Such was my passion that it caught the eye of a classmate and friend named Terry, who told me "You like Batman? I have this old hardcover book full of Batman stories I could give you!" I gratefully accepted and the next day he brought this heavy, dusty tome to class for me:
The book was called Batman: From the 30's to the 70, and though well-worn and obviously well-read, I was delighted to have it, and it was this that introduced me to all the classic stories of the golden age of Batman, from his introduction in Detective Comics to his first solo outing, to the early days, campy years, and dark, brooding re-imagining via Neal Adams, it covered it ALL, and it became a real "Bible" for me!
Funny, in all those years of cherishing that Batman bible, I never knew what the actual cover looked like since the dust jacket had long disappeared even before I ever got it, and I just assumed the cover to be plain yellow as well! It wasn't until the age of the internet that I looked up "Batman from the 30's to the 70's" and saw it had quite a striking cover by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson:
Very cool, but I had SUCH sentimental attachment to my worn coverless book that I felt no real need to "replace" it, and still feel it today!
Terry mentioned that there was a Superman version as well, and though I didn't like Superman half as much as I did Batman, I did make a sort of mental note to look for it in the used bookstores if only to "complete" my set!
With the arrival of ebay, there were many, many dealers ready to sell the Superman Book- the only problem is, I felt it would look weird to have the Superman book with a dust-jacket next to my coverless worn book on the shelf... so in the end, I found someone selling a beat-up worn coverless copy of the Superman Book as well!!!! Just arrived the other week, and just as predicted, this wonderfully worn book matched PERFECTLY next to the Batman book on my shelf, and makes a nice set!
And Just like the Batman collection before, this Superman one gave me a solid history lesson on the Man of Steel himself, one I pored over slowly throughout the week!
MAN, these are such great collections, would LOVE to see other heroes get the same treatment, however I suppose a large part of its charm is the way it's spread across so many decades (as the title says, from 1930s to 1970s) and not many other heroes can boast such a legacy!!!
Such is the enduring strength of Batman and Superman, BOTH of whom remain as relevant and popular today as they did all those years past!
