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The Road Back – Part V, The Very Beginning

The first superhero comic I remember buying with my own money was this one:

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #109 from early 1974. I still have it. I’d read some other comics prior to this, but don’t remember a single thing about them and nothing in my collection jogs any memories. For all rights and purposes, this was the first comic I ever read. Oddly, this also coincided with the debut of SuperFriends - a show my brother and I watched faithfully every Saturday morning – and yet I have no recollection of the cartoon influencing my buying decision and in fact distinctly remember wishing SuperFriends was a little more like the Justice League. I wanted Flash and Green Lantern and the Atom not Wendy and Marvin or the Wondertwins. And villains – where were the villains? Somehow, though the timelines are parallel, watching SuperFriends and my introduction to comic books seem light years apart.

What attracts a nine-year-old to comic books? Let me qualify that: What attracts a nine-year-old to comic books in 1974? For me it was the perfect combination of larger than life characters, eye-catching images, accessibility, and an altruistic depiction of the possible. But accessibility may have been the real key.

The Road Back – Part IV, The Alan Moore Project

If you’re just coming in, you can read the first three parts to this series here:

The Road Back Pts I, II, & III

Even though I had done quite a bit of on-line reading about who was what and what was good, when I began reading the monthly runs again I still gravitated towards the familiar: JLA, Avengers, X-men, Batman and Spider-man. Even though the terrain had changed some, it was comparatively homogenous with titles I’d read as a kid. I could adjust to Wally West as the Flash, a married Spider-man, and a few new faces in the team books but getting involved with unfamiliar characters and universes just seemed like work at this point. It had to be easier and more interesting to fill in the gaps of my old favorites rather than sail off in uncharted waters. I learned quickly how wrong this notion was. Uncharted waters, here I come.

But where to start? I knew there were things I should read, much of it completely unrelated to my childhood favorites. And even in those cases, where would I start? Do I start reading Green Lantern at issue 155 of the old series or 55 of the new? Or was it so bad I shouldn’t bother at all? The one comic book web site missing out there is the one with the list of books and series that a person should read after a 25 year hiatus from the industry. There are plenty of lists out there though - plenty. And there was this one book – a miniseries originally but now in TPB – that popped up on everyone’s must read or all-time top 10 list: Watchmen.

Marvelous. Groundbreaking. Revolutionary. It will redefine the way you look at superheroes and comic books. Whoa. This I had to read. And can you believe the whole beast can be purchased in one volume? You mean I don’t have to spend months digging around comic books stores, making long distance calls to retailers found in the back of the latest issue of the Flash? Nope, a quick trip to the comic book store and Bob’s your uncle. (Sorry, an old British cliché seemed appropriate just then.)  This is almost too easy. I set aside everything and read it. The art was okay by today’s standards – not great, not wow, but it worked. It was the story, the characters, the symbolism. I immediately understood why it struck such a chord. It was the familiar - twisted inside out, ripped apart, glued together and the lobbed back at you.

When Watchmen came out in 1985 it was clearly groundbreaking; a look at the hero and team mythos that put the industry on its ear. I wasn’t reading comics then, but to hear others tell it, comic books were at an all-time low on the pop culture radar and this series almost single-handedly bestowed respect and cultural significance on the entire industry. That seems an awful large mantle for one book to carry around, but let’s not debate the book's relevance. Personally, I was reading it from a very similar remove as those who picked it up off the newsstand back in 1985. My perspective was one of having never read any of the many great books that would come out after the Watchmen, including the many and varied examinations of the superhero genre, several by Moore himself. After reading and rereading Watchmen I couldn’t help but wonder what else was out there. There were other titles on those lists - should I go after those or maybe explore Alan Moore’s copious resume a little deeper? Since there were a number of other Moore titles on most of the lists, the decision was fairly easy. I bought V for Vendetta, Top Ten, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and all of Moore’s work on Supreme, Swamp Thing and Tom Strong that I could get in TPB, and finally, I chased down the entire Miracleman run. And it was all good. Some of it great.

This experience would change how I buy and read comics in at least three ways. First, I now place a big focus on the writer – if I find someone I like I’ll typically collect as much of their work as I can lay my hands on and frequently store it that way, regardless of publisher or title. Second, I came to embrace the trade paperback. What an awesome development this was. Five, seven, twelve issues all nicely bound, no ads, no waiting for next month’s issue? Wow. Oddly, at first I felt like I was somehow cheating when I bought these. Strange, I know, but the feeling quickly passed. And third, I no longer viewed the big two as the only viable comic book outlets and I began to look beyond the superhero genre. As good as it is, had Watchmen been the apex of my reading I’m not sure if I’d still be reading comics nearly a year later. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be had I limited my reading to the same old monthlies I read as a kid. And as much as I’ve enjoyed Moore’s work, I was equally happy to find that he wasn’t the only comic book writer telling great stories.

