Comic Books – What am I doing here?

Comic Books

There are some who would say it’s strange that I read comics. I mean, I’m not a lifer. I didn’t ride my bike down to the LCS every Saturday during the Summer to catch up with my neighborhood spider. I didn’t have a strong opinion about my favorite Robin and I certainly didn’t know the difference between DC and Marvel growing up. My town didn’t have an LCS. But I am a product of the 90s. I loved the cartoons. I can still remember the Family Home Entertainment intro(drawing the f.h.e.) that came on before the Ninja Turtles on my favorite VHS tapes as a kid. I wore those things out! I LOVED X-Men(team Gambit), SpiderMan The Animated Series(which gets a bad wrap), and Batman The Animated Series(although the movies were more my jam). Sure, I enjoyed the Transformers and the Warner Brothers cartoons from time to time. I even got my fair share of the Disney and Nickelodeon stuff, but all of those were just filling time before one of the ‘real’ cartoons came on. And to happen upon a bar/restaurant, with my mom, that had one of the arcade games for those franchises(not many Batman when I was young) was the closest thing to heaven I experienced as a kid. 

And that was, kinda, the extent of my experience with comic book characters as a small child. Yes, I’m a poser. A fake. A fraud. A purveyor of Nerd appropriation. I consumed what the 90s marketing committees told me to consume and I loved it. I always loved the idea of comic books. But I didn’t even know how they worked(until I was 30). Like I said, we didn’t have comic books where I grew up. I remember, one time, going to a swap meet with one of my step-dads where they had a huge bin of comic books and I went nuts until I realized that 1. They were all cheap knockoff comics with vaguely similar characters to the real thing and 2. There was a lot of reading involved!

So, I’m not a ‘dyed in the wool’ comic book fan. But I was certainly a fan of the characters in-so-far as I was exposed to them. The Cartoons, the video games, and the movies…oh, the movies. My intro to Batman was Val Kilmer. I, then, experienced Michael Keaton, then Adam West, and they all culminated in, yes, George Clooney. I had every action figure from that movie; Batman and Robin. Even when I was young, I realized the movie was a little too goofy, but at that age, you don’t really care, as long as the toys rock. And they did. I had a Batman and a Robin, each with 2 outfits, a Batwing, Poison Ivy, Bane, and a Mister Freeze. I annoyed my mother immensely with them. And then….out of nowhere… it was all over.

In the late 90s, Fox Kids pulled the good cartoons and I was left with Digimon. I had to branch out. I was forced to wander in the wilderness, first following the Animaniacs over to WB where they had Pinky and The Brain and like 3 New Batman shows(meh). Then over to Nickelodeon where they had Cat Dog, Spongebob and All That(not bad). Finally, over to the dreaded Disney Channel with The Jersey, Even Stevens, and The Famous Jett Jackson(it was here I would, eventually, find refuge in the re-airing of one my all time faves, Boy Meets World). So, for about 5 years, I was left in a superhero desert. We had a couple movies (Spawn and Blade were cool to me, but I never realized they were comic book characters) but it wasn’t until Spider Man showed back up in the 2002(2000’s X-Men was ok, but left me wanting) did I really get a chance to get anywhere near my childhood excitement for the characters. And even then, I only got an hour and a half at a time separated by several months to a couple years rather than the weekly fix I was hooked on as a younger kid. Had I had a comic book shop(and my mom, money), I could’ve kept the fire. As it was, I was nothing more than a normie. And that’s all I’d ever be. I caught all the movies, but they were really a mixed bag. Sure, we had Spiderman, Batman Begins, and…X-Men? But we also had movies like Hellboy, Catwoman, Daredevil, Elektra, and Ghost Rider(oof). Were I more steeped in the lore, these movies may not have seemed so bad, but with my relegation to 90s-kid normie status, they just seemed bad. 

