of age

I took my son and niece to the Silver Surfer movie today (yes, it is a Fantastic Four movie but even the promoters knew that it was the Surfer that would sell it, as evidenced by the initial previews which barely mentioned the FF) and I enjoyed it very much. It got me thinking about the comics again and how when I was my son's age (5) I got to choose a comic for a road trip and, unlike most choices I made when I was young, I did not pick something that would satisfy my older sisters such as an Archie or Richie Rich, but instead I picked out an interesting superhero comic. The cover was quickly lost but I held onto that comic for years, with its full page image of a silvery character on the first page. However, Atlas shrugs and that comic was lost, maybe thrown away, maybe traded to a friend, unseen until I was a teenager with a part time job and ordering comics sight-unseen from Adelphe's in Winnipeg. My delight could not be greater than the day my $12 mint condition copy of Silver Surfer #2 arrived and I opened it to find the image from my childhood, the Surfer lying on his board, floating in the upper atmosphere until an asteroid storm struck him down.