The Road Back – Part III, Return of the Geek

So now it’s, early 2003 and somehow I catch wind of an Avengers/JLA crossover series. I don’t remember how I originally heard about it but I do remember inquiring at my local comic book store about the release date. Towards the end of the summer, or maybe early fall, I returned to pick up that first issue. That was the only thing I bought. Oh, I looked at plenty of other stuff, but it all seemed so impenetrable. There had to be 156 Batman related titles and double that many for the X-men. And they all crossed over. And back. And under. I was interested in reading some other comics again, but jeez, I had a mortgage to make and mouths to feed.

I can’t stand coming in on the middle things and so much had changed that by default I was in the middle of everything. In many cases things had changed so much there was only a threadbare connection between the books I used to love and what I was seeing currently on the racks. And at that point I wasn’t interested in investing a great deal of time or money to bring myself up to speed in the various comic universes. But I was determined to complete the JLA/Avengers series not having any idea it would take six months to do so.

This series was my early introduction into the wonderful world of delivery delays. Imagine my surprise, heading back to the comic store in December to find only the second issue. I had expected the whole series to be wrapped up by this point and the store to be amply stocked with the issues I’d missed. Only the second issue? Whatever. I spent a perhaps a little longer browsing the monthlies this time around, growing a little more familiar with the various titles, miniseries and this wonderful new beast (new to me): the trade paperback. I still didn’t buy anything else, but the engine was priming, I just needed a GPS to figure out where to go next. I bought the second book, enjoyed it and headed to the Internet to find out when the third and fourth could be expected. The JLA/Avengers series may have whetted the appetite but it was the Internet that truly opened the door to the buffet. Within a matter of days I became hooked on sites like Newsarama and Comic Book Resources, visiting pretty much daily, slowly expanding from the most basic of comic related news (Hey, something on the new Spider-man movie, I’ll read that…) to greater and greater minutia, eventually building enough of a base of information and expectation that my next trip to the comic shop would be for more than just the next installment of JLA/Avengers.

If it’s information you seek, the Internet is truly a wonderful thing. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.) For a comic book fan it’s Pandora’s box. From a purely grass roots perspective, I’ve seen few other industries use the tools of the Internet to such great depth.  It seems there’s a fan site for every character that ever donned a cape, mask, tunic, or tights - and for the character’s villains, supporting cast, and the guy who guest-lettered issue 58.

Reading these sites, and of course a number of comic blogs, provided the comfort level to start buying some of the monthly titles. Not a lot, and certainly nothing too exotic, but enough to get a feel for what the various universes had evolved into and what some of my favorite characters were doing. Most of all I started to see what I had been missing. Certain titles and names would jump out repeatedly and I quickly realized that I couldn’t limit my reading to the same old books of yesteryear. I needed to branch out and read more of these landmarks, these books that were credited with changing the shape of comics.   

This was a little more difficult for me than you might imagine.  As a kid, with the exception of Neal Adams and George Perez, I rarely bought a comic because of a particular writer or artist. I knew who the various creator were, especially artists, but I was more interested in the characters and their exploits than who was telling the story. I’d buy a book with Spider-man or the X-men in it regardless of who wrote or drew it. But I had to change my mindset and make my purchases based on the talent rather than the stars of the book. I needed to expand beyond the superhero subset I’d brought with me from the 70’s.

The Road Back - Part I
The Road Back - Part II

The Road Back – Part II, Hiatus Interuptus

Full disclosure: I didn’t go the entire 25 years without buying or reading any comics. I couldn’t give the exact date I stopped reading -- sometime in 1979 I think -- but I continued to buy two titles for at least a year more: Justice League and the Avengers. My two favorites, couldn’t give ‘em up. This was as much out of habit as anything else. The Justice League had gone very stale and predictable. The Avengers were a little less so but still not compelling enough to overcome girls, sports, cars and of course, girls. I quit collecting both titles around issue 200 and never looked back. Well, okay, I’m looking back now, but I mean up until this point.

Then sometime in late 1993, for a very brief few months, I started buying comics again. I’m not quite clear why. I think I was blinded by the hype of all those new companies and titles; all those new worlds to explore and being able to get in on the ground floor with each of them. So I bought Malibu, Dark Horse, Image, a bunch of new Marvel titles and some other random stuff and…very little from DC. The DCU seemed almost impenetrable at the time. Crossovers and crisises. (Sound familiar?) One guy actually told me that if I hadn’t read Crisis on Infinite Earths (I hadn’t) I might as well forget DC altogether. I didn’t, but I gave more of my attention to the new guys than they probably deserved.

It was fascinating to see these new companies spring up and work so hard in attempts to churn out their own icons and universes. But what I witnessed happening in comics was eerily reminiscent of what had happened several years earlier in my other hobby, sports card collecting. In the late 80’s card collecting exploded. Tens of thousands of new “collectors” entered the market, many of them speculators looking for the quick hit. In response, a grab bag of new card companies sprung up, producing varying qualities of cards, in unvaryingly huge quantities. The market was flooded, the speculators left, many true blue hobbyists quit in disgust and the industry was never quite the same. Was this now happening in comics? Yep. And I’m certain some of this hype fueled my brief return.