But then, right around the time that The Dark Knight Changed all of our lives, me and my college buddies(me) came across this game in the ‘dollar rental’ section of Hastings that would alter the course of my life. The game was called Ultimate Alliance. I brought it back to our college house and forced my friends to play it with me. I would say we all fell in love with it, but it was mostly just me, and my friends humored me. All of the characters from the TV screen from the early 90s were on my screen and it was fun! And not only that, but I was learning how, exactly, every character fit into the universe; the Marvel Universe(come to find out). I played the crap out of that game; long after my friends bailed, and well past it’s return date. The comic book lore offered in that game was able to show me things that I remembered(or misremembered) from my earlier days and carry me forward, linking characters that I knew of but had never associated with the brand, and catch me up on the ones I already knew. It was then that I was introduced to the Merc With a Mouth, himself.  It was a blast. I geeked out hard. 

So, that was the end of it, right? The rest is history, as they say, I caught the fever and have been hooked ever since. Well…no. I played the game for about a month, took it back, dodged the late fee, and didn’t think about it again for about 5 years. 

By this that time an Ultimate Alliance 2 had been out for awhile. I went ahead and bought both games and played them to completion numerous times(there were so many characters to play with after all). By then, I was out of college, living on my own, and rarely had the opportunity to play with friends. But Ultimate Alliance 2 was just as fun as 1, maybe funner. And I paid much more attention to the lore of the characters that was poured into that game. So now, you may assume, surely, this would land me back at Hastings, in the comic book section, looking to stay current on all of my, now, favorite characters. Destined to become a weekly visitor with a pull-box, a fan club membership, and shelves full of action figures. 

Nope. Not even close.

Indeed, it was at this time that the MCU was starting to get it’s feet under it. But I found myself reluctant to the ‘consume-or-die’, mass marketed, low-brow, popcorn crap that I believed to be the MCU. I’d watched Iron Man, and enjoyed it, but once I saw Captain America, and then saw that they were coming out with an onslaught of Superhero movies, I was turned off. For some reason(well I know the reason) all of these super-hero movies that would’ve been my dream-come-true 15 years prior, I was adamantly opposed to.

See, at the time, I fancied myself a bit of a movie snob. I lived right up the street from a theatre that had $5 matinees every Sunday and I’d watch 2, sometimes 3, movies a week. This got me to believing that I was some type of movie aficionado. A sophisticated ‘connoisseur’ of fine art, if you will. Superhero movies were for the plebs and I wasn’t about to join the rest of the sheep aboard the half-brain express. The fake geek culture was in full swing and it pained me to see traditionally masculine men and classy women pout on the street dawning Captain America T-shirts and Thor hoodies. I was above all that. Let the un-sophisticated have their Super Hero garbage. I was starting to read books and watch intelligent films like The Social Network, Silver Linings Playbook, and The Dallas Buyers Club. Or I’d take in some impressive indie film like Whiplash, Nightcrawler, or Everything Must Go while enjoying my trendy(cheap) scotch or a local IPA. I even attended a couple classic movie showings of old black and whites and watched TCM regularly. I’d have to say that the pinnacle of my pretentiousness probably came in my viewing and defense of the movie, Birdman in 2014; where I pretended to understand and enjoy the film(barf). 

But then something interesting happened. I started to notice that the fancy-pants movies I was watching were starting to become, well, crap. And that these high-falutin films I’d placed so much stock in were really just shallow, vapid, ego projects from Hollywood. This all may have eluded me had I not ,for whatever reason, become acutely aware of the number of movies coming out, every year, about some oppressed group in America. It was staggering. It seemed as though every movie that came out, or was about to come out, (and certainly every movie with “oscar buzz”) was some powerful statement about the black struggle, or the gay struggle, or the womens’ struggle. So much struggling! I hated it. The mask had been raised for me and I couldn’t unsee the pretentiousness that was Hollywood in every movie trailer I saw. And if it wasn’t woke-scolding(before the term was invented) it was a weak-premised horror movie that I never really liked. I’d already given up on comedy movies, with This is The End having been the last one I saw in theatres and Seth Rogan, Kevin Hart, and Melissa McCarthey seemingly taking over that genre(woof). So, rather than continuing to consume the crap Hollywood was shoveling, I made the conscious decision to abandon my first love; the cinema. 

