38 Pulse-Pounding Years

I had me a birthday on Friday, turning 38 years of age.

I'm getting gray at the temples just like Earth-2 Superman. I'm paunchy but still in relative shape. Gravity has caught up. When I was a teen, the old hard men used to say, "Your balls ain't dropped yet." Meaning until they did, I wasn't a man. Well, I'm definitely a man now. I'm trying to illustrate that excessive hair growth from nose and ears is not the only result of aging at this point.

I've also got crow's feet around the eyes and I'm still considered handsome, and even so the womenfolk my age judge a man by other factors they wouldn't have when I was younger. This means I'm more likely to get into a flirty pantie-pulling now than at any other time in my life. I guess I'm glad to have health, though that knee is giving me trouble. Maybe the arthritis.

So, random search of issue 38s in the comics world popped up a couple of interesting bits:

Apparently ish 38 was the intro to the world of Robin, resulting in questions ranging from Batman's sexual preference to time issues like "how can Robin still be a kid after four decades?" Robin opened up all kinds of cans and worms, not to mention spear-heading Fred Werthem's witch-hunt against comics in the 1950s. Plus, Batman shows off his white Bat-suit here, presumably for Antartic action.

Here you get the mighty Steve Ditko's last ish drawing the character he helped establish as the second most recognizable superhero icon, after Superman, in the whole wide world. Ditko still refuses to have anything to do with the character or Marvel, all these decades later. A man of principal, the kind that doesn't exist in comics or much anywhere else in our current society.

In this 38th ish of Lee/Kirby FF, "Paste Pot Pete" of the villainous Frightful Four renames himself "The Trapster." I never did cotton up to a villain with a glue gun one way or another. How that character still appears in comics at all is astounding.

I'm adding this 38th issue because it's a Ross Andru Suicide Squad cover, with the "Task Force X" characters fighting a pterdactyl on top of the Statue of Liberty. Nothing, I mean nothing, beats Silver Age DC at its best.