Lavie Tidhar - The Apex Book of World SF 2

It was 1991, the year of the Pinatubo eruption, when James and I were invited to stay over at our Lolo Doming’s house in Los Baňos to finally meet our long-lost uncle: Tito Fermin. According to my mother, he had lived in the States all our lives, hiding as an illegal immigrant, and it was only that year, when he had married into an American citizenship, that he was able to visit the Philippines without fear of recrimination. Both James and I were eager to meet our uncle, having heard that he was a comic book artist; one who actually made a living conjuring up the four-colour worlds we were so fond of.

It was with some disappointment that we learnt the specifics of his occupation: Tito Fermin was a cartoonist for neither Marvel nor DC, but for a small independent company known as Echo Comics. They produced a grand total of four titles a month, one of which was a black-and-white superhero comic that, Tito Fermin said proudly, he both pencilled and inked. We were slightly more impressed when he showed us samples of his work, but though his art had the romantic quality of classic Tagalog Komiks, it lacked the inflated modern dynamism that we had grown accustomed to.

Regardless of his artistic prowess, Tito Fermin was a striking character. Long, shaggy black hair spilled down from his head and his face was rounded out by a full beard which, in retrospect, made him look like a Filipino Alan Moore. His eyes had the hint of a Chinese slant; he spoke in a low, sonorous voice that commanded attention and, as with our grandfather (who we’d nicknamed Santa Claus) you could rarely tell if he was smiling under that beard.

Tito Fermin spent most of our first dinner talking with Lolo Doming, the details of which I can no longer clearly recall; only the slurred American accent that possessed my uncle in the midst of his soliloquies on life abroad and the inscrutable grunts that my grandfather contributed to the discussion. Rain hammered through the trees outside, splashing against the windows and conversation, the warm yellow light of the chandelier washing over the lazy Susan that pivoted food around the dinner table. James and I contented ourselves with fielding questions from Lola Lita, who we had insisted on calling Lolita in spite of her good-natured refusals. We asked her what superheroes were popular in her time and she shook her head as she replied, “My heroes were movie stars, ballet dancers and singers—Judy Garland, Irina Baronova and Frank Sinatra. Those three are my favourites.” And then she crooned a few lines from the song she always sang when she put us to bed, the song I will always remember her for:

Perhaps, as a consequence, as we were falling asleep that night, James confessed that he had grown tired of Daredevil. “I want to be Silver Surfer now,” he said. We contemplated the means by which James could acquire cosmic power and a silver board capable of space flight. I suggested that he find a way to contact Galactus while he mused on the existence of cosmic rays beyond our atmosphere, and after a while we simply lay in our beds for the thousandth night next to each other, our thoughts racing to find the path to James’s goal until, finally, sleep overtook us.

Due to its distance from the city, Los Baňos was a place that we rarely visited, and when we did it gave off the impression of being otherworldly, like a dream that never happened: bosky mountains stretching to the horizon, tiny three-floor shopping malls, the subtle incline on all the roads, sari-sari stores, the musky-sweet smell of Lolo Doming’s cigars, trips to the video rental store, a rough-painted cement ceiling, flower-patterned bed sheets, non-cable television, wood-panelled walls, kare-kare stew, marble floors and, best of all, discount bookstores with five-to-ten-peso comics.

It was there, in the Book sale beside Carmela Barbershop, that Tito Fermin began to participate in our love for comics. He was leaving for the States the next morning and had been meaning to pick up a few Filipino Komiks to take with him. James and I were simply excited to find more back issues of Ghost Rider and Wild Dog. The bargain bins were smaller, only three rows, but we commenced with our ritual anyway, thumbing through back issues, flip flip flip, until we each had our stack of comics to choose from. Tito Fermin surprised us by taking both piles and paying for them, more than 30 comics each and, as we walked out of the store suffused with happiness and gratitude, I silently calculated that he’d spent over 500 pesos on comics, which was a huge amount at the time, at least to me.

And then lunch at Nilda’s Restaurant, where we ate mushroom burgers while Tito Fermin quizzed us on our love of superheroes. A lengthy discourse ensued on the extended line-up of the X-Men, the convolutions of Peter Parker’s life, the rogues gallery of Batman, how Hulk was too boring, how the Legion of Superheroes had too many members, how the Fantastic Four had too few, how Superman and Captain America were outdated; and more besides. He shared stories of his meetings with various comics’ creators during conventions; of the long argument on the art of cartooning that he’d had with Gary Groth; the drink he had shared with long-time Spider-Man editor Tom Brevoort; and the time he had managed to procure a sketch of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman from Jim Lee.

The last one fired me up. There we were, sitting in a restaurant in the Philippines eating mushroom burgers—and we were right next to a man who had actually shaken hands with Jim Lee. Jim Lee! The phenomenal artist’s artist, the person who’d redesigned all the X-Men costumes, the comic creator that I dreamt of one day becoming. Tito Fermin laughed at my ebullition and promised that the next time he met Jim Lee, he would ask for a signed sketch and post it to me.

As we made our way back to Lolo Doming’s house, our uncle began to relate the difficulties he’d been having with his latest project. Echo Comics was intent on adding another superhero title to their monthly line-up, and they were looking to Tito Fermin to deliver it. This was his concept: a superhero that policed the multiversal continuum, spinning from dimension to dimension in an eternal struggle with the Forces of Chaos.

“Spin-Man!” James interrupted.

Tito Fermin stopped and gave my brother a profound look. “Spin-Man?”

“Spin-Man. I don’t know. I just thought of it. Do you have a name already?”

“Spin-Man,” my uncle said, enunciating the syllables slowly, as if he were tasting them. “Spin-Man is a good name. I was thinking of calling him Omni-Man, but Spin-Man sounds much better. Would you mind if I called him that?”

“Yes!” James exclaimed, almost lost in delight. “I mean, no! I don’t mind!”

It was unprecedented—my brother’s idea was going straight into an actual comic book to be published in the States. His idea was going to be the name of the superhero, if not the title of the series. I was a little jealous of his moment of brilliance, but conceded that it was fair since he’d thought of it first. That was, of course, before things got out of hand.

“Can I be Spin-Man?” James asked, pulling on Tito Fermin’s shirt sleeve. We had just arrived at my grandfather’s house, and our uncle seemed lost in a daze.

“You mean his alter-ego? That would be a little like Shazam, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes! Please? I can be a good character. I’ll fight the Forces of Chaos.”

James made a spinning move, grinding his sneakers against the pavement, and ended it with a punch to the air and a shout: “Spin-Man!”