Comic Books

Superhero comics hold a special place in my life, but I do not read them anymore. I have had different phases where I have consumed them: as a kid during the seventies, then a few different times as an adult, mainly in my 20s. I was a fairly serious collector then, as I would hit Forbidden Planet on Broadway and 12th Street in New York City and buy almost every monthly title that Marvel published (I have always been a Marvel guy, as opposed to DC).

I find the superhero character to be as interesting an archetype in American culture as the cowboy, the private eye, or the G.I. Done right, it can be thrilling. However, if it's not done right, it can be quite silly, as you realize you're watching a guy in tights prance on rooftops because he got zapped by radiation.

I began to sour on comics as I realized they were making suckers out of guys like me. They would continue a Spider-Man story in an Iron Man title, for example, or put out an issue with four different covers ("collect 'em all!"). I'm glad I had stopped reading when Marvel decided to start its "universe" all over again.

But I had fun with them. Spider-Man was my favorite, as he is with many guys who can identify with a neurotic loner. Spider-Man had several different monthly titles, including one called Marvel Team-Up, which featured two disparate Marvel characters pairing for one adventure. Due to his popularity, Spider-Man was always one of the pair.

After years of legal wrangling, Marvel has finally begun to bear the fruit of the comic-book film explosion. The results have been hit and miss. I think the two Spider-Man films are top-notch entertainments, and remain true to the character. I was never a Hulk guy, and I thought that film was a bit too heavy-handed. Daredevil was so-so, and I skipped Elektra and The Punisher.

I finally got around to seeing the Fantastic Four last week and, as expected, didn't care for it. It was an origin story, and suffers from the pitfalls that origin stories are susceptible to. The Fantastic Four, in the comics, fought villains on a galactic scale (one of their arch-enemies was Galactus, who eats planets), yet this film had them rescue a fire truck and battle Doctor Doom on a street in New York, hardly an epic scale. And they sure gave short shrift to Doctor Doom, who in the comics was an evil tyrant, not a Donald Trump knock-off.

The third X-Men film is coming up this weekend, and I suppose I'll take a look. I liked the first two okay, though they have an embarrassment of riches with the number of characters and don't seem to know what to do with them. Ghost Rider is coming up, and there's talk of an Iron Man film.

The best Marvel stuff I ever read was a 12-part series called Secret Wars, which came out in the mid-eighties. The main heroes and villains (minus Daredevil, for some reason) are spirited away to a distant planet by a God-like figure who calls himself the Beyonder. Like a kid putting different kids of bugs in a jar and watching them battle, the Beyonder has put Marvel characters on this planet to watch the results. I thought it was great stuff. It's where Spider-Man found the black uniform that would one day turn into Venom, and where Doctor Doom came close to turning himself into a God. It would make the most expensive film ever made. Perhaps one day, during my lifetime, the FX techology will make it economically feasible.