Chuck Rozanski has a superhero origin story that puts Peter Parker’s to shame.

His began as a child growing up on an Army base in Frankfurt, Germany, where his stepfather was “insanely abusive to me,” he said, and his mother descended into madness.

This is no fan fiction: In the 1960s, Rozanski’s stepfather — who headed the motor pool that directed all U.S. Army operations throughout Europe — worked out of the very same building where the Nazis once produced Zyklon B, its preferred chemical for the mass killing of Jews. Rozanski’s mother was from a nearby Bavarian village called Goldbach that not only was bombed to rubble by the end of World War II, “it was firebombed,” Rozanski said. “And they did it in such a way that my mother had to live through the horror of coming up out of the bomb shelter and seeing friends and animals burn alive.”

Years later, when Rozanski was 17 and the family was living a world away in Colorado Springs, his mother was institutionalized “because she was having hallucinations that she was back in our little village and was being bombed,” he said.

Today, Rozanski is president of Denver’s Mile High Comics, which says it is the largest retail comics store in the U.S. His 45,000-square-foot “Cathedral of Comics” boasts 15 million books, magazines, posters, collectibles, toys, games and more in the megastore to end all megastores just east of 46th Avenue and Jason Street in northwest Denver. Rozanski estimates his inventory is worth $100 million.

He’s also been married for 43 years, is the father of four daughters, and, at 68, is living his most authentic life after an ongoing series of fundamental identity transformations not all that different from those Peter Parker and Batman’s Bruce Wayne accepted and embraced in their fictional worlds.

People just assume that Rozanski surely must have turned to comics as a boy to escape the nightmarish reality of his daily life.

“It wasn’t that,” Rozanski said. “They were an economic escape.”

As in, cash money.

By age 6, Rozanski already had what it took to become a successful comics broker.

“I was both entrepreneurial – and a hoarder,” he said with a laugh.

Early on, he grasped fundamental business tenets, like even though pennies are pennies, some are worth much more than others. He also perfected the art of trading up: Taking an object off one person’s hands and exchanging it with someone who ascribes much more value to it.

In 1967, 12-year-old Rozanski discovered there was a small community of comic-book fans living in his same Army housing development in Frankfurt. At 13, he started knocking on neighbors’ doors hustling for trades.

“Say if somebody really wanted Richie Rich, and somebody else really wanted Archie, and then somebody else really loved Stan Lee’s early horror comics,” he said, “well, then, I could play three sides against the middle.”

And to give you a sense of how well this system worked, he said, “within two years, I had amassed 3,000 comics on my allowance of a buck a month from my mother.”

And a love for comics played no part in his success.

“I started the business so that I could already be planning how to get the hell out of my house,” Rozanski said. “Between my stepfather’s abuse and my mother’s madness, I was just so oppressed. And the mercantile endeavor of buying and selling comics was my way to get out.”

When Rozanski was 14, his stepfather moved the family stateside for his final assignment before retirement. He asked for Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, and the Army was kind enough to offer an alternate choice: Either the Pentagon … or Fort Riley, Kansas. He chose Kansas, but moved the family to Colorado Springs and commuted once a month.

“Fort Riley was a gut-wrenching, horrible assignment, because this was 1969, and he was a notification officer,” Rozanski said. “So, his job was to knock on farmhouse doors and tell people their kids had just been killed in Vietnam. Needless to say, whenever he came home to us, he was in a foul temper.”

By 17, Rozanski was trading out of City Auditorium in Colorado Springs with a goal not to build wealth but, more important, inventory. If he traded one comic, he wanted two in return. He specifically sought out Roy Rogers artifacts, like cereal bowls that he would then advertise in national fan magazines and trade journals.

At 19, after graduating from Widefield High School in Colorado Springs, Rozanski opened the first Mile High Comics retail store in the rented back room of a Boulder book store. By 21, he owned a chain of four stores. Whatever lingering trauma he may have carried from his childhood, he said, “My therapy was buying and selling.”

To this point in his life, Rozanski was a survivor, to be sure, but no superhero. His purpose evolved when he made a lucky purchase that changed his life. He scored the so-called “Mile High” collection of Golden Age comics — we’re talking ​​mint copies of every Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Captain America from 1938-50. At the time, it was considered the largest and highest-quality collection of old comics ever discovered. Rozanski, not so removed from living off that $1 weekly allowance from his mom, pledged then and there to become a hero for the comic-book form.

“I vowed to do everything in my power to help the comic-book industry to prosper,” he said.

That industry generated $2 billion in 2022 and grew by an average of 12.6% per year between 2017 and ‘22, according to researcher IBISWorld.

People are buying comics, he said, for one reason: “Because they’re fun to read.”

But if you think it’s old-guard like Marvel, DC and Dark Horse Comics fueling sales, Rozanski said, “Oh, hell no, girl.” The superhero “guys in tights” comics make up only 30% of the market right now, he said. Meanwhile Manga — a line of comics and youth-oriented graphic novels originating from Japan — are generating $1 billion a year in sales.

“This has slid by most people’s consciousness,” he said.