Looking back, I honestly feel that I was a bit prophetic. While a simple tallying of the preachy movies at the time may not have supported my claim at the time, I certainly felt the disturbance in the force. And the next few years(well all the way to now) would only serve to justify my sensitivity to it early on. 

Sidebar: I’m aware that I’ve veered criminally off-course. But if I may beg your indulgence, for just a bit longer, I promise I will bring it back around. 

So, after a little over a year, with all of the extra time from my quasi-boycott of the movie theater, I finally caved and watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I know I mentioned earlier that the 1st Captain America had contributed to my general bleak opinion of the exploding Superhero genre but I hadn’t hated the 1st film. It just didn’t have as much “Cap fighting bad guys” in it as I’d hoped. It was sort of boring and unimaginative. Boy, was I flabbergasted by The Winter Soldier. After having my heart broken by “real” cinema, to make the decision to call a rebound chick, and this is what came over at 2am? Not bad at all! But I was skeptical. Perhaps my taste buds had just lost their power and it was merely the absence of any real movie-watching that had me believing that this movie was good. 

Well, now I had to watch some more. I had to prove that this movie was either an anomaly, or simply a mirage amidst my movie-going drought. I’d actually seen Incredible Hulk one Sunday afternoon on a hangover(meh) so I settled on Iron Man 2; on-demand. It was just ‘fine’. RDJ is a treasure, but without him, I thought, it just wouldn’t work. Next, I found Thor. And, due to my hours logged playing Ultimate Alliance, I enjoyed the film much more than I thought I should. Hemsworth was good, the comedy was well-placed, but I still convinced myself that, had I not played the video games, my enjoyment for the movie just wouldn’t register. Luckily, I found The Avengers. I now understood the format, the connections, the story-lines, and I was ready to take in the first big climax of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I still wasn’t “bought in,” but I’d wasted more time on shows I wasn’t bought in on, even disliked, before(here’s lookin at you, MadMen) so this wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But, it was good, and I was starting to see the allure. It reminded me a little of a SpiderMan/X-Men crossover episode from when I was a kid. The action, the comedy, the imagery, I totally understood why it was the talk of the town amongst all the normies(my old people). I still thought it was a little over-rated, but I understood it. 

I finished that film feeling that, while the movies were good, they hadn’t exceeded my expectations to the point of experiencing any real regret from not having hopped on the MCU bandwagon. And then, right after watching The Avengers, I saw a Marvel movie in the On-Demand section on my TV that I hadn’t even heard of. It was newer, though, and was still charging $2.99 to watch it. Spending money on movies(other than the dollar at the redbox) was very unusual for me, at the time. But, having just seen Avengers, my pessimistic mind felt as though this silly space movie had to be the overreach that would prove this whole franchise to be absurd. Surely, they didn’t have anything more to add. They’d stumbled into a hit with Avengers, and now they would just be putting out cash grabs. Well, I needed to confirm it. And that’s how I got hooked. Guardians of The Galaxy, for me, turned the MCU from a string of loosely connected ‘good ideas’ that culminated into a relatively satisfying final act of a little miniseries to one of my favorite movie franchises of all time(if nothing else, due to the sheer volume of content).

Guardians was something different. It didn’t follow the exact same beats as the others. It still had the superhero action, but it added a whole new level of creativity and fun. It felt like it’s own world, with its own character, but still couched in the larger Marvel Universe. It expanded the MCU considerably. The characters were fun, the dialogue was fun, the action was fun. Not having ever really experienced comic books, I felt as though I was watching a comic book. I was officially on-board. I had to get caught up. And I was so bought in that not even Iron Man 3 or Thor:Dark World(woof) could deter me as I was filling in the gaps. I re-watched them all leading up to Age of Ultron in the theaters and went on to catch most of the phase 3 movies in theaters as well(I never got into MCUs Spider-Man; Toby Mag 4Life)

Ok, so why have I gone through the heavy slog of useless movie experiences when talking about my arrival to comic books? Well, the path is obvious, right? It would only make sense that my enchantment with the MCU would lead me into a nearby comic book shop where I’d take up the hobby and never look back. Um…well, no. The MCU did not get me into comics. Gamergate got me into comics. 

