Saturday, May 03, 2008

Comic Books USED To Be Awesome; Now, They're Just Overpriced

We just got back from (drum roll!) the movie theater!

And yes, Iron Man was pretty good.

Of course, I'm a big comic book nerd from WAY back, even though my preference was DC. Hub, on the other hand, is a huge Marvel fan. You should just SEE what's in our garage!

Life is full of regrets. If only I'd been tidier as a small child, Mom wouldn't have swept through my room like a piranha, and I'd still have all those ten-cent Superman comics.

I loved my DC comics so much, I subscribed to them! They arrived bent in two, with a crease so sharp even time couldn't straighten it out, but it also meant I got mine before the stores did, which was, for some reason, cool back then.

I only stopped buying them because: A) We were poor, and comic book prices went up and are still up so high it's a joke, and B) Both DC and Marvel got rid of all the good artists and hired bad ones.

And with the bad artists came a parade of bad writers, who changed the characters' origins and looks and costumes and friends and motivations and nemeses and eras and powers until they might as well have just invented their own character and left the original characters' characters alone.

I loved my comic books so much that even though we were too poor to buy milk, I might have sold my blood every month to keep up with The Legion of Super-Heroes.

After the big changeovers, however, I really couldn't have cared less about them, even while I mourned the death of my beloved heroes. Because, you know, the changes were so drastic, the original characters really were dead to me. And I hated their replacements.

Also, Stan Lee is in Iron Man, if you look closely. Just like Hitchcock always appeared in his films, Lee appears in his.