Before world culture was saturated with American comic books via film, it was a niche market and considered by most to be shameful and lowbrow. By the late 1970s, when Marlon Brando was getting millions for doing a few minutes of screen time as Superman’s dad, people thought that the form had reached its zenith. But we hadn’t seen nothing yet. As Hollywood special effects prowess grew and a post-Cold War age opened global markets yearning for entertainments not bogged down by a specific language, comics became king.

I miss how movies used to be vehicles of adult expression and would rather rewatch The Passenger any day than see the latest superhero vehicle, though I acknowledge the greatness of this art form in panels even if it’s not my particular thing. In 1977, Mike Douglas, co-host Jamie Farr and, um, a flamboyant panel, welcomed members of the pre-Comic-Con culture. Collector Phil Seuling shows off an original Superman, which was then valued at $1,500. The audience gasped at the price, but today a pristine copy goes for more than $2 million. That’s as good an indicator as any of the value of this source material in our age.