Some local residents may not be too fond of the annual
Independence Day Motorcycle Rally, but apparently masked super
heroes and mutants eat that sort of party right up.
Hollister got its 15 minutes of fame Wednesday when the legend
of the Wild Ones was mentioned in a recent issue of an X-Men comic
book.
Hollister – Some local residents may not be too fond of the annual Independence Day Motorcycle Rally, but apparently masked super heroes and mutants eat that sort of party right up.
Hollister got its 15 minutes of fame Wednesday when the legend of the Wild Ones was mentioned in a recent issue of an X-Men comic book.
“The X-Men have been around since the 1940s,” said Bill Mifsud, owner of Bill’s Bullpen, a local trading card and comic book shop. “So for Hollister to get in is a pretty big deal.”
The book in question is the first issue of “X-Men: The 198” – a five-part spin-off from the popular X-Men franchise, originally about a band of mutants who use their super-human powers to do good and struggle with prejudice against their kind. The new series is based on the premise that only 198 mutants able to use their powers remain alive, and follows their adventures. The books are shipped all over the nation and the world, Mifsud said.
“I don’t really follow X-Men,” he said. “So I was really surprised when I heard that Hollister was in the new series.”
Bill’s Bullpen received a shipment of the books Wednesday and employee Al Welsh discovered Hollister’s name while reading later that evening.
“I want to give Al full credit,” Mifsud said. “I would have never known about it if he hadn’t told me.”
In the book, a mutant named Erg is conversing with another mutant about his family. His uncle, Erg explains, was a member of the Hells Angels and was present for the “biker invasion” of Hollister in the 1940s. At the time, local news media said that only “1 percent” of the bikers present were causing trouble, and Erg’s uncle, like many Hells Angels, wore a “1 percenter” pin from that day forward.
While the biker invasion was made the stuff of legends in the Marlon Brando classic “The Wild Ones,” this could well be the first time the incident has been used in a comic book.
“I’ve been in business here 18 years,” Mifsud said. “I have never once seen Hollister’s name mentioned.”
Mifsud has ordered 60 copies of “X-Men: The 198,” half of which had already been sold at press time to regular X-Men readers and the curious. The other half should disappear quickly, into the eager hands of local comic book nerds and Harley aficionados alike.
“If someone comes into my shop and asks what’s hot this week, I point them to this,” he said. “It’s really a very cool thing.”
The X-Men is the most-read series at Bill’s Bullpen, according to Mifsud, along with the Spiderman and Batman series.