Rozanski rocked the industry 20 years ago, when it was first grappling with whether consumers would abandon old-fashioned print for the ease of reading comics online. His counterintuitive hunch was that the answer was both. He talked a Marvel exec into providing him with new stories a week ahead of their official release and let anyone read them online before they went on sale.

“You’d think that would decrease paper sales,” he said, “but it was the other way around. We sold out every issue because people who maybe weren’t previously interested in a title suddenly said, ‘Hey, I like this, and I don’t want to miss the next three.’ And now they want a physical copy of the comic they read last night while scrolling their computers. And so, we actually created new print consumers by using the internet.”

On a recent random Saturday, 13-year-old Brecken Gaede of Fort Collins roamed the aisles of Mile High Comics with his father, while keeping a keen eye out for Neal Adams’ Batman 243.

“I much prefer going to comic-book shops in person,” he said, “and it really makes me happy that there is still such a big business for it in person that it hasn’t all switched online.”

Take that, Morgan Spurlock.

He’s the “Super Size Me” documentarian who, in 2010, turned his attention to geek culture at the San Diego ComicCon and picked Rozanski to be one of his film’s subject.

“At the wrap party, Morgan pulled me aside and called me a dinosaur,” Rozanski said. “He said I was soon to sink into the ooze of the tar pits and disappear because nobody wanted paper comics anymore. He pointed up to his laptop and said, ‘See here? I can carry all my comics with me on this.’ And I said, ‘Morgan, that may be true. But I’m an old, funny guy, and I like smelling that dead-tree stuff in the middle of the comic book.’ So what happens? He gets caught up in the #MeToo movement and sinks into the ooze. And meanwhile, (explicative), I’m still here.”

The cannabis connection

Rozanski was operating Mile High Comics out of four retail locations in 2011 when he was evicted from one of his spaces on the north side of I-70. When his real estate agent showed him the massive warehouse that had been vacant for three years in the center of industrial nowhere at 4600 Jason St., “I bought it for next to nothing,” he said. As in, $1.6 million.

“That was an insanely low price for that lot, but kids were breaking in and putting on these gigantic raves at the time, and the liability implications for the owners were becoming severe,” he said.

In 2015, a period of stunning market appreciation fueled by the newly legal cannabis industry, Rozanski sold his other warehouse to a local rug company for triple what he paid. He eventually consolidated all of his public retail operations into the Jason Street warehouse, and cleared an easy $1 million doing so.

“Timing is everything,” he said with a smile.

Today, that Jason Street warehouse is a playground for everyone from nostalgia-seeking seniors to middle-aged nerds to teenagers like Brecken Gaede. The aisles are filled with dozens of life-size figures like Superman, Batman and more contemporary animated movie characters. If you put a tape measure to it, his wall of comic books stretches for two miles start to finish, he said.

Tone Rodriguez, a comic-book author from L.A. who has visited dozens of times, feels like he knows the store like the back of his hand.

“But every time I come here, I always find something new,” he said. “You can get lost here.”

That’s in part because, “this place is not real. It doesn’t exist.”

Wait, what?

“To anyone outside of Denver, Mile High Comics is not a physical place in any way, shape or form. It’s a place that used to exist in the middle of your old comic books,” said Rodriguez, who is best known for producing comic books for “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” — and, as an actor, for playing a killer in “Dexter.”

“You’d be reading your Micronauts or your GI Joe or whatever, and when you got to the middle, it was always that yellow, two-page spread that said, ‘Mile High Comics.’ Every month, we’d sit there and pore through the price guide and be like, ‘Oh, (bleep), there’s Hulk 181, and it’s only 25 bucks.’ And you’d put that self-stamped envelope together, send it out in the mail and then, like magic, it would arrive at your house. That’s why I say, if you’re a kid from California, this is a magical place that’s just out there somewhere. And every so often I get to come here and I’m reminded that, ‘Holy (bleep), I’m in the land of Oz.’”

And Rozanski, the wizard at the center of it all, he said, “is an amazing person. He treats everyone like family. There is absolutely no one else like him.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

Reality bites

Peter Parker had his radioactive spider bite that gave him super powers. For Rozanski, it was a mosquito bite on his butt that forever changed the course of his life — and his identity. Eight days later, he found himself at a Feast Day dance in a New Mexico village, where he began having hallucinations of Avanyus. Those are little horned serpent deities from the Pueblo cosmology that represent the energy of the universe.

“At first it was really cool and entertaining,” said Rozanski, who freely admits that the name “Mile High Comics” owes at least some of its double meaning to his ROTC stoner days at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“But then it started getting weird, like, ‘This is not the way I’m supposed to be.’”

Turns out he had encephalitis from the mosquito bite, which caused his brain to swell. More specifically, the hypothalamus, which controls automatic bodily functions you don’t even think about, like blinking your eyes and breathing.

“It was only later that I found out that the hypothalamus is also where you determine your gender,” Rozanski said.

At that moment, at age 53, Rozanski discovered what he considers to be his true Two-Spirit identity. Two Spirit is an umbrella term to describe gender variance within Indigenous communities, and can include people who are gay, lesbian or transgender.

