Explaining the Obsession With Marvel Comics

I’m not just obsessed with comic books; I’m actually kind of addicted to them.

I’ve never smoked a cigarette, I’ve never done any kind of drug that wasn’t prescribed by my doctor, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been drunk. I don’t drink coffee, and I have only a mild problem with sweets. But when it comes to the latest adventures of Spider-Man and the X-Men, I’ve just can’t help myself.

I’ve been collecting comic books since I was twelve or thirteen years old. During the height of my addiction, in the midst of the speculator’s boom of the early 1990s, I was literally spending my entire weekly paycheck on comics. When I worked at the local comic book store for spell, they actually paid me in comics. There were a few years there where I was guaranteed to find a stack of books in a package under the Christmas tree. And though I’m down to four or five books a month now, I still have seven or eight long boxes sitting in my closet.

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The seeds of the obsession were planted early on. Years before I started collecting, I was aware of the characters. Spider-Man was on The Electric Company, and had his own Saturday morning cartoon (Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which also featured the red-headed heroine Firestar, whose flaming tresses would spark another long-term obsession of mine). The Incredible Hulk was in syndication, and was one of the most awesome television programs on the dial. And down at the Children’s House of the Chelmsford Public Library, there was a collection of colorful hardbound books which gave basic overviews of each of Marvel’s heavy hitters.

I was a melancholy kid with only a few fairweather friends, and so, like so many melancholy kids before me (and so many since), I sought escape anywhere I could find it. Before comic books, I had been all about the Transformers (in fact, some of the earliest books I bought were issues of the Transformers series that Marvel put out), and before the Transformers, I had been all about Star Wars. But there were only three Star Wars flicks, and only a few dozen episodes of the Transformers cartoon. The Marvel Universe, once I found it, was far more immersive. It had been around for nearly thirty years at that point. It was the kind of place you could really get lost in, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do: get lost.

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I still read comic books at thirty years old because they still provide me with an escape, and because life is stressful enough that escape is something I positively crave. I may get frustrated with Marvel’s inability to let their characters grow (they just un-married Spider-Man by having him make a deal with the devil to save his aunt’s life) but, in the end, I’ll take what they give me because they manufacture my drug of choice.

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Alex Ross Paints the Uncanny X-Men

Continuing with the comics news, Comic Book Resources has posted a brief piece on Uncanny X-Men #500 and the alternate cover that’s been provided by one of my favorite artists of all time, Alex Ross. In addition to some tid-bits on where the story of the X-Men is going this summer, the article provides Ross’s thoughts on the ever-changing costumes of Marvel’s merry band of mutants. Good stuff.

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IRON MAN Flies in a New Clip on Apple.Com

Apple.com’s Movie Trailers section has a new clip from Iron Man, the forthcoming film adaptation of the Marvel comic book of the same name. It stars Robert Downey, Jr., in case you’ve been living in a cave, and every time I see something else promoting this movie I get a little bit more nuts about it. And yet, given my schedule and given the fact that I’m wicked po’, I will probably miss this when it comes out in theaters. We’ll see, I guess.

Thanks to Aint It Cool News for pointing this out.

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Heidi Montag to Star in New Marvel Comic: THE INCREDIBLE IMPLANTS

Editor’s Note: In case the date-stamp didn’t make it clear, this article was part of GF5’s April Fool’s Day Joke for 2008.

Insiders at Marvel Comics tell us that reality television celebrity and twenty-something musical genius Heidi Montag will continue her quest for world domination by starring in an upcoming comic book entitled The Incredible Implants.

“Joey Q, (Joe Quesada, Marvel’s editor-in-chief), couldn’t be more excited about this idea,” writes our inside source. “He’s running around the office telling people that this has never been done, that Montag’s character is going to be the biggest thing since Dazzler, and certainly a bigger hit than the Jenna Jameson-inspired Shadow Hunter that Virgin Comics is putting out.”

Montag’s superpowers will apparently be derived from her breast implants. They will apparently be laced with adamantium, the same indestructible metal which is bonded to popular Marvel hero Wolverine’s skeleton, and will also, apparently, be bombarded by gamma radiation, the same energy source which brought the Incredible Hulk to life.

“Her boobs are going to act as both armor-plating and as projectile energy weapons,” says our man inside. “This one is going to be a real winner.”

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Secret Invasion: “The Marvel Universe will not be the same.”

Entertainment Weekly has “an exclusive early peek” at Secret Invasion #1, the first issue in a summer mini-series from Marvel Comics. The series, which will run for eight issues, three of which might actually come out on time, is set to depict the payoff to a storyline that writer Brian Michael Bendis has been spinning for years. The Skrulls, a race of extraterrestrial shape-shifting bad-asses who have been kicking around the Marvel Universe since 1962’s Fantastic Four #2, have apparently infiltrated every corner of the Earth’s infrastructure and, now that they’ve been found out by the super-team the Avengers, they’re ready to announce their intentions to the world.

In an interview with EW’s Nisha Gopalan, Bendis promises that, when Secret Invasion ends, “[t]he Marvel Universe will not be the same.” Gopalan counters, “That’s what everyone says about an event comic!” To which Bendis replies:

Well, we’ve proven over time that House of M, Civil War, Secret War — none of these did leave the universe the way it was. The criticism going into Civil War is that it’s going to be a draw: Captain America’s dead and Tony Stark is running the world. That wasn’t the way it was when we started. These are big things for the characters. So on that note, we can only stand by our track record.

And y’know what? Their track record lately has been good, despite what the peanut gallery over on the Newsarama forums would have you believe. In the past few years, when Marvel has promised big change, they have delivered (for better or worse). Cap is dead, Iron Man is ruling the world, the mutant population is down to a little bit less than 200 worldwide, and Spider-Man isn’t married anymore (but he isn’t divorced, and he isn’t a widower; his marriage just never happened, thanks to Mephisto).

This is one comic that I won’t be missing, because I can’t wait to see if Marvel has the balls to keep shaking things up. And you, even if you’re a casual comics fan, should not miss it either. Marvel makes nearly every mini-series it puts out a self-contained affair (they’re always looking to pull in new readers, of course, plus they’re trying to think ahead to the eventual trade paperback release), so you should be able to jump on board even if you haven’t read anything in a while.

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