Astro Boy and Other Childhood Icons

It happens when I least expect it. There’s Toby on the movie screen, reconstructed, confused, and wondering who he is and what he has become. Accidentally falling out the window of his high-rise apartment, he suddenly discovers the awesome power of flight. He is Astro Boy and he soars happily through the cloud-filled sky. Onward and upward!

My eyes start to water with tears.

There’s Alan Tracy and his pal Fermat in the rec room of their boarding school, watching his big brothers of International Rescue on TV as they risk their lives in their futuristic Thunderbird crafts, saving innocents from certain disaster. The kids in the school gasp at every treacherous move, then burst into cheers as the rescue is accomplished.

Tears.

There’s the confused young Peter Parker who, on a hunch, starts climbing up the wall of an old city building. Looking down from several stories, his eyes widen in amazement as he yells out in the sheer joy of discovery. He has become a Spider-Man!

More tears.



There’s Superman, weak from a kryptonite stabbing by Lex Luthor. Rescued from sure death by Lois Lane, who pulled out the deadly knife from his wounded side, they are now aboard Richard White’s seaplane, flying away from the danger. The Man of Steel opens the hatch to return to Luthor. Lois is aghast. “What are you doing?” she exclaims.

“I have to go back.”

“He’ll kill you!”

Superman looks fondly at his one-time girlfriend and smiles. “Goodbye, Lois.” And off he goes into the sky. He has a job to do.

I’m bawling my eyes out.

Okay, what’s happening here? I’m not one to cry easily, especially in public, but the tears do seem to come easily in a darkened theater if the movie is about one of my childhood icons. I was crying again while watching the new Astro Boy movie, grateful that the theater was practically empty for the early afternoon matinee.

I think it comes down to trying to recapture a lost part of my youth. I had a . . . difficult childhood. (And let the record state that I do NOT blame my parents.) I grew up in poverty, in a housing project, surrounded by crime and idle youth. I was bullied at school, sometimes just because I got good grades. There were times when I felt like I didn’t have a friend in the world.

So I took refuge in comic books. For only ten cents I would be soaring in an entirely different brightly colored world, filled with heroes who struggled with their everyday lives but somehow overcame the villain by page 23. Pow! Bam! Zap!

“This country is safe once again, Superman, thanks to you!”

I thrived on science-fiction and comic books and watched my favorite TV shows religiously every week: Lost in Space; Batman; Star Trek; The Green Hornet; Thunderbirds; Astro Boy; and the endless reruns of George Reeves’ The Adventures of Superman.

This fantasy world was my refuge from the daily challenges I grew up with. My heroes gave me hope that I could rise up above the forces that challenged me. I, too, could triumph in the end.

Eventually, I grew up and became a man and put aside such childish things. But whenever Hollywood makes a movie of one of my childhood heroes, I am the first in line -- and the first to cry.

My childhood scars helped shape me into the man I have become. I am grateful for my heroes, for the good that they symbolized and, most of all, for the hope that they inspired in me.