A Marvelous Childhood and a Lifetime of Red & Gold

The year was 1991; Nirvana ushered in the Seattle Grunge movement, Terminator 2: Judgement Day had every child repeating “Hasta la vista...baby”, and 9-year-old me was a spry 3rd grader anxiously trying to fit in despite being a foot taller than all of my peers and awkward as hell. This year I would make my mark and join the annals of the cool kids. My finger would be firmly on the pulse of the Turkeyfoot Elementary School zeitgeist. I just needed to discover the next “cool” thing.

Home life was easy enough. Afternoons were spent trying to beat my brother at anything on the Nintendo and failing miserably. My defeat was inevitable considering he is nearly five years my senior. At least he let me play with his toys. I remember being particularly enamored with a small paperback copy of “Incredible Hulk” comics. A character in that book perplexed me and I found myself staring at any panel in which I could find him. No name appeared anywhere I looked. Being 9, I don’t think I looked very hard.

Fortunately, I was my mother’s shopping buddy. I enjoyed running errands with her, as it usually meant she’d buy me candy at some point. There were few things in the universe I loved more than candy. A stop at our local drug store found my mother setting me down in front of the magazine rack while she picked up a few prescriptions from the pharmacist. I scanned the comic books, never having any real interest in them...but then there he was. On a cover decked out with superheroes I was familiar with...Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk...in the upper-right corner he was there. Red & yellow suit, circle on his chest. I begged my mother for the book. It was a dollar; a fortune to a child. What’s worse...there were two more covers there featuring him and I had to have them. My mother didn’t even bat an eye; she said yes. Her kid wanted to read something, so there was no reason for her to object. Coveting them like gold, we left that store and I began a nearly 30 year love for all things Iron Man.





Fast forward to May of 2008. My friends asked if I was going to the midnight premier; what a silly question. I was lucky that the local cinema was actually doing a show at 8 considering I had work the next morning. I did not have high hopes for the film. I wasn’t a doubter. I just knew the deck was stacked against it. Nolan’s Batman trilogy was in full swing and the comic community very much had Joker Fever. I was just glad something I had loved for so long was getting its shot on the big screen. What audiences got was cinematic history; the dawn of an interconnected film series. Iron Man birthed the MCU. You would be hard-pressed to find a kid who didn’t know who he was. 

Fast forward again to February of 2016: The Amazing Arizona Comicon. I had set a goal for myself to collect every issue in the first run of Iron Man. There are 332 issues spanning from 1968 to 1996 and cons are a great place to get some deals. I take a glance down Artist Alley and the legendary George Perez is there signing books. The same George Perez who drew Infinity Gauntlet #3, the book that fueled my nerd brain to seek Iron Man the way people in hell seek ice water. He was doing sketches for $40. You can guess who I asked for. George likes to talk to his fans and he asked for my story. I told him I was a high school English teacher who found purpose in inspiring young people to better themselves and find a passion for literature. I told him he drew the book that made me a reader. George smiled and shook my hand; he posed for a photo with me and insisted we hold the sketch. He was the nicest creator I ever met at a show. His sketch is framed on my wall along with a few others he made for me later that year.



Here we are in 2020. Near the Perez sketch hangs a photo of my newborn son in an Iron Man crocheted outfit. I’m 10 issues short of my complete run of the series...I’m afraid to complete it if I’m being honest. The finality of completing something after 30 years of searching...I don’t ever want it to be over because it has defined so much of my life. People who know me know me for this. Those who never bought a comic book in their life will see my collection and they’ll ask a thousand questions out of legitimate interest. I don’t have the biggest collection in the world; many collectors have more and nicer books. Mine is a labor of love. Each book is a collected experience, a story, an anecdote about the place and time in which it was purchased. One day this collection will be my son’s. 



God help me if he doesn’t like comic books.