In hindsight, the reviews of the books and companies are not very favorable. Image was very much the Jessica Simpson of comics. Ooooh, pretty. Just don’t say anything. And they didn’t. But they did help raise the bar on standards of artistic quality. Sure it was gratuitous and over the top but it was gorgeous to look at too. Characterization? Scripting? Plots? Sorry, not in the five year plan. Malibu had some interesting storylines and characters, but couldn’t seem to help Xeroxing the establishment. Remember Prototype? Some guy flying around in blue and gold, weapons-grade armor? Not a bad concept except there was this other iron suited fellow under the Marvel masthead that at least a few people had heard of. Wore red and gold I think. Dark Horse had several titles I really liked, NextMen, Danger Unlimited, X and of course, Sin City.

But I never had the sense that much of what I was reading had real staying power. Maybe it was too new or derivative or just plain bad. Eventually I got bored. Not surprising considering what I had chosen to read. I managed to completely bypass most of the good stuff coming from the likes of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller. Instead, I OD’d on the Rob Leifelds, Len Strazewskis and Todd McFarlanes. Unfortunately, the Internet was in its infancy at that time. Had it been the unmatched resource it is today, I might have found all that good stuff. Alan Moore alone would have kept me busy for a few months.

And so, within four or five months of starting, I stopped. Just like that. Cold turkey. No holdovers this time; no titles bought for months out of habit or nostalgia; and not much looking back. Just a brief glimpse into some childhood memories, easily stored in boxes and forgotten as the rest of my life kept me busy. At the time I gave no thought to whether I would read comics again, but I never got rid of those books either. In fact, I was reading some of them just today and surely will read them again.

The Road Back - Part I

The Road Back – Part I, Something Worth Reading

If you were to start reading comics again after a nearly 25 year hiatus, where would you start? How would you span the knowledge gap, pick up on the continuity, fill in the back-story of the myriad of new characters or understand the revisions to the old ones? Would you buy only the old titles you remembered from your youth? Or would you take the shotgun approach and buy everything you could afford, anything with a cool cover or slick title, anything with Batman in it, or Spider-man, or the X-men? Would you expand your reach to books that didn’t include superheroes or to something completely different like Manga? Would you be amazed at the quality of the art and depth of the stories, overwhelmed by the sheer mass of titles, or saddened that there’s still so much junk out there? Would you become a collector again or simply a reader – or both? Would you stay committed to the hobby or would this be a short-lived attempt to recapture a bit of childhood? What would prompt you to even attempt this? We may never know what you would do in this situation. But I can tell you what I’ve done and sometimes even why I did it.

25 years is a long time. Especially if it’s the 25 years from 1979 to 2004. Comic books went through some major evolutionary changes in this span and while it often seems like I quit just when things started to get interesting, the trade-off is that I have a much richer tapestry to examine today. I’ve returned to find an industry with level of talent rivaling nearly any and yet continually squandering good will and missing opportunities; an industry that can be condescendingly overbearing within its self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, largely insular little world and at the same time be wildly insecure about its place in the larger worlds of entertainment and the creative arts.

Things are different now, to be sure. Oh, most of the old heroes are still around, fighting alongside some new ones and battling against a similar mixture of old and new, but the stories themselves are better told and better drawn; the comic book store operators are now savvy retailers, replacing the  misfits selling their massive collections from hole-in-the-wall outposts far off the main drag; and while the form-factor of the books is the same, the quality is light years improved - and the cost of the books? Ah, the costs...The two big publishers are still the Big Two publishers but there is so much more in the slipstream than there was before.

And perhaps the biggest change of all? Mass Media. Characters the general public hadn’t the slightest clue about -- or interest in -- two decades ago are now plastered on billboards, magazine covers, lunchboxes, board games, dairy products and children’s underwear. As kids, my brother and I would take turns naming actors or actresses we thought best suited to play various super heroes on the big screen – all the while admitting that Hollywood could never give us an honest representation of our icons and that we’d prefer they didn’t even try if it meant seeing a two-bit actor in a bad costume cannabalizing the great Captain America or anything close to that horrible Spider-man TV series. And there had to be bad guys. The Hulk television show was great, but where was General Ross, the Leader or even the Absorbing Man? If you’re going to have super heroes, you have to have super villains. Let Starsky and Hutch bag all the drug dealers and purse snatchers. Then Hollywood caught up. Anything that can be put in a comic can now be believably (from our best comic fan perspective) portrayed onscreen, actors with legitimate resumes bring our most beloved characters to life, the budgets are big enough to afford not just the hero but his rogues gallery as well, and finally, Hollywood has begun to trust the source material - as best as one might expect them to anyway. The end result finds the mythologies of Superman, Batman and Spider-man elevated to mainstream and characters like Wolverine, Daredevil and the Fantastic Four are recognized, fantasized and idolized by a larger audience than I ever would have imagined.

Amid all this, I wade back in the pool. Was it because of or in spite of the media saturation? Not solely either or either together. The movies were a part of it but so was a curious itch to see what my old friends had been up to, hear their stories and meet some of their new friends and enemies and hear more stories. A reunion of sorts. One thing was certain, after seeing the movies and the cartoons and reading little snippets of news on the Internet and occasionally dropping into the comic shop, I felt I was missing something - something good and fun, something worth both my time and my money, something worth reading.