By Linda P. Morgan

Walking up University Avenue to catch a train from Broad Street Station, one can easily miss Fortress of Solitude, the boutique comic bookstore tucked in just off Orange Street. Posters and signs obscure the windows of the Fortress, but once you poke your head in the door you will behold an amazing display of more than a million comic issues stacked floor to ceiling. Named for Superman’s home base and place of solace, Fortress of Solitude attracts “everyone who wants to be the good guy,” according to owner Jose Robles.  

“People who come here are smart guys with a bit of OCD,” he says. “You become smart reading comics because sometimes you don’t understand what the words mean and you have to figure it out.”

“Take Uncanny X-men,” he explains. “When I was a kid in Puerto Rico, I had no idea what that meant. I had to look it up,” he says. “The X is for extra chromosome.” 

Jose’s dad used to read him Spanish versions of the Lone Ranger and Donald Duck when he was a child. When the family moved to Newark several decades ago, Jose saved his pennies to purchase English-language comics off the spinner rack at Mt. Prospect Pharmacy, looking up the meaning of titles and immersing himself in adventures of superheroes like the Hulk, Captain America, and Doctor Doom.

“Reading comics made me smarter,” Jose says. He’d visit Bob’s Newsstand at McCrory’s, where new issues dropped every Friday. He also volunteered at Joe Cano’s comic store, One Flight Up, located at 586 Broad Street downtown. That store opened in 1980 and “every night there’d be 10 guys there, reading comics, waiting for the weekly delivery,” Jose says.

In 45 years, the store has changed ownership three times. One Flight Up was sold to Cano’s nephew-in-law in 1994, when it became Renaissance City Books, relocating to a new space at 599 Broad Street. 

“The owner wanted it to become a real book shop,” Jose says, “but it was mostly a comics store. Fine with me—all the guys hanging out were there for the comics anyway.” He laughs, relishing the memory.

Throughout his adult years, Jose pursued his passion for collecting comics, first by volunteering, and then working for pay at the store.

“I think I spent most of what I earned on comics,” Jose chuckles. “I wasn’t really in it for the money, though.”

Reflecting on retail that has experienced many losses in downtown Newark, Jose laments the lack of bookstores in town. “You have Source of Knowledge now and the Rutgers Barnes and Noble, which has limited stock. We need more bookstores.”  

Cano’s nephew sold the store to Jose in 2001, and Jose named it Fortress of Solitude after Superman’s home base, moving the shop to its current location at 53 University Avenue. Jose tends the store after he finishes his day job as a City of Newark fireman in the Ironbound, where he is captain of Engine 27, Ladder 4.

“So you’re a superhero by day?” I ask. “Stocking superheroes by night?” We both laugh.

“When I got my first car,” Jose explains, “I drove all over the tri-state region rummaging through boxes of comics in stores and at garage sales, building my collection.”  

His collection, now numbering over 100,000 issues, is stored in the attic and garage at his house, in a warehouse, and even in the bathroom of the Fortress on University Avenue.  

Every Wednesday, 190 new edition comic books drop at the store, and Jose and his staff lay them out on a long table that reaches from the doorway to the back of the store. New arrivals are arranged roughly in order of most popular series (Marvel comics such as Spiderman, Wolverine, Xman and the Hulk), followed by DC Comics (the DC is short for “Detective Comics”), which include such characters as Batman, Superman, and Wonder, followed by independents such as Spawn, GI Joe and Ninja Turtles.

DC comics started in the 1930s, Jose says, 5 years before Marvel launched. “Marvel gets a lot of attention based on the brilliant marketing of Stan Lee,” he explains, but he considers the real genius behind those characters to be Jack Kirby, known as ‘King of Comics.” Beginning in the 1940s, Jack was the visual creator of more Marvel superheroes than any other artist and writer—he created Hulk, Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, The Avengers, Ant-Man, Thor—the list goes on. 

Kirby finally got his due later in life when he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. After he died, he was recognized for his contributions to the Disney Company’s smashing success of multiple Marvel movies. 

Jose leads the way past the cash register to a table of books along the side wall. “We have some Newark creators here too,” he says. Alexander Guzman’s two books, “Inhale the Universe,” are self-published. AJ Ampadu, who writes the character “Shadowman” for Valiant, has published a two-volume compilation of his graphic novel through his company EarthTone Kingdom.  Both authors’ books are for sale at the Fortress.   

We wind through a warren of aisles to check out more of the comics stash, neatly contained in white boxes on shelves that stretch to the high beamed ceiling. Snaking past a wall of Funko Pop! dolls in individual boxes, I stop to ask what those are about. Each box reveals a 5-inch tall vinyl character with a huge head, widely-spaced coal-black eyes, and a different outfit painted on each diminutive body. They remind me of the troll dolls I collected in elementary school, minus the neon pink hair. 

“What are these toys?” I ask, picking up a box and looking through the clear plastic window at Superman with a black painted curl circling his vinyl forehead.

“Oh, those are really popular these days. Collectibles. Comic and movie characters. They’ve been around for about 15 years,” Jose says. “The company puts out limited editions and people like to collect them. We’ve got a whole selection here–action figures like Swamp Thing and Red Hulk.”  

Action toys are stacked along the rafters, above the boxes of comics and Funko Pop! dolls. With so much inventory, you’d think the place would be a mess; yet the Fortress is impeccably organized. You can easily lose yourself for an hour or more, inching along the aisles, examining folios of comic books in their plastic sleeves. The experience is reminiscent of weekends I spent after college, flipping through albums at Tower Records, and later, at second-hand record shops in small towns across the country.

Fortress of Solitude retains the largest comic book selection in the region—much more than either East Side Mags in Montclair or Paradox Comics in Lyndhurst. It packs a lot into its small store, compared to the largest comic book inventory in the country, which is attributed to Mile High Comics in Denver, with 45,000 square feet of comics and collectibles.  

