Scenes from the Life of an Amateur Comic Book Collector (8)

Just before Thanksgiving I went on another comic buying binge at Time Machine. I know; it's getting bad. Soon I might have to join Comic Buyers Anonymous. This haul includes

House of Mystery 156, 158, 170, 171, 173

Mystery in Space 107

Metal Men 10

Thor 157

Strange Adventures 130

I bought a bunch of House of Mysteries (or Houses of Mystery) because the feature of this comic during the latge 1960s was Dial H for Hero, starring young Robby Reed, a nerdy kid with blonde hair and glasses who resembled a guy I went to junior high school with who was not the typical nasty idiot but an actual nice person (I don't remember his name). Anyway, while cave exploring (how science geeky can you get?) Robby finds a mystery dial--much like Dr. Don Blake finds Thor's legendary hammer. When he dials the letters H-E-R-O he becomes a grown-up superhero, a different one each time.

Imagine the psychological impact--a small, weak bookworm tranforms into a muscular, superpowerful champion at the spin of a dial. Robby lives with his grandfather--affectionately called Gramps--and the housekeeper Miss Millie in the town of Littleville (I guess because Smallville was already taken). It follows Robby's parents are dead. Presumably Gramps and Miss Millie are in a platonic relationship, so Robby has no role models. He's probably teased at school for his brain (in the comic he has friends and roller skates and has impromptu dance parties with the all the other kids, but let's take the more realistic view that he's an intellectual outcast). Now he has a big secret he can share with no one--he's all those dozens of supermen flying around Littleville.

His numerous alter egos include Quakemaster, The Squid, Baron Buzzsaw, Don Juan, Sphinx Man, The Human Icicle, Strata Man, Gill Man, Whirl-i-gig, the Yankee Doodle Kid, the Mole, Giant Boy (a little too close to Collosal Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes), Chief Mighty Arrow, the Mighty Moppet, and many others. How does he cope with it and what about his burgeoning sexuality? In House of Mystery 170, he tranforms into a flying version of Don Juan while vacationing in Spain. While battling a gang of smugglers, he is mobbed like a rock star by local ladies (who are all dressed as if they were in a production of Carmen). How would that make a kid in a man's body feel? He runs away as the women tear at his clothes like the chorus of The Bacchae. Does he ever just get horny and think to himself, "I'll dial myself into a big, hunky superhero and grab that snooty girl from English Lit. She'll fall for me, we'll have a date, I'll definitely score, then return to being Robby." Or maybe he's in the closet and imagines transforming in a big hunky superhero and flying to the Village or San Francisco.

The Mystery in Space of this era featured a similar split personality protagonist in the form of Ultra, a space pilot who through a freak accident takes on a composite body with four equal parts belonging to different aliens. He can never reveal to his girlfriend he is really her fiance. He's not as interesting as Robby. More thoughts on these vital topics later.