds, taking place in 1959 (!) the true story of how the JLA got together. This kind of comic was my favorite back then. The more heroes, the better, and this one featured 30 superheroes!
This began the back-and-forth battle in my life between geek stuff and my interest in girls. We now know that it’s not an either/or proposition, but in 1977, it sure seemed to be, particularly in the rural areas. It would have been interesting to find out if it was a dealbreaker for Janet Johnson, but I never found out. She was still going with Ron Bianchi even at the end of the school year, and I never saw her again…until I did, 36 years later!
One of the best parts of living in our time is remaining in touch with our childhood friends. Janet and I eventually reconnected, having found each other on Facebook back in 2012. Ten years ago, we both happened to be in northern Michigan at the same time and we met for lunch in Cadillac. I was up north on my usual camping trip, and she was home from Florida, taking care of her mom.
Janet and me, summer 2013
Janet’s been helping me with my 1977 project, since she’s the only one I’m still in contact with from Tustin Elementary. She’s a wonderful friend, even now!
