When I sit down, and evaluate where I stand on a lot of things comic, I have clearly defined limits and requirements for what I do and don’t like.
This is not so much because I don’t to try anything new. Quite the contrary, I need these guidelines in order to try new things. When I walk into a comic shop (which is rare as I am a poor student) I look for the familiar. I go for the new Invincible Iron Man trade, or to see if Daredevil has a new issue out that looks good. I go to see if the Hellboy on the shelf is the one I need to read next. I go to see if a used copy of Scott Pilgrim is available (because 12 bucks is a lot to pay for something you just “liked” and want to get for the symbolic value it has to you personally). Then, I look at what’s sitting next to them.
But that’s besides the point here. What I was trying to say, was that all those pretty guidelines that stop me from just gazing around a comic shop in slack-jawed awe, looking like a complete idiot, as soon as I actually have a book in my hand, they go away.
I’ll be looking for the next good X-men to try out, and say to myself “I don’t like Havok. I find him not to interesting, Scott is by far the better brother.” So, appropriately I look for something without Havok. I stumble upon a used copy of Chuck Austen’s run on Uncanny X-Men, think it has a quite knarly Wolverine cover, and pick it up for some lousy amount like $8. I read this book. This book features Havok. However, the story is just compelling enough that I think the next ones would be a good idea to get (please don’t judge me, I get now that it is kinda a terrible thing, these books by Austen).
I read the sequels. Guess what? I love Havok. I love him almost as much as I love Scott. I do the same thing with Daredevil a few months later. I buy and re-watch the Fox movie, for competitive edge, and determine that Matt is not my most favorite character ever. I watch it again. And again. Marvel decides to publish a gorgeous new book for the man, and guess what? I love Daredevil.
In the words of a friend ” Is there anyone in the Marvel Universe you don’t like?”
“Why, yes, there is. Don’t be rediculous. I don’t like— Uh. Um. Er. Um… Well, I don’t like DC!”
“You liked 52.”
“52 is an anomaly. Are you determined to drive me into an existential crisis, here?”
Six months, Batman: The Killing Joke and a trade of Secret Six later, and maybe I don’t hate DC as much as I thought.
I fear that soon I will no longer be able to identify myself as Marvel, when asked that crucial question “Marvel or DC?”
But…. that also matter less to me now. I love comics. I someday want to write them, but failing that I just want to work in the industry, so I can always be around them, and share the love with others. Comics are everything that is good in this world. And no, I’m not biased at all.
