So, okay: I sent y'all off with some recommendations on What Funnybooks The Cool Kids Are Reading These Days (Or At Least Me), thinking that it'd be an easy trip down to the local Komick Shoppe where you could find what you were looking for safely and without much commotion, and if you did have any trouble, bright-eyed and kindly assistants would be at your beck and call to help you locate said graphic literature, and who knows, they might even wrap your purchase up in butcher's paper and twine (to protect from the elements, natch) and send you on your merry way with a gentle but eager wave.
Then I realized that y'all might actually talk to the people who work there, which means that at least one, if not all, of you would suffer through this little horrific exchange:
You: "I'm kinda new at this whole comic thing; anything you'd recommend?"
Kindly Assistant: "Oh, man, you gotta check out the new Green Lantern books! They're awesome, they've got a Lantern Corp for each colour now, and the Red Lanterns puke blood!"
I know this is gonna happen, because I've already experienced a similar exchange, and lemme tell you right now, the only reason that guy thinks the new Green Lantern title is cool is because he gets to read it for free.
There is no such thing as good Green Lantern comic; never has been, never will be, no matter what Bryn Evans tells you. (Okay, Willworld was actually pretty decent, and that whole Mosaic thing during the nineties featuring schizophrenic John Stewart was certainly interesting, but still...). You wanna know why that Ryan Reynolds movie sucked? It was because the comic it was based on pretty much sucked. It's a comic about a guy with a magic wishing ring, which you'd think would lend itself to some interesting visual narrative and storytelling, but more often than not, you get giant green boxing gloves and aliens who vomit rage-I-mean-blood. In space, mind you, so I guess that makes it okay.
Don't get me wrong: I love me my superheroes. I love the heroes and the villains and the sidekicks and butlers and crazy uncles and love-children and alien pets and pan-dimensional alternates and everyone else in between. But the only reason I have this colossal knowledge of past and present spandex-clad bruisers is because, back in the day, in the long long ago, when the Wee Book Inn actually taught me that I could describe myself as a 'bookseller' instead of a 'cashier/stockboy' on my resume, I worked at a place that had a backstock of, I swear to god, THOUSANDS of comics. And this was just in one location.
Lemme tell ya, I read every one of 'em, and the only reason I did so was because I was able to do it for free. Because while I loved reading the Spider-Man Clone Saga or those weird Tales of The Dark Knight issues, or the 'Five Years Later...' Legion of Super-Heroes reboot, I could recognize that as much as I loved them, they weren't amazing, and that I'd probably hate myself if I'd actually spent money on them.
This happens to be the case with most superhero comics, and I hate to kinda dump on 'em, because there are some very good writers and artists working their asses off on these things, and yes, some of them will be worth your hard-earned $4.99 (go out and buy All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely RIGHT NOW. I mean it. Do it, or I'll punch your mom) but the fact remains that the majority of superhero comics are only printed to be disposable; they're big violent angst-ridden soap-operas, designed, like anything else mass-produced, to appeal to the lowest common denominator, in this case, teenage boys (although there currently is a debate going on as to whether comic-dom's biggest slice of the readership pie might indeed belong instead to those 30-40 year-olds who can't stand to see any change whatsoever in their underwear champions, i.e., Green Lantern HAS to be Hal Jordan, The Flash HAS to be Barry Allen, etc, but see, now I've opened up a can of worms that you don't really want to have anything to do with because ultimately IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO WEARS THE COWL IF YOU'RE STILL LIVING WITH YOUR MOM.).
(Okay, sorry, that was harsh. But, really...).
Long story short: it's a rare superhero comic that warrants critical attention. They're out there, to be sure, and if you've got the time, the inclination, and the money to sort through the veritable ocean of crap in order to find Jonathan Hickman's run on Fantastic Four, or Morrison's run on New X-Men (Stebner, you're wrong, it's effing brilliant, and I'll fight you if you say otherwise), well, then, more power to you. I hope you find what you're looking for, which is probably gonna be, y'know, Green Lanterns puking blood, or Strangely Alluring Female Wolverine That I Can Have Weird Feelings About, or Rough Trade Superboy.
(I'd just like to say at this point that I have no problem with Rough Trade Superboy; my problem is that I don't think any of the creators involved with Superboy are even aware of the phrase 'rough trade', otherwise Superboy would've had a VERY different costume over the course of the last ten years.)
(I, for, one think it'd be kinda awesome if DC went out on a limb and wrote Superboy as a gay character in their current AMAZING MULTIVERSE REBOOT CRISIS that they're foisting on us right now, instead of giving the LGBTQ community this as their token of diversity. But I digress.)
(What was my point again? Ah, yes...)
Here's the thing: the guys that work at these places? They're allowed to be excited about Angry Stabbing Action Aquaman, it's part of the reason they work at comic shops: so that they can be around these things, which, when you don't have to shell out five bucks an issue, can be quite fun to read. So I'm not trying to shit on them, either. Most of them are lovely people who happen to be lucky enough to work in a place that sells their favourite things ever, and they're just excited to share those favourite things. What I'm trying to say is that their enthusiasm might not directly translate into your own, which might be common sense, you say, but, well, there's a reason why we were selling those comics at the Wee Book Inn for a quarter each, y'know?
Besides: now you have me to steer you in the right direction. Right? Right. So, when you go to pick up the latest trade paperback of Criminal, and Kindly Assistant asks if you've read Brubaker's work on The Death of Captain America (guess what? He doesn't really die! NONE OF THEM DO!), you can tell him (or her) to go to hell.
But, y'know, nicely. Because, y'know, they're only doing their job.