Missing from all my droning from above was my foray into the world of politics. In the spirit of brevity, let’s just say that my decision to read books, combined with the re-election of Barack Obama led to the discovery of, and brief infatuation with, the TV show Red-Eye; a comedy show that aired at 2:00am on Fox News Channel. This infatuation would drag me down into the culture war and eventually introduce me to the wonderful world of YouTube, where I could find old episodes of the show. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the addictive nature of YouTube to anyone. And for anyone on YouTube during Gamergate, they know how much it dominated the digital real estate. While I never really had much interest, I couldn’t help but click on a couple videos by creators that covered not only video games, but all aspects of geek culture, including…there it is…comic books.

My first encounter with a comic book review on YouTube was quite underwhelming. I couldn’t figure out why a video with less than 1000 views popped up and was playing in my YouTube player. Nonetheless, I watched the creator describe his reaction to the book and the characters as if he was talking about his favorite TV show, and it clicked for me. I’ve always been a sucker for things that ‘look’ cool. While I couldn’t tell you the difference between a regular brush stroke or a…… different kind of brush stroke? I’ve always loved drawings and paintings. I can’t figured out whether that’s in spite of or because of my complete dearth of ability in the field. Seriously, I drew a picture of Michael Jordan in 4-H as a kid and it was so bad that, instead of critiquing my work, the judge just asked me if there were any other hobbies I might be interested in. Oof.

Once I began to view comic books as a whole bunch of monthly TV shows, (something I already had an unhealthy fondness of) only with badass art, my whistle was wetted. And now they were playing a role in the culture war? Well sheese. I didn’t stand a chance. My late arrival to Gamergate transitioned me, quickly, into Comicsgate, and I got to watch the blow by blow details of how it unfolded. Where I had kind of put my playstation controller away circa Red Dead Redemption(minus a couple CODs) and the Gamergate issue only interested me mildly, my superhero interest combined with my ever-present thirst for story-telling meant that the comic book industry was about to acquire a 30+ year old Brand New Customer.

So now, oh boy, where to start? One of the things that long time comic book fans probably get tired of hearing from normies is how complicated their medium is. My experience was no different. There’s so much to learn before you ever even flip open your first page!

Where’s the starting point for a comic? I mean, surely people don’t start at the very first issue, in the 1940s, and work their way up, right? If they don’t, where do they start? When they bring a new writer on, do they start a new plotline? And if so, how do I know when the new writer starts? Do the numbering systems give an indication of where a person should start? Maybe they go by 10s or 20s? Why is there a 1 and 2, sometimes, that come out right next to a 30 or 956 for a book with the same title(which I would learn is what we call books instead of books)?

And how do I know which title(which we’re now calling them) is the REAL(main) title? Obviously, I don’t want to start with Joey, I want to start with Friends. So which are which? And how often do new issues come out, anyway? Once a month, twice a month, every 3 months? How do you find this out? What’s a TPB? Oh, ‘Trade Paper Back. Ok, got it. Um….what’s a Trade Paper Back? And why do I, sometimes, see them called Graphic Novels? Sometimes Omnibus? Sometimes Compendium?

If you’re not a comic fan and you’re reading this, you assume I’m belaboring the point(and maybe I am). If you are a comic book fan, you know how much further I could take it.

Regardless, the decision had been made and I would have no other choice but to figure it out. I’d just find my nearest comic book shop, most commonly referred to as ‘Local Comic Shop’, or LCS, I’d find out, and go see what I could see.

