“That was the peak. It started with the Batman movie in ’89, and it boomed until about ’94. I think the summer of ’93 was the death of Superman. It wasn’t maybe a year after that and it was grim for a couple of years after that. It was bad.”

Another longtime comic book store, Starbase 21, survived the shaky ’90s, but closed in 2014 after nearly 30 years in business. A handful of other comic stores still dot the metro landscape.

Thanks to movies and television fare, the superhero culture has never been bigger or more mainstream, but the trick is getting folks to read. McCormick loves to read. He said he would read five hours a day if someone would pay him to do it.

“Teachers today have trouble getting kids to read anything,” he said. “When you and I were in school, if you got caught with a comic book, oh, that was it, man. You were in trouble. They would jerk it away.

“Today, they are so desperate to get kids to read anything that they will use comics to reward kids if they have done something well. So occasionally I will catch teachers in here digging through my discount books, and if I find out they are a teacher, I usually just give them to them because I know they are using their own money. They are certainly not getting any from the state Legislature, are they?”