Bing. So did you turn pro with that whole belly-button thing Ned or...

Whaoh! What out for that first step... It's a DOOOOZIE!!

Muncho, check your mail today. I heard you might be getting a surprise...

Muncho, better fill the sink for that surprise you're getting!

Darn you, Palmer! Now I'm going to have to watch that tonight.

These heroes and their villains sometimes represent more to a reader or fan beyond just plot and literary gravitas.

Barry Allen for me will always be my hero. Not just my Flash, because I love Jay and Wally too. But Barry was my hero.

On December 05th, 1984 (I was 9 at the time) I was hit in the parking lot of my grade school. The impact knocked me across the parking lot. At first I seemed unscathed but was having bouts of lost consciousness. I was rushed to the hospital and Crozer (the hospital) used its new toy, a cat scan on me, I was the first child they ran thru the device. Turns out beyond, the concussion and the fractured skull there was a severe subdural hematoma.

It was my parent’s choice to have the surgery. The neurosurgeons told them that there was a 1% chance I'd make it out ok, a 19% chance I would come out with severe brain damage and 80% chance I wouldn't live thru or past the surgery by a few days.

I was rushed to the ER, the doctors cut thru the muscle work of my jaw on the right side of my face and they removed a piece of my skull and cleaned out the blood pooling that would have killed me.

Two days later, I woke up from the brain surgery. There was still a chance I would die in the next few days. My parents who were by no means rich did something that terrified me. They gave me my Christmas presents early on Dec 7th because there was no guarantee I'd live to Christmas.

I spent a few weeks in the hospital and was released just before Christmas. And my parents and I were told this as we left… no person who had ever gone thru what I did lived longer than 5 years after the operation and that I probably wouldn't live to see 15. I was also given some pretty strict restrictions on what I could do and part of that was no outside play, no gym.

It’s tough dealing with your own mortality at 9; living each day realizing that the future doesn't matter. I went thru the rest of grade school not being able to play with the other kids, go to gym, or play a sport. I was housebound.

What got me thru that time was DC comics and in particular Barry Allen. I was a nine year old kid whose life was destroyed because I couldn't get out of the way fast enough in a freak schoolyard accident and the Flash was the fastest man alive. He was everything I wasn’t. I thought if I was the Flash, my jaw wouldn't hurt, I wouldn't have holes in my memory prior to the accident, I wouldn’t have constant headaches. I wouldn't be stuck in a room without friends waiting for the day I would drop dead from complications of the surgery. That first year adjusting to my new life was hell.

But then DC, did the unthinkable, and killed Barry Allen in the November 1985 issue of Crisis and unbeknownst to them, they killed what hope I had for the future. If Barry couldn’t outrun death how could a little boy alone do so either?

Twenty years later. The headaches are gone. I have new memories to replace the old ones I lost. The survival rate is now 40% for my type of injury. I went thru college, have a great partner, own a home. These are things that I was told were never going to be possible. But they were.

I don’t blame DC for killing Barry. I’ve grown up. But I’m glad he’s back as I do get the biggest thrill out of reading his exploits. I do get the biggest thrill seeing him outrun the things I couldn’t. I don’t care that the plot of his stories are far from Shakespearean. I don’t care how two-dimensional he’s become. To me Barry represents hope and that’s all I can expect out of a comic book character.

And that’s why Heroclix is my gaming pastime. I love sitting down with my Barry Allen clix and taking down the likes of Rainbow Raider, Golden Glider and the Turtle.

And just to get back to the insanity


Boobies!

But they haven't been cli... Oh I see what you did there!

That, I did not see coming.

Thanks for sharing that with us. I find it intensely fascinating hearing people's motivation for reading comic books and why they like the heroes/books that they do. CL, I think you just made my day.

Hooray for- hey, what a minute...

So this letter came to the office today for an entity we represent. Usually we receive leagal paperwork (lawsuits and whatnot) but occasionally we get some funny stuff:

(It came from Canada and I think it reads better if you read it with that accent, eh!)

PLEASE DELETE <EMAIL OMMITTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT>

FROM YOUR FILES IMMEDIATELY THIS EMAIL BELONGS TO A 9 YEAR OLD CHILD AND WE ARE SICK IN TIRED OF ALL THE ADULT JUNK MAIL IN HER FILES.

IF IT KEEPS UP WE ARE GOING TO THE POLICE AND CHARGE YOU

THANK YOU

They obviously mean business as they provided no return address or signature to the letter.

They are so calling you out.

That is a tough story Curious. It is nice to see a story with good ending though.



My comic story is also based in misfortune.

My father was killed by a 16 year old drunk driver in 1980 when I was six, my brother was about 18 months.

When my paternal grandmother brought herself to clean out all his old stuff she ran across his comic collection. It was full of Strange Tales, Journey into Mystery, some Avengers, Sgt Rock and a bunch of old Monster Comics. I fell in love with comics, it gave me a connection to my father that I feel to this day, every time I read a comic.

At its largest point I has almost 12,000 comics.

Sadly a little over a year ago I had to sell off my entire Silver Age collection to help pay for some medical bills. I only kept his copy of Captain America 113, the memorial on the cover always makes me think of him. I have been a Steranko fan since I was 7.



And I have never quite had the experience that Curious had, but have had a few brushes with the grim reaper myself, but those stories can wait until another post.

I had mego dolls er... um, I mean action figures as a kid. Between that, daily doses of the Adam West batman series, and a weekly dose of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends I was hooked on superheroes. It's kinda funny because I didn't actually read a comic book until I was 15 or so. Reading was frowned upon in my house. I can still remember the day I was sitting on my bed, reading and my dad asked me the the hell I was doing. Upon telling him I was reading he went off on me telling me that there were 7 god damn TV's in the house and I better start watching one of them. I remember this because even at 13 I knew how silly that sounded but when I looked up to meet my dad's eyes I saw he was VERY serious! But once I started reading, I was hooked. Most of my money went to back issues to try and get caught up.

Another great example. It's great what comics (or any other hobby/passion) can bring to someone's life. Sorry to hear about your dad, though.
My dad is precisely what got me into comic books. He read them as a kid and continued to buy them periodically throughout adulthood. I remember being about 4, sitting on the couch with my old man as he read through the pages of an issue of Batman, stopping after each page to explain and point things out in the panels. It was a great bonding experience and comics are still one of the few things we really have in common.
I now share my comics with him.