(I should also point out: I didn't really love the Spider-Man Clone Saga. If I'm to be honest, it was atrocious, and should be stricken from human memory, just like most of the superhero comics coming out in the nineties. If anyone tells you different, punch 'em in the junk, because they're a no-good damned dirty liar.)
Then I realized that y'all might actually talk to the people who work there, which means that at least one, if not all, of you would suffer through this little horrific exchange:
You: "I'm kinda new at this whole comic thing; anything you'd recommend?"
Kindly Assistant: "Oh, man, you gotta check out the new Green Lantern books! They're awesome, they've got a Lantern Corp for each colour now, and the Red Lanterns puke blood!"
I know this is gonna happen, because I've already experienced a similar exchange, and lemme tell you right now, the only reason that guy thinks the new Green Lantern title is cool is because he gets to read it for free.
There is no such thing as good Green Lantern comic; never has been, never will be, no matter what Bryn Evans tells you. (Okay, Willworld was actually pretty decent, and that whole Mosaic thing during the nineties featuring schizophrenic John Stewart was certainly interesting, but still...). You wanna know why that Ryan Reynolds movie sucked? It was because the comic it was based on pretty much sucked. It's a comic about a guy with a magic wishing ring, which you'd think would lend itself to some interesting visual narrative and storytelling, but more often than not, you get giant green boxing gloves and aliens who vomit rage-I-mean-blood. In space, mind you, so I guess that makes it okay.
Don't get me wrong: I love me my superheroes. I love the heroes and the villains and the sidekicks and butlers and crazy uncles and love-children and alien pets and pan-dimensional alternates and everyone else in between. But the only reason I have this colossal knowledge of past and present spandex-clad bruisers is because, back in the day, in the long long ago, when the Wee Book Inn actually taught me that I could describe myself as a 'bookseller' instead of a 'cashier/stockboy' on my resume, I worked at a place that had a backstock of, I swear to god, THOUSANDS of comics. And this was just in one location.
Lemme tell ya, I read every one of 'em, and the only reason I did so was because I was able to do it for free. Because while I loved reading the Spider-Man Clone Saga or those weird Tales of The Dark Knight issues, or the 'Five Years Later...' Legion of Super-Heroes reboot, I could recognize that as much as I loved them, they weren't amazing, and that I'd probably hate myself if I'd actually spent money on them.
This happens to be the case with most superhero comics, and I hate to kinda dump on 'em, because there are some very good writers and artists working their asses off on these things, and yes, some of them will be worth your hard-earned $4.99 (go out and buy All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely RIGHT NOW. I mean it. Do it, or I'll punch your mom) but the fact remains that the majority of superhero comics are only printed to be disposable; they're big violent angst-ridden soap-operas, designed, like anything else mass-produced, to appeal to the lowest common denominator, in this case, teenage boys (although there currently is a debate going on as to whether comic-dom's biggest slice of the readership pie might indeed belong instead to those 30-40 year-olds who can't stand to see any change whatsoever in their underwear champions, i.e., Green Lantern HAS to be Hal Jordan, The Flash HAS to be Barry Allen, etc, but see, now I've opened up a can of worms that you don't really want to have anything to do with because ultimately IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO WEARS THE COWL IF YOU'RE STILL LIVING WITH YOUR MOM.).
(Okay, sorry, that was harsh. But, really...).
Long story short: it's a rare superhero comic that warrants critical attention. They're out there, to be sure, and if you've got the time, the inclination, and the money to sort through the veritable ocean of crap in order to find Jonathan Hickman's run on Fantastic Four, or Morrison's run on New X-Men (Stebner, you're wrong, it's effing brilliant, and I'll fight you if you say otherwise), well, then, more power to you. I hope you find what you're looking for, which is probably gonna be, y'know, Green Lanterns puking blood, or Strangely Alluring Female Wolverine That I Can Have Weird Feelings About, or Rough Trade Superboy.
(I'd just like to say at this point that I have no problem with Rough Trade Superboy; my problem is that I don't think any of the creators involved with Superboy are even aware of the phrase 'rough trade', otherwise Superboy would've had a VERY different costume over the course of the last ten years.)
(I, for, one think it'd be kinda awesome if DC went out on a limb and wrote Superboy as a gay character in their current AMAZING MULTIVERSE REBOOT CRISIS that they're foisting on us right now, instead of giving the LGBTQ community this as their token of diversity. But I digress.)
(What was my point again? Ah, yes...)
Here's the thing: the guys that work at these places? They're allowed to be excited about Angry Stabbing Action Aquaman, it's part of the reason they work at comic shops: so that they can be around these things, which, when you don't have to shell out five bucks an issue, can be quite fun to read. So I'm not trying to shit on them, either. Most of them are lovely people who happen to be lucky enough to work in a place that sells their favourite things ever, and they're just excited to share those favourite things. What I'm trying to say is that their enthusiasm might not directly translate into your own, which might be common sense, you say, but, well, there's a reason why we were selling those comics at the Wee Book Inn for a quarter each, y'know?
Besides: now you have me to steer you in the right direction. Right? Right. So, when you go to pick up the latest trade paperback of Criminal, and Kindly Assistant asks if you've read Brubaker's work on The Death of Captain America (guess what? He doesn't really die! NONE OF THEM DO!), you can tell him (or her) to go to hell.
But, y'know, nicely. Because, y'know, they're only doing their job.
(I should also point out: I didn't really love the Spider-Man Clone Saga. If I'm to be honest, it was atrocious, and should be stricken from human memory, just like most of the superhero comics coming out in the nineties. If anyone tells you different, punch 'em in the junk, because they're a no-good damned dirty liar.)
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