Origin Stories: On the Value of Comics
1.
I was six years old when I pulled a reprint of “Amazing Spider-Man No. 1” from the rack at Michigan News, a rumpled newsstand at the heart of the city where I grew up. I still have the comic, dated April 1982; it’s tattered and almost worthless, but as a talisman it can transport me across time. Suddenly, I’m there. I’m shorter than the counter. The man at the register rings the sale. The world is vast and I’m unsure of how it works, but this comic is mine, and that’s enough.
As a kid I liked Spider-Man’s run-ins with colorful villains like Electro and Doctor Octopus, but the real draw for me was Spidey’s alter ego, the nerdy, scrawny Peter Parker. Every character in the comic thinks Peter is a frail high schooler who needs protecting; but as Spider-Man, he protects everybody. The perfect hero for a six year-old scaredy cat.
My mom says I was often sick as a baby. Ear infections, fevers, runny noses, the works. By preschool I was better, but in photos I’m all ribs, my arms are beggar-thin, my legs are broomsticks with knobs for knees. Scooby-Doo and Halloween Specials gave me nightmares. Hanging around my big brother and his friends, everyone was always older, smarter, faster, stronger. Naturally, I related to Peter Parker. Nevermind that he had real powers, and I had only the powerful imagination of a lonely kid.
Over time, I discovered comic books were everywhere. At the Waldenbooks and B. Dalton Booksellers of the area malls. In the periodical aisle at Meijer, the bright, sprawling supermarket where my mom shopped twice a month. At Harding’s, the tiny, five-aisle grocer near home. It was there that I picked