“I instantly went from being a good old masculine White kind of guy, to all of a sudden discovering that I wasn’t just male — that I was actually gender-fluid,” Rozanski said.

But while the epiphany was instant, he said, the full transition process would take the better part of the next decade. At 62, he adopted his drag personality, Bettie Pages. She’s inspired by the “Queen of Pin-Up,” Bettie Page, a model also immortalized in comic books by artist Jim Silke. Bettie Pages has now amassed more than a hundred drag gowns, some valued at more than $1,000.

Rozanski, who considers himself both bisexual and trans, comes from the “I don’t give a (explicative) school of pronouns.” You don’t need to ask how his family has adapted to the news. Proof of that is in the greeting card his wife, Nanette Furman — “also known as she who must be obeyed,” he said — has left on his desk. It shows a tiny turtle floating upward, holding helium balloons to look a tall giraffe pal in the eye. The message: “Our relationship is pretty unusual.”

“I think that in America, there’s an incredible amount of variation and diversity amongst families these days,” he said. “Right now, for example, I’m living in a household with my wife, my oldest daughter, my son-in-law and my grandson, who is trans.”

Coming out to his family was one thing. Coming out to his customers was another.

“I don’t know of any other business entrepreneur out there who puts themselves in the public limelight as being both gender-fluid and trans — so I decided to go full bore,” Rozanski said. He announced his Bettie Pages persona in a newsletter that went out to his 118,000 subscribers in 2017.

“I knew that I would lose business,” he said, and he was right. About 10,000 customers left his mailing list overnight, some leaving pointed, vitriolic parting shots.

“But guess what? In short order, I had 10,000 more join,” he said.

An open (comic) book

The steps leading into the Mile High Comics warehouse are painted in rainbow colors. The wall of the corridor leading customers into the full store is lined with posters of the Club Q victims. A large sign reads, “Transgender rights are human rights.”

“The big thing I am trying to make abundantly clear to everyone is that this place is a refuge,” Rozanski said. “And if somebody is homophobic, I make a real point of making sure that they are offended.”

For two years before the pandemic, Rozanski presented a loud and proud monthly all-ages drag show that attracted 15 visits from members of the neo-fascist Proud Boys.

“These guys were showing up in helmets and  jack boots with shields — and they really wanted to kick my ass,” Rozanski said. “I’ve got saved voice messages from people saying they were going to kill me or burn my building down. But to say that I’m not easily intimidated is kind of an understatement. Because every time those (explicative) would show up, I would put on a full ball gown, and my high heels, and walk out in the middle of the street as Bettie Pages and say, ‘Hi, boys!’”

Attitude, Bettie says, goes a long way. “When people think you’re bat (explicative) crazy, they tend to kind of back away slowly.”

The Club Q massacre, however, hit close to home.

“They were human beings, and that was my home club,” said Rozanski, who last visited eight days before the murders. “It really hit me quite hard, and made me incredibly angry and upset.”

A black and white future

The neighborhood surrounding Mile High Comics is gentrifying so fast, rapidly escalating land values are almost certain to take the store out with a roundhouse Batman “Whaam! Pow! Kaboom!” punch. And probably sooner than later.

It’s still a pretty gritty-looking industrial block but, right now, three surrounding 400-plus-unit apartment buildings are in various stages of construction, with the potential for 700 more. That does not even include plans to finally demolish the long abandoned old Denver Post printing plant at I-70 and I-25.

“That ugly eyesore had some Superfund issues, but they are almost ready to build an immense residential complex there with more than 4,000 units in towers 15 to 20 stories tall,” Rozanski said. That plan, he added, requires the developer to build a flyover bridge connecting the planned community directly to I-25.

The result of all this surrounding development, Rozanski said, is a massive increase in the value of his property, and the property taxes that go with it. He’s been told to expect another 20% jump next year, which would bring his tax obligation to nearly $180,000 next year.

“The truth is, this store does not have any financial reason to exist,” Rozanski said. “I could lease this building right now for a net $45,000 a month. And God’s honest truth, if we make $5,000 in any given month, we’re lucky. So, I’m giving up $45,000 that I could be putting into my family’s pockets every month.

So why is he doing it?

“Because I’m trying to touch the future,” he said. “If you look around at the young people who are slithering through the aisles here, this is their happy place. This is a place they can come to with their families and they can have a great time.

“But there is an evil scheme to this, as well – OK?” he added, sounding for all the world like a character in a graphic novel. “I have no great memories of my childhood. But by creating this shared memory, I am making myself eternal. Because I am planting in people this memory of coming to the world’s largest comic book store and sharing that experience with people they love.”

This is all quite a metamorphosis from the broke, bullied boy Rozanski was in Bavaria to the fierce defender of human rights he, she and they are today.

But, for Rozanski, being fierce is a way of life.

“I get it from being a little kid and having my stepfather beat me every day,” he said. “I swore to myself that if I could ever get control over my own life that no one would ever beat me again. That I would be out there in the world and that I would be fierce. And so, in a sense, I was born a drag queen … I just didn’t know it yet.”