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Column: The Whirling Spinner Rack   Icons From Our Youth By Kevin Agot Published: 2007-10-23

I’m amazed at how the forefathers of our industry came up with iconic superheroes that are still in vogue decades later. In a world of ever-changing progress and fast-paced living, America has jumped to the forefront of almost every innovative progressive category in the world. If we didn’t create it, we will make it better than the place of origin.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve racked my brain to try and come up with heroes in the comic book industry that have had a major commercial and social impact on today’s youth the way say a Superman or a Batman or a Spider-Man back in the Day. In this case, my “Day” would be the early to mid-70s.

I remember seeing tons of early Marvel and DC characters displayed on all sorts of wares throughout my parents’ house. From the comic books to the TV; from the lunch pails to my notebook binders and book covers; from Underoos to Halloween costumes; from Mego action figures to patches for kids’ clothing. Given today’s multimedia frenzy, one could argue that there’s more money to be made commercially now than back then. Even though comic titles probably sold in the hundreds of thousands in the 70s and 80s in comparison to the current standard of tens of thousands, today’s comics have a greater opportunity to be a media juggernaut of their own given our virtually unlimited access to any form of media these days.

When I was a kid, I remember wearing my socks over my hands, grabbing one of mom’s cherished towels and tying it on as a cape, and sometimes wearing my underwear on the outside to become a Batman or Superman. Sometimes we’d fight over who would be Kato, Bruce Lee’s short-lived but much-loved sidekick to Green Hornet. Kato brought up a sense of pride given that there weren’t very many Asian heroes who were popular enough to emulate.

I had fun pretending that I was a superhero. Never mind the fact that these heroes were created several years to several decades prior to my birth. These heroes were cool to play and become during homework-less weekends and school-less summers.

I have an eight-year-old son of my own. The only superhero characters I ever see him play out are the X-Men, Spider-Man, the Thing, Hulk and Superman. I’ve never seen him act out his double-fisted, sock-covered fists, towel draped fantasies as a superhero created in our current, modern age.

I tried to think of some heroes who still have media-legs today but were created one or two decades ago as a comparative parallel of my own childhood experiences and my son’s. My brother, Chaz and our neighborhood friends and I would pretend to be heroes who were created one to two decades before our birth. When I think of heroes of recent comic book lore that were created ten to twenty years ago that are still around today and can be considered relevant, I came up with quite a short-list.

I can think of Nexus, Mage (maybe), and Jon Sable. These characters were created about 20 years ago and still have had titles published (sometimes barely) within the last few years. Do I see kids pretending to be Nexus saying, “What it is?” and hanging out with Dave the Thune? Have I seen my son wield a magical, green bat with a bold lightening bolt strewn across his black t-shirt? Have I seen him pretend to be a children’s book author by day and covert, man-hunter by night?

Ehhh. . . no.

So what’s missing from today’s relatively new superheroes that would move kids to play out their power-filled backyard dramas? Are there any characters of recent years that could be considered iconic? The only one I could think of from recent lore (and it’s really a stretch) would be Wolverine. But, do we really want our kids pretending to be a dark, primal, short-tempered dynamo that runs around in animalistic, uncontrollable rage slicing people to bits?