Umm . . . Comics!

So, I took it upon myself to write the comics post this week. Probably not the best idea, but we must evolve if we are to persist.

• Melissa published us an awesome Ant Man post yesterday. It got comments. Obviously I couldn’t ask her for another post the very next day. Melissa’s time and attention are too valuable for me to do that.
• David offered to put something together early in the day yesterday, but I decided it was time for me to just say “I’ve got it,” and do a goshdarn Wednesday post myself. Because David and Holly have la Geek Baby to mind, and they also have an awesome blog that needs to keep publishing.
• Diana, just so you know, is reading a lot of comics lately. She has ideas and stuff. But she’s in the process of re-designing her blog and we all know how trying that is.
• Luther, OMG. Has offered to do sci-fi comics posts for the asking here, given adequate notice.  But he’s busy busy busy right now. I’ll not dare ask a man for a sci-fi comics post when he’s just discovered hardwood flooring that isn’t up to code in his domicile. (Is “domicile” not one of the coolest words ever?)
• Of course we’ll have more Ms. Marvel from Hannah — I probably need to go ahead and give Ms. Marvel a category if I haven’t already.

Anyhoo, we’re having a #DramaticSummer, and while I was supposed to be writing this post last night, I was getting up to some mischief on the other social media instead. Have a tweet.

Just sent 50+ #Facebook page invites for you, @mbarkersimpson 🙂 May as well share on @Twitter, too! #blogplotting https://t.co/wDK6iqNOL4

— Sourcerer (@SourcererRex) July 22, 2015

Here is what we are left with. Today I tell you where I am with the comics. And I give you a list of five comics things I could write by the end of the year, if you are interested. No matter how you feel about all this, if you are still reading, you’re stuck with me today. I’m your substitute teacher.

I’m also the ringmaster of this particular circus. That means: It’s not my role to do the trapeze act nor tame the tigers. It’s my job to keep a few of you interested until the high-wire walkers are ready to take the stage again.

Go ahead and click “More.”

So. About my relationship with the comics.

When I was a small child — so small we still had a store named ‘Jitney Jungle’ in my hometown, my grandmother bought me comics. I scored a single issue of Secret Wars that way, and some Dr. Strange, and some Thor. I still have all those in bags. They’re not in good shape. We abused the comics when we were young. We tore the covers off and used them for posters. We wrote on the pages with magic markers and stuff.

Sometime later, my brother and I were allowed to subscribe to one title each through a school fund-raising program. My brother opted for Star Wars. I chose the Marvel Team-Up. And we each got 12 comics in the mail, delivered in brown paper wrappers as though they were porn. We got 12 the next year, too. Because our mom, bless her heart, renewed the subscriptions. I still have most of those comics in bags — even though my brother tore the covers off some of the Star Wars ones and magic-markered them to hell and back as he was emerging from his childhood.

I have a cover from this era, when comics only cost 60 cents and life was all inexplicably sunshine and roses, despite the Cold War and all that. I actually own this issue.

“Stand aside sonny!”

I have a bunch of these squirreled away, but “The Spider and the Swashbuckler” is absolutely the best single issue I have from this era.

And now time passes. I learn to drink, learn to drive, learn to make out with other persons who mostly turn out to be girls (and I mean no disrespect there — I was a BOY in those days. Women frightened me, and so did men. And other boys. I preferred GIRLS.)

I come back to the comics in 1991, Marvel’s 50th Anniversary year. And I need a distraction from the things that are going on in my life — my last grandfather dying, a woman I’m having problems with — things like that.

I collect comics for a couple of years. And being the good, smart man that I am by that point, I have enough sense to bag them, and back them, and make sure they are stored in climate-controlled places for the next 25 years.

So, I have a stash I can get into, and it is 25 years old. Here are five runs of early 90’s comics I could write about, if any of you are interested. I also have the first ohh . . . 20 issues of the Uncanny X-Men reboot and most of the other mutant comics that were going around in those days, along with a LOT of Punisher, SpiderMan, Ghost Rider, and, inexplicably, early War Machine appearances in the pages of Iron Man. I’ve got some Silver Surfer, too.

1. Daredevil: The Man Without Fear — “Last Rites” – Issues 297-300 of Daredevil. A not-quite-sequel, but companion piece to Frank Miller’s “Born Again.” Frequently appears on internet lists of “best Daredevil stories ever.” I’m reading it now.
2. Batman: Year Three. This one is still in the bags, so all I know about it it at this point is on the Wikipedia page. But I have to say. I’m stoked! I get to read this one next! And Write about Batman here 🙂
3. Dead Man’s Hand A massive nine-issue crossover series involving Daredevil, Nomad, and Punisher. I remember enjoying it immensely, back in the day. Don’t actually remember what happened, though. It will have to wait until I am done with the Batman.
4. Perceptions – A Todd McFarlane series in which SpiderMan and Wolverine track a serial killer in the Pacific Northwest. Again, a little fuzzy. I remember the art being good, and the plot being better than average.
5. The Infinity Gauntlet/Infinity War — I have both of these. I can read them any time I want. What about that? I actually think the Infinity Gauntlet is the thing that sucked me into the comics, back in the 90s. I know for a fact the Infinity War marketing turned me off. They did crossovers to almost every title. It was a cool concept, sure. But I got tired of buying the books before it was done, and some of the titles were HARD to find in Mississippi, in the 90s. Sorry, Marvel. Alpha Flight just isn’t all that popular down here. I quit comics because I couldn’t see the whole Infinity War, basically.

I’m looking for a way back into comics. I’m missing them. But all the comics I have are so, soo old. What are you reading? What do you like? Is Daredevil any good right now? Because I really have a soft spot for Daredevil. But I am open to other options.