“We have a bunch of loyal customers,” Jose says. “Wednesdays are like church here, when all the new comics come out. Sunday is our second busiest day. That’s when the big guys come for free parking. I’ll sell 500 comic books a week,” he says. “We went through some hard times when digital comics first came out and during the 2008 recession, when the whole economy slowed.” 

I ask how he fared during the Covid epidemic, when everyone stayed home. 

“Ha,” Jose says, “That was the big surprise. It was our busiest period. There was a slow-down of creators writing comics and in shipping of issues, but we were busy at the Fortress. I used the time to organize inventory and help customers find favorite editions. People came back to the store to get the real thing; digital didn’t stick,” Jose says.  

“Are there a lot of regulars who come to your store?” I ask.

“I’ve got a math professor from Essex County College who’s been collecting since 1952,” Jose says. “He’s got every Marvel and DC comic made from 1952 to today. Every week I mail him the latest arrivals—anywhere from 5 to 20 comic books. I go to the main post office and send him a package.” He points to mailing envelopes he stores under boxes of comics.

If my math is correct, assuming the professor acquires 10 new comics every week for 73 years, he must possess around 38,000 comic books by now. I can’t imagine where he stores them in his Florida home—maybe in the lanai, for easy reading poolside?  

“What makes comics so special?” I ask, feeling somewhat insecure in my lack of comic knowledge. “What is the allure of collecting issues?”

Jose regards me with sparkling eyes. “Everyone has his special interest,” he says. “Some people are into biographies, some people prefer the independents. For mainstream comics, it’s first appearances that bring in the most money on a resale.”

“First appearances?” I ask.

“Like when a death happens to a character, or a wedding, or introduction of a new character or new costume.”

I try to wrap my head around this.  

“For example,” Jose says, “The first appearance of Wolverine was in Hulk 181.” The Incredible Hulk was first published by Marvel in 1961 and Wolverine appeared in issue 181. We’re up to the 900 Hulk sequence now. If you have issue 181 in any condition, that’s worth $5,000 to $8,000 today.”  

“Five thousand dollars for one comic book?” I ask.

“Yep, even more if it’s in pristine condition.” Jose adds. “I sold one 12 years ago and it went for $1,200.”

Wow. 

Jose points out some of the fun covers lounging on the side table: manga series, graphic novels, issues that are financed through Patreon; communities of creators who cultivate fans outside the mainstream publishers.  

“The industry is more inclusive now,” Jose says. “We’ve got LGBTQ superheroes, adult comics, sagas like Romeo and Juliet in outer space with aliens. That one was called ‘Big Alien Moon Crush’.”

I picture Juliet coming back to life to find Romeo has drunk the poison. She confronts a gargantuan alien– a purple-eyed xenomorph who woos her into his lair with horrible consequences.  

Not one who usually sees beyond the stark reality of everyday life, I’m tickled by the possibility of letting my mind wander to imagine whirling celestials, bulked-up he-men and nefarious warlords prowling outer space. There’s something enticing about this immersion into a different universe, especially when compared to the sounds and smells of the angry rush hour currently piercing the inner sanctum of Fortress of Solitude.  

I reflect that comics have come a long way since I read the “funny papers” back in high school—tame tales of Family Circus, Doonesbury, and an ornery orange cat named Garfield. I especially loved Bloom County and Booth cartoons, the latter of which one can still find occasionally in an issue of The New Yorker magazine. My husband is a fan of Calvin and Hobbes and has collected the full compendium nestled into a bookshelf in his study upstairs. 

A special day at the Fortress is National Free Comic Book Day, the first Saturday of May. Focused on kids, comic book stores around the country distribute free comic books on this day. 2025’s line up included Archie’s Comics Spectacular, Power Rangers vs Troopers, Star Wars Young Jedi Adventures, and Speed Racer #0, in addition to multiple other titles. Jose celebrated at the Fortress by inviting school children from Discovery School in Teachers Village to sell their own comics that they had created. In the past, he says, famous characters have shown up at the Fortress to celebrate, including Vondie Curtis-Hall, the Ben Urich character of the 2015 Dare Devil show, and JD Williams of The Wire.  

“Every year brings a great crowd,” he says. We’re creating fans who’ll come back with their own kids some day.” 

Comics lovers can look forward this fall to the annual Comic Con in New York City, dressing up as their favorite pop culture character and riding the train to join over 200,000 costumed fans who gather over four days at the Javits Convention Center. The weekend of October 9^th, keep a look out for your favorite Comic Con superheroes and villains walking the streets of Newark: Deadpool, the Joker, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman. They may stop in at the Fortress to purchase a Funko Pop! doll or the latest DC comic book to bolster their alter egos for the ride into Manhattan.  

As the train leaves Broad Street Station, they can take a look back at the Fortress to admire artist Eirini Linardaki’s mural exploding across the north wall of the building, Cosmic Microwave Background, in which she used patterned fabrics and superhero silhouettes to represent the Big Bang as well as details of Newark’s fascinating, diverse history.

Linda P. Morgan is an urban planner who has contributed to Newark and New York City’s economic development over the course of her career, creating the Newark Downtown District, working in brownfields development, the arts, and social impact real estate development. She founded the Montclair chapter of Women Who Write, and her stories and poems have been published in Goldfinch and other NJ publications. She is also writing the second edition of the book, “100 Things to Do in Newark Before You Die,” due out in 2026. For the Newarker, Linda profiles the people, places and institutions that continue to make the city a dynamic destination for food, culture and economic growth.

All photos by Linda P. Morgan; Fortress of Solitude owner Jose Robles behind the counter in featured photo