Born in East St. Louis Missouri from a construction worker and a Go Go dancer, looking back I wonder how I even had a shot at life. My Mother was barely around and my Father was a drunk. Thinking back as far as I can the only positive reference I had was from comic books and science fiction.
My mother would drop me off at my Aunts, who had a television, and I would sit and watch re-runs of The Incredible Hulk and Adam West’s Batman TV series. I will never forget the feeling it would give me to see someone fight for someone else. A stranger, love interest, a friend, it didn’t matter. I was glued to it. My Father and Mother would never buy me comic books so the next best thing would be to keep my lunch money, ask my Aunt, or simply sit and read them at the local Comic and Candy shop. The first Comic Book I ever read was Ghost Rider Series 2 Issue 2 “Shake Hands with Satan.” Being that most of my family was fairly religious this got me excited, scared, and wanting more. I knew I had something to look forward too every day and every night before bed. I would hide them in various places in my room and beg my Aunt not to tell.
The love kept expanding and expanding. My cousins and I would sit and watch Alien, Aliens, Predator, Close Encounters, Jaws, and Godzilla. We all started to get hooked. Talking about character vs. character and different situations it engulfed us. It didn’t matter what was going on around us the murder, theft, whatever, nothing could bring us down. It didn’t matter if my Father would yell at me or my Mother would forget to get me dinner life was about being creative and imagination.
A lasting memory I will never forget was when my Father was diagnosed with cancer. He had only 6 months to live and me being at such a young age I didn’t know what to expect. On a Tuesday after school when my Father lost his job he saw me out back sitting under a tree. He quit drinking and maybe had a moment of clarity. He walked over to me and asked me what I was reading. I was scared because I thought immediately he would take it away. It was Batman: A death in the Family. From the obvious title you can take a wild guess why I decided to pick it up. He sat down right next to me under the tree and asked me to read it to him. We sat there, ate lunch, and read the whole thing. I don’t know whether it was life that caught up to him or maybe just redemption but we read comics together for weeks and weeks until he didn’t wake up when I was 9 on his Birthday.
Fast forward 24 years I feel that I am not most objective reviewer of science fiction or comic book movies. I seem to love them all. The next challenge in life is getting my wife to have the same open minded enjoyment I get out of it but that’s for a different discussion. These stories take me to a better place, a simpler time where nothing really mattered. I’m sure many people here have similar stories. I wanted to share this story to see if others have had the same reactions. Taking my annoying wanker/perverted weirdo mask off for a second I felt the importance of these amazingly creative characters goes far beyond paper or film at least for me.
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