The power of prayer is still the greatest ever known in this endless eternal universe.
STAN LEE, The Avengers, #14
I greatly enjoyed the Marvel Superhero films lover the years , barely able to realise that the comics I loved as a boy and continue to love through the years were realised so brilliantly in the medium of film. The genius of Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby fully manifest.
This led me to think of where my love of comics came from?
My own father looked dimly on my love of fantasy, Sci-if and comics and yet the responsibility lay with him for this love. It was not easy growing up as the son of Berkshire’s answer to Roy of the Rovers (ironically another Comic Book character this time British and featured in ‘Tiger & Scorcher’).
My father played football for Reading, Portsmouth, Sutton United and managed local teams Bracknell Town and Wokingham FC. He was always in the local papers and everyone knew him. Over five hundred people attended his funereal. He was famous for ten miles. He was the first manger to actively sign and play Afro-Caribbean footballers in local football, including Kirk Corbin (who went on to play for Cambridge United). Remember, this was the 1970’s when casual racism abounded and things were not as they are now, watch an episode of ‘Life on Mars’ on BBC Boxsets that will give you a flavour of the times. My father judged no one and for him enthusiasm for sport united and did not divide. I am grateful that he taught me this, that the qualities of the heart matter most.
But back to the comics- my father befriended a local biker gang who hung around the village where we lived and decided they would be good baby-sitters for me! This seems incredible in hind site, but sort of typical of his non judgement. Social services were not alerted in the 1970’s!
The biker gang arrived in a roar of smoke and fumes to look after me, parking their bikes outside. My parents left them: the TV, a tin of jack-pot beer and some ham sandwiches. They also left me, nine years old and a bit scared.
The first time I was very anxious and elected to go to bed early. But slowly, each time they came to look after me, I grew in confidence and I saw beyond their leathers and long hair. They became not a biker gang but Andrew, John, Mike and the single female, Michelle. They were great fun, played games with me and were kind. They also tried to develop my powers of mindful attention by ticking my feet and telling me not to laugh but think of ice-cream. Funny what you remember.
Andrew was particularly kind and it was he that arrived one week with a pile of his brother’s old Marvel Comics for me to read: The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Avengers, The Silver Surfer...intoxicating and exciting for an imaginative only child. The comics were great but what was better was that Andrew took time to read them with me and discuss their content. He took me seriously and connected with me. This was my first foray into literary criticism.
It was a short journey for me from Spider-Man to C.S. Lewis to Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Thomas Hardy, Dostoevsky, an English degree and eventually my career.
Comics we’re good for me.
So thanks Andrew (wherever you are), thanks Dad and to you for reading this - don’t forget that seemingly random decisions in life if aligned to your deeper nature can lead to surprising destinations.
Life should be mysterious and surprising.
Again, thanks for reading and supporting,
David
Very great backstory to be introduced to literature 😁
Dad 'famous for 50 miles' if you don't mind my guess.😊
Your '70s' growing up in southern England often surprisingly sounds like my '50s', though 'bikers' were only beginning in my school days.
You are better than me at names but I think it was 'The Wizard' ran serial stories with fewer drawings. For one character they drew imaginatively on an old myth, the Hero who returns at time of need to save the Nation. in this case the Sporting Nation. 'Wilson' showed up for a short serial from time to time. These often had a topical flavour for a Britain experiencing sporting challenges. In later decades the occasional wit showed up in an odd magazine or paper or two pretending to start a 'Bring Back Wilson' campaign!
It must have been in the early 70s though when I was being given a kind lift in a random lorry across the Highlands of Scotland that I mentioned to the driver an interesting cave I had been shown high in an unfrequented glen. The Scottish driver got it immediately; 'That's where Wilson did his training'.
Indeed; I had forgotten. These were interesting caves and I found out more a little later. Archaeology had found traces of bear and lynx, and the hearth place dating to the Mesolithic; the right place for our mythic hero to hole-up and prepare to fire the imagination.