PORT TOWNSEND — Superman flew to the rescue in Port Townsend in October 1988.
At least, that’s the story in that month’s issue of Grant Morrison’s Animal Man.
“Light aircraft in trouble in Port Townsend,” Superman tells Animal Man as he prepares to leap into the air.
“Have a nice day.”
Bill Tennent, director of the Jefferson County Historical Society, learned about the reference on March 25, when he checked his e-mail and found this message from Kristian Brevik:
“I am a PT native who is going to school in Massachusetts,” Brevik wrote, “but my mother sent me the article in the PDN about the Superman exhibit.
Saving Port Townsend
“I was wondering if you knew that in an issue of Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, Superman rushes off to save Port Townsend.”
Tennent didn’t know, although it is his collection of Superman comic books — going back to the fifth issue — on exhibit in the Jefferson County Historical Museum’s “Collector’s Corner,” which was the subject in the Peninsula Daily News.
Brevik also sent Tennent a photo of the pertinent panel, showing Superman, his super senses detecting an aircraft in trouble over Port Townsend, cutting short a conversation with Animal Man in San Diego to fly to the rescue.
The story doesn’t follow Superman to Port Townsend. The plot of the comic is that everyone Animal Man encounters that day runs out on him.
As a matter of fact, Superman isn’t seen in another comic by Morrison for more than a year, according to Tim Callahan of Comic Book Resources at www.comicbookresources.com/ ?id=20077&page=article.
Is the Port Townsend mentioned in the comic the Peninsula’s very own Victorian town?
A Google search finds no other.
And since Animal Man is in San Diego, Tennent surmises that the author — a well-known comic book artist originally from Glasgow, Scotland — was familiar with the West Coast.
Tennent, who purchased a copy of the issue for the exhibit, has since discovered another connection to Superman.
Super relations
“I’m related to Lois Lane,” Tennent said.
No, Tennent has not reverted to the days when he was a 10-year-old boy, saving his dimes to buy Superman comic books to read in bed with a flashlight.
But he does go to the annual Comicon in Seattle, where last year, he met Margot Kidder — Lois Lane on the big screen — and got her signature.
At this year’s Emerald City Comicon, held at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center a week ago, Tennent was after another Lois Lane signature — that of Noel Neill, Lois to George Reeves’ Superman in the television series.
Neill’s face would be familiar to most baby boomers, but it was the name that struck home with Tennent’s sister-in-law, Pam Tennent, who happened to phone Tennent before he left.
“I mentioned that I was going to the Comicon and was excited because Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane on television, was going to be there,” Tennant said.
“And Pam says, ‘Oh, she’s my aunt.'”
Although the marriage was short-lived, Pam’s uncle, Joe Taylor, was married to Neill in the 1950s, Pam said, when the actress was appearing in the series.
On the phone, Pam, who grew up in New Mexico, recalled the actress visiting her family and riding horses, Tennent said.
At the Comicon, Tennent met and talked with Neill, now 89, who remembered that Joe’s family had lived in Ventura, Calif.
“She was quite nice, an attractive elderly lady, very pretty, with long hair,” Tennent said.
It was another family member who was responsible for saving his comic book collection when Tennent went off to college.
Instead of throwing them out, his mother trundled the boxes of Superman comics along with her when she moved, Tennent said, sending them to him when he started working in Colorado in 1981.
“Up until then, I didn’t think of them as collectible,” he said. “They were just something I had as a child.”
Expanded collection
Wanting to expand the collection, he started buying issues that came out before he was born and filling in slots.
His collection, which fills a wall-to-ceiling case in the museum, now goes from No. 5 to No. 600, which is where Tennent decided to draw the line.
Another case holds comic books and publications relating to the death in 1993 of Superman and his subsequent revival the next year.
“Sometimes characters do die off,” Tennent said, noting that readers voted to kill the second Robin, who wasn’t well received.
Another display case holds the October 1988 issue of Animal Man, where Superman makes an appearance to console Animal Man, who is feeling invisible, only to fly off in the middle of the conversation.
Tennent also brought home from the Comicon the fifth edition of a Spiderman comic book with Barack Obama on the cover.
“He collects Marvel comics — Spiderman, Conan, Hulk,” Tennent said.
Marvel introduced edgy super heroes with problems, Tennent said.
DC Comics started out as Action Comics in the 1930s and were looking for a super hero when they saw Superman, who was created by two comic strip artists, Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster.
“They had to rework the strips into a story,” Tennent said. “They were paid $130.”
A mint first issue of Superman can be worth more than $500,000, Tennent said.
The average comic book collector today is a man in his 20s, Tennent said, although all ages are coming to see the exhibit at the museum at 540 Water St.
Among the younger collectors who came to the “First Friday” program Tennent gave on the history of Superman comic books was Thierry Williamson, grandson of museum docent Diane Allen, who brought some of his comic books to share.
Another result of the exhibit:
“We found out that Emilie Rothschild collected the Sunday comics section out of The Seattle Times and kept them in the Rothschild House for youngsters to read,” Tennent said, referring to the house museum on the bluff.
“Her niece, Dorette Rothschild Lemon, still has those comics from the 1920s and will be sending them to JCHS.”
The Jefferson County Historical Museum is open daily from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Admission is $4 and $1 for children 3 to 12. Jefferson County residents are admitted free on the first Saturday of the month.
For more information, go to www.jchsmusem.org.
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Port Townsend/Jefferson County reporter-columnist Jennifer Jackson can be reached at jjackson@olypen.com.