This was an interesting experience for me. Another thing I don’t think long-time fans fully appreciate is just how intimidating the LCS experience is for newcomers. There is a big wall of books stacked to the ceiling and everyone there stands, within a foot of each other, staring at the same wall of books. Now, I won’t even shop in the same aisle as someone else at the grocery store, let alone from the same shelf. Better to make a lap and come back when they’re gone so as to avoid the judgement in my fellow shopper’s eyes when I reach for the Prago instead of the Ragu. Now I’m being asked to stand next to every other person in the shop and make a decision right in front of God and everyone? Good Grief! Not only am I a 30+ year old, staring at superhero comic books, but I’m nervous about which one I’m going to pick! And if I pick up the wrong one and have to…*gasp… put it back? I’d rather be waterboarded with White Claw than go through the emotional gauntlet of putting a book back without leaving fingerprints or damaging another book in the process.

Nope. I made one trip to a comic shop, walked around for a bit, and left. I was, clearly, going to need some further training before I took on that task. And YouTube got me into this mess, maybe YouTube could get me out. 

Alas, the internet pulled through, yet again. In accordance with the extremely helpful direction I received from numerous YouTube videos on the subject(good! It’s not just me!) I decided to start with a couple Trade Paper Backs(Graphic Novels?) of old plotlines(which we call runs?) from some of the characters that I was interested in before I ever walked back into an LCS. Hopefully, this would give me enough frame of reference for the characters that I enjoyed that, at some point, I would have the confidence to walk into my LCS, pick up a current title for one of those characters, and have some idea of what was going on; at least know what to expect from the character. Little did I know that this decision to “do the work,” combined with the obstacle of regular life would mean that it would be over a year before I ever entered the LCS again. 

Now, if you ask 10 different comic book aficionados where to start with any comic, you will get 15 different answers(it’s kind of the appeal of the medium), but I had to start somewhere. The X-Men were my main priority. They were the sexiest cartoon and I’d already decided to hithc my wagon to Gambit as my favorite comic book character(whoops). 1b was the Ninja Turtles. They were my favorites from way back. Then, of course, Batman. I also wanted to see about The Punisher. I remembered the movie from the 90s, saw the skull everywhere, and it seemed like a more adult character with more egregious violence than any of the others(nice!). I couldn’t forget Deadpool(like anyone could). Spiderman had to be on the list, and the Incredible Hulk, as well. Lastly, I knew the origin story of Daredevil, knew that his faith played a large role in his stories, and I kinda liked the movie I’d seen in the 90s(shh), so he would go on the list as well. 

My work was cut out for me. The LCS I’d been to didn’t have a website for me to check their inventory, and I didn’t see many trades when I was in there anyway. This, in conjunction with my Millennial need for instant gratification, meant that I would do most of my initial comic purchases at (ya, I know. Don’t @ me) Barnes & Noble. 

Predictably, obstacles arose immediately. Consensus on the “essential” runs for some of the books was almost impossible to come by. This was only compounded by the limited selection available to me at my local B&N. Right off the bat, I decided to shelve Hulk, Spiderman, and the Ninja Turtles. I felt like I had enough back story on Spiderman to survive an ongoing series, and the other two proved too difficult to nail down an ‘essential’(and available) collected run. X-Men was a pain as well. After a very extensive search, I settled with the Dark Phoenix Saga as my only graphic novel for that title. I figured this, with a re-watching of the movies, and even a re-watch of the animated series, on Amazon, would prepare me for a modern run. One thing I had gobs of access to was Batman. B&N has an entire Batman section, and for good reason. He is, afterall, the best comic book character of all-time(go ahead and @me on that one). 

Over the course of the next year, I would acquire and read through 22 graphic novels and trade paperbacks. My list, once it was all said and done, looked like this:

Batman: Year One – Frank Miller
Batman: White Knight – Sean Gordon Murphy
Batman: Hush – Jeph Loeb
Batman: Arkham Asylum – Grant Morrison
X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga – Chris Claremont
X-Men Origins: Gambit – Various
Daredevil: Born Again – Frank Miller
Daredevil: The Man Without Fear – Frank Miller
Deadpool Classic Vol. 1 & 2 – Fabian Nicieza, Joe Kelly, Pete Woods
Deadpool and Cable Vol. 1 – Fabian Nicieza, Reilly Brown
The Punisher MAX, Vol. 1, 2, & 3 – Garth Ennis
Civil War(main story) – Mark Millar
Watchmen – Alan Moore
Southern Bastards Vol. 1-4 – Jason Aaron
Criminal – Ed Brubaker

