I doubt it will affect my reviews much but fmy Silver Age reread will feel very different to me going forward.When I start this reread five years ago, the comics were from late 1956. Two years before my birth, eight years before I began reading comics. I’d read Flash (including the Showcase try-out issues) and Strange Adventures from that era, a scattering of Superman and Batman stories, that was it.
When I got to the early 1960s, there was a lot more material to read and I’d already read a lot of it in either original issues or reprints. As I’ve mentioned before, reading everything month by month gives me a different perspective from flipping through, say, a Doctor Strange collection in isolation. Still, the comics couldn’t help but feel familiar.
Not so much now — “now” being the end of 1968. That was the year my dad, who’d originally worked as civil service on a local US Air Force base, quit to take over a local restaurant. It didn’t work out, which led to us relocating to the Florida Panhandle in ’69. A good friend of Dad’s worked there and got him back in the civil service at Eglin AFB.
I don’t remember much of the details — when did I learn we were moving? — but I do remember the budget being tight at the end of ’68. I wasn’t getting much pocket money so I couldn’t afford comics. Which on the one hand gave me a pang of dismay; on the other hand, the changes at DC, my favorite company, meant the pang wasn’t as bad as it would have been in, say, 1966. Justice League of America, my favorite book, had taken a nose-dive after Gardner Fox left DC. Without Carmine Infantino, Flash and Detective Comics weren’t as fun. Everything felt off.
As for Marvel, I hadn’t bought anything in more than a year. The only book I was really passionate about was Avengers and I still preferred DC. I’m guessing that with a tight budget I’d simply given up on Marvel. Then again, while I remember many DC covers from 1967-8 spinner racks, I don’t remember any Marvels. Perhaps breaking the distribution deal they’d had with DC meant they no longer showed up at the stores I frequented?
I know before the big trek, I bought one issue of Adventure Comics I have yet to read, one Batman and the last two issues of Beware the Creeper. That’s about it until Teen Titans #32. I’ve read a lot of stuff from that period in reprint or acquired it used. It still feels like I’m recovering a lost era in my history. The intense emotions churned up by the transatlantic move may play into that in a way.
Like I said, I don’t know this will lead to any deep insights going forward. Nevertheless, I’m kind of excited to forge ahead.
#SFWApro. Covers by Carmine Infantino, Jack Kirby and Curt Swan