Selling Superman traces Darren Watts’ emotional journey after discovering his father’s lifelong secret—an obsession that left behind a legacy of over 300,000 comic books, including one of the rarest treasures in the comic world: a Superman #1 comic graded 7.0, valued at over $3.5 million. This compulsive collection by Darren’s father, who lived with Asperger’s (ASD), filled every corner of their home, straining family bonds and leaving profound emotional marks. After his father’s passing, Darren is now faced with the bittersweet challenge of managing this incredible collection while confronting the pain and memories it holds.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I was too busy raising my kids to realize what was happening.
00:07Certain rooms in the house were off limits.
00:10I would go over and you'd see like 30 boxes covered with a sheet.
00:13And I was like, what's that? He's like, it's nothing.
00:16We don't tell anybody about this.
00:18That was it for 40 years.
00:20I had to escape. I remember seeing a therapist and I finally let it out.
00:25My husband has comics.
00:30My father got the first solo issue of Superman from 1939.
00:34It was locked away for decades.
00:36He found out that was the second nicest copy of that book on the planet.
00:40That book could easily go for three to four million dollars.
00:44My father had Asperger's, but not knowing it caused a lot of friction.
00:48It seems like ultimate fixation and hoarding.
00:51He kept collecting and needed more space and more space and more space.
00:54You have no idea how oppressive he can be.
00:57He was constantly neurotic about the security of the collection.
01:00We have each of them humidity controlled, climate controlled, multiple layers of security.
01:04He would have thought that was cool.
01:06I'm sure his father loved him, but I don't know if Darren truly felt it.
01:09Nothing Darren did was ever good enough.
01:11He made life livable, but not worth living.
01:13I divorced. I said, I don't want any part of them.
01:15If I wasn't around, there would be a big dumpster outside and she would just throw them in.
01:19You want to give me three and a half million dollars for that comic? Bye bye.
01:23There is a little bit of responsibility to make sure some of this stuff is preserved.
01:27This stuff survived world wars, depressions, cultural differences, racial realizations, women's rights.
01:33Everything is reflected in these stories.
01:37I want to work with people that want to be involved in sharing it.
01:40We're going to put so many of these books in the right hands that people are going to lose their shit.
01:52You