Now, was all of this necessary? Of course not. Was it among the cheapest of options? No. BUT, were these the easiest ones to get my hands on? Um, probably not. I doubt you could find a comic book fan on earth that would have a look at this list and consider it anything approaching a reasonable list of choices for someone getting into comic books. Don’t get me wrong, some of them would appear on many a list (Year One, Dark Phoenix, Man Without Fear, Watchmen), but by in large, it is an assembly of the randomest of decisions based on my desire to, not only acquire some type of baseline, but to do it in my own way. I wanna be special, right? 

When going through my first few graphic novels, I would come to realize the breadth of what comic books have to offer. Outside of the traditional Superhero books, I discovered the ‘Anti-Super-Hero’ genre that books like Watchmen and The Punisher launched. Perhaps the biggest eye opener was the book Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron. It had nothing to do with any heroes at all, and I was into it. But, along with my discovery of how diverse the genre could be, came the realization that exploration of books outside of the traditional Superhero fare should be done with extreme caution. Criminal, a highly acclaimed series, was exactly the opposite of anything I would be interested in. 

Anyway, after my year-long graphic novel apprenticeship I was ready to graduate to a ‘commoner’. The 2 most publicized books that I saw were Venom and Immortal Hulk, but both were midrun. I grabbed the Trade Paperbacks for each one to get caught up to where they were in the series. I also threw in a couple Ice Cream Man TPBs, as it was being touted as a great new indie book at the time. 

And so, the time had finally come to pop my LCS floppy-purchasing cherry and take my rightful place alongside all of the other fake-geek normies trying to glom on to a cultural trend. And that’s what I did. In my first trip to the LCS to purchase an ongoing series that I would follow monthly, I left the store with Venom, The Immortal Hulk, Ice Cream Man, Batman Detective Comics, and the only #1 I saw that I had any interest in; The Green Lantern #1 by Grant Morrison.

They were very uninspired choices. But, at the time, the X-MEN were a complete mess(they’re a slightly more contained mess now). There was no main DareDevil or Punisher title going. Deadpool’s situation was, and continues to be, a sad one. Deadpool, to me, comes off as the most popular prostitute in town. He’s sold his soul and can be found on every other character’s cover in the Marvel universe. And he’s been so busy being arm candy for other books that his own book is being overrun by excruciatingly “cutsie wootsie”, “lol-so random” insects. I had no interest in his new #1 at the time. And Spiderman? Oh, Spiderman. My relationship with that character continues to be a tragic one. For me, the ideal Spiderman is, either, the 90s animated series version (that folks don’t seem to like) or Tobey Mag. The Spidermans(Spidermen?) of current day all feel more like another G-Rated Deadpool than they do Spiderman. So I merely dabble.

So, to finally wrap this thing up. I am still a newbie to the comic book medium. Over the last couple years, my pull list has never really grown to more than 10 or 12 books. Currently, it sits at 7 (only 4 of which aren’t mini-series). I keep my main pull list small (the industry keeps it that way for me) and will grab a #1 from time-to-time. I am always looking to collect cool-looking back issues and continue to grab old graphic novels whenever I get the itch. 

There’s no doubt, the monthlies are struggling mightily. The ongoing battle amongst the fans is whether that fact can be attributed, more-so, to technology, or to mis-management. I tend to come down on the side of the latter. The parasitic postmodernist ideology has hit this industry just as hard, if not harder, than Hollywood. And the rejection of it’s tenants has yet to have a significant impact on those in decision-making roles, despite the financial ramifications. With the evolution in technology almost mirroring this ideological growth, it is easy for those who analyze things to mis-attribute trends and behaviors. And I don’t see any easy resolution in sight. 

I look forward to reviewing, and getting readers’ opinions, on some of my most and least favorite comics, as I continue in my journey to becoming a bonafide comic book fan. I reckon that in about 7 years, when I get my 10-year-chip, I may gain enough clout to ascend to “Casual Fan”! That is…If there’s still an industry around.