Gene in January, Day Twenty OneDaredevil #138 cover by Gene Colan and Tom
Palmerhttps://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1696608
Daredevil #138 hit the stands in July of 1976, our nation's bicentennial. As
you'll learn below, the past is a foreign country: they do things differently
there.
How differently? Shortly after DD #138 was published, an interview with Playboy
Magazine nearly torpedoed Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign. Carter admitted
to having "looked upon a lot of women with lust" and continued: "I've committed
adultery in my heart many times. This is something God recognizes I will do --
and I have done it -- and God forgives me for it." This statement set off a
media feeding frenzy and damaged Carter's support among conservative Christians.
In 1976 I was twelve years old and fervently immersed in my comics obsession. I
was making my own comics, and in hindsight, I was mere months away from a
crippling zipatone addiction. I would sometimes forego school lunch to spend my
lunch money on a comic, instead. Comics had morphed from a fun hobby to a
consuming fixation.
One summer day I asked my brother "Hey, where's our copy of Daredevil #138? I
can't find it anywhere." To my shock, he replied that he had loaned it to a
friend to read. Wondering when he was going to get around to sharing this
information on his own, I implored him to get the comic back immediately,
before any damage could befall it. I knew the kid he loaned it to, and I knew
that if he damaged it, he wouldn't spring for a replacement copy.
As a reminder: in 1976, welching on your financial obligations didn't make you
smart, it was regarded as a sign of poor moral character.
The next day my brother handed me the Daredevil #138 comic. "I got it back" he
said. It was mangled beyond recognition. The comic was not torn, but was now a
parallelogram of fanned and creased pages. The cover was rippled and
discolored, and had a texture that looked like the back of a Nestle's Crunch
Bar. Wondering when he was going to get around to sharing this information on
his own, I blurted "This comic is mangled beyond recognition!" He nodded. "Yes,
it is."
Visually autopsying the devastation, I said "Wait a minute... the
discoloration... the rippled cover... this comic has suffered water damage!
How... ?" My brother nodded in assent.
Then, the enormity of what I was witnessing struck me in waves of devastating
stupefaction. Wondering when my brother was going to get around to sharing this
information on his own, I stumbled back to support myself against the wall and
stammered:
"This... comic... has been... peed on."
"Yes," replied my brother, unfazed. "My friend was reading it in bed, fell
asleep, and peed on it."
As a reminder: in 1976, having something peed on was not a springboard to high
elected office. Quite the contrary, it was considered repellent and
objectionable to the broad tastes of society as a whole.
I think that was the only time in my life I ever threw out a comic book. I
eventually found a replacement copy, and my brother's friend didn't pay for it.
I've learned a lot about myself in the intervening decades. Forty five years
later, there's a good chance that my modern self might say "Don't sweat the 30
cents. I got it." But, the damage was done.
Traumatic memories can be nearly impossible to shake. They can remain present
and persistent in our lives, until we take steps to restore ourselves, and heal
the damage. Buying this cover is a first step to laying my burden down, and
learning to live again. Not to in any way diminish the experiences of others,
but Daredevil #138 was my Viet Nam. Now I'm coming home.
Decades later, it took me fifteen months of saving every spare nickel, and it
was my own children who had to go without school lunch so that I could afford
the Daredevil #138 cover.
Thanks, Sean!
