An uncovered Michigan family secret is worth a fortune

At a family house in Franklin, Michigan, life appeared normal from the outside looking in. Yet those walls within the wealthy Detroit suburb held countless secrets — mysteries that are just starting to be revealed.

Dale Watts, an attorney in metro Detroit and minor entrepreneur, was an eccentric man with a keen eye for valuables. He filled rooms in his home with boxes, locking them away and keeping the contents unknown to his wife and two children.

The hoarding contributed to Dale's divorce from his wife, Celeste Watts, and deeply affected his two sons, Darren and Adam Watts.

Despite all the angst and pain, Dale Watts seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He left behind a fortune, and his family finally stands to benefit.

A fortune paid for with pain

For Darren Watts, the inheritance of his father’s collectibles comes with 40 years of resentment and misunderstanding from that challenging relationship with his secretive, obsessive father.

“The bottom line is, I didn’t spend any money on the collection itself, but I paid a high price for it,” said Watts.

The Watts family and their home were torn apart by Dale Watts, due to his mysterious and obsessive collecting habits. Now, this family secret is providing a unique opportunity to reshape the family legacy through an immense comic book collection and upcoming documentary.

Darren Watts said his father, who had Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism, filled their home with countless boxes, driving a wedge into the family.

“He started using the home as a storage facility, and my mother hated it and it was very difficult for us because he was very private about the collection and we weren’t allowed to talk about it, we weren’t allowed to tell friends, we weren’t allowed to go in certain rooms,” said Watts. “He was very fixated on the security of it.”

After his father's passing in 2020 at 77 years old, Watts was left with more than 300,000 comic books, along with sports trading cards and countless UFO and World War II books. The two pillars of the collection are a Batman #1 (DC, 1940) 8.0 grade comic book and a Superman #1 (DC, 1939) 7.0 grade comic book.

According to CBS Comics, comic books are graded on a scale up to 10.0, with 10s being extremely rare and in near-perfect condition.

Very rare, very pricy: Batman #1, Superman #1

The Batman #1 (DC, 1940) 8.0 grade comic book will be auctioned by the end of the month in Dallas by Heritage Auctions, and currently has a bid of $340,000. However, the final bid could reach seven figures. According to rallyrd.com, a popular platform used to buy and sell collectibles, a Batman #1 comic of the same grade was sold for $1.44 million in 2021.

The family's Batman #1 is in very fine shape and is one of the top 10 in existence across the world, said Watts. The same comic of a 9.4 grade fetched over $2 million at an auction.

The Superman #1 (DC, 1939) 7.0 grade is considered to be in the third-nicest condition in the world, said Watts. The comic is valued at more than $3.5 million, but Watts plans to hang onto it for now.

"Superman is my favorite superhero. I grew up loving him and still do; there’s a lot of personal meaning to me. Nothing’s for certain in the future, but I have no immediate plans to sell that comic book.”

'Overcoming the shadows of our family history'

The upcoming documentary "Selling Superman" will paint Watts' story as he continues to uncover the mysteries of the collection and share it with others.

"Selling Superman" director and producer Adam Schomer attended high school and played soccer with Watts, and was inspired upon hearing his story after the many years of secrecy.

“The more I heard about Darren’s story and got to know the family portrait, I realized there was such a story of power of choice, of rewriting one’s story, of overcoming the shadows of our family history and our conditioning and really have the power to choose how we see life," said Schomer.

Watts and Schomer are still in the process of filming the documentary. They fly next week to Denver for a few interviews, including one with autism advocate Temple Grandin, before going to Dallas to film the conclusion of the auction for the Batman #1.

"We’re going to witness it in person and capture the emotion, and maybe there’s even a chance we get to know who bought it and that would be exciting to understand them and why they did it," Watts said.

Schomer said they are far along in the filming process and hope to be done by June or July. He said the film will be complete by the end of this year and will include interviews from celebrities, comic book and mental health experts, and the average comic book lover.

"Selling Superman" will be available at film festivals in early 2024 before reaching family homes later in the year via video-on-demand and streaming services.

Watts said his goal is to share the collection with others and build many friendships along the way. He said his father kept his collectibles hidden from others. Watts hopes to change this.

Value of the massive comic book collection is unknown

“He didn’t share it with the family. He was very private about it, and we didn’t know what he had,” Watts said. “We knew that he had them, we just didn’t know what the quality and specifics of what he had until the passing.”

The collection is currently in storage, and the value of the vast number of comics is currently unknown. Watts said the contents are still being sorted and individually evaluated based on condition. However, some comics could be worth thousands of dollars.

The comics are part of The Fantast Collection, which was named by Watts through a custom label opportunity provided by the Comic Guaranty Co.

Watts chose the name Fantast because his father would sometimes use that as his name for online forums and the dictionary definitions honor who he was.

“The translation, when you look it up, means a couple different things. It either means an impractical person, dreamer and believer, but it also means a person with extraordinary foresight," said Watts.

Watts said his father was an idealist who believed his collecting would pan out for him, and he had incredible foresight in buying comics for no more than 30 cents that are now worth a fortune. He said his father deserved to know about the worth of the collection and deserves recognition for it as he spent many years collecting and preserving them.

Contact Marina Johnson: mjohnson@freepress.com