In the last week, this here blog has seen a SURGE in readers. Going from one to a mind melting three! I don't know who these other people are* but they inspired me to write. And, write. Not just bust out the little navel gazing asides but dig up a prompt (This time a creative non fiction one because who knew those existed and I can't write fiction to save my life) to slay that word count. And, if this brief reverie could not shimmer even stronger, the prompt is
"What is your favorite super hero and why?"
So, the short version, if you put a gun to my head would be Daredevil/Matt Murdock. There. But, this is supposed to be longer and some what of a memoir. While its dismissive to inexorably link superheroes and comics, they are connected and comics is a big part of why I began blogging. Bored while at a snoozy job in the mid 2000s I found the Daves Long Box Blog and I wanted to be Dave and blog and have folks hang on every post. That lead me to find other funny and active bloggers like Chris Sims and Sean Baby (The only person Ive ever written a fan letter to) and well that made another dream. All that said if you are reading this you have a high tolerance for pain** so read on for the long version which i've broken up into several parts.
Also, this post has got images so make sure to hover over them for extra content!
My earliest "strong"*** super hero memory is the animated 90's Spiderman which, first, kicked ass and, second, was hard to find until Disney Plus launched. The show was serialized, which felt so weird for a kids show, so if you missed one episode you missed a ton. But, don't worry there was also tons of exposition. This show had this amazing synthy-rocky theme song that was just some guy screaming "SPIDERMAN! SPIDERMAN! RADIOACTIVE SPIDERMAN!" into a Moog machine and blocky computer animated backgrounds over detailed character drawings. No one ever mentioned that Harry Osborn had this weird shaved head look that ended in a widow's peak but also featured blood read horizontal highlights. I swear its an animation error that they just said whatever too. It was the 90s and people had three sweaters on at once sometimes!
This also began my love for all the Spiderman things albeit I have never regularly read a Spiderman book.
Next strong memory may piss some folks off but its Sailor Moon. This whole post, for how old these properties are****, will date me right in the late 90s and early 00s and that is when Toonami premiered and..."Holy shit do you see these cartoons from Japan. They are so hardcore!"
A really good friend of mine loved Sailor Moon so I watched it because I wanted something else to chat with him about and it also kicked off the Toonami block so yeah lets watch it while waiting for Dragon Ball or Gundam. And, while it was the latter seasons of Sailor Moon***** that got a bit more "fan servicey" yes I was not immune to the girls fighting monsters in mini skirts. What I love about Sailor Moon, especially if I've gotten older, is how both ridicously goofy it is and yet also heart breaking epic it can be. One adventure they are fighting a monster made out of a living vacuum cleaner and the next Sailor Moon is slamming her fist on the ground willing existence itself to help her defeat Pharaoh 90. To then close, my aforementioned friend later came out as gay and told me how much Sailor Moon helped him with that. This was something lost on me at a younger age (Were you watching the same show, my man? Because i remember telling you that while I new it was more popular to say Sailor Mars was hotter I loved Serena all the way. Im basic! SORRY!") but seeing just how many others say the same (Something I didn't realize until the advent of Twitter and talking to people outside my tiny high school and college) makes me appreciate the show that much more.
By this time it was around 2005-2006 and I lived in a town with a comic shop I could walk to so I started to regulars dabble in books. I am bit sheepish to admit it but the first books I bought regularly were the Ultimate series Marvel books. Something made even quirkier because by that time some of them were already a few years old.
The Ultimate Marvel series was a seperate Marvel continutiy that much more closely followed the then nascent Marvel movies. So, Peter Parker got his powers from a genetically engineered Spider, Nick Fury looked exactly like Sam Jackson and Wolverine didn't wear yellow. The idea made sense with the movies making so much bank but the Ultimate universe felt very down and took itself way too serious. It also gave us this awful exchange
Ultimate universe did give us Miles Morales which then lead to the best movie ever so there is that. And while there never was a solo Ultimate Daredevil, at the time some real solid writers were working on that book...
Stay Tuned For Part 2!
*I don't know any of the readers. I don't pay for the fancy Blogger tools that let you view by IP. And these were hot back in 2006-2007 when I first began blogging. I am about 15 years behind on the times
**And typos.
***And by strong I mean having an attachment or commitment to reading this book frequently. Or watching this show. I was a kid when the original Death of Superman hit and while it was quite the zeitgeist moment, I didn't really like Superman books or the character so largely avoided it. Albeit, went a whole day with my sister and her boyfriend, Antonio, driving to shops to find a copy, going as far south as the second biggest city on the island, Ponce, which was maybe an hour from home. I had nothing better to do and he for sure wanted that book. Likewise those old Fleischer Superman shorts are awesome but, again, not my jam. Finally, to admit some further 90s kid crimes, I never watched the XMen animated series (I don't dig Xmen much albeit I respect their influence on comics and culture. They are like the Beatles of comics) or the Batman Animated Series. Oddly enough I did watch the Superman Animated Series but that was because the creators way objectified Supergirl (She has a crop top and mini skirt! I think her legs are longer than her torso!) and I was but a tween child.
****Barring the blood sugar or cholesterol killing me, it is very likely that in my lifetime I could see 100 year celebration of Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, Spiderman, etc.
*****And before anyone tries to reverse gatekeep me. Yes, I mostly watched the bad DIC dub of Sailor Moon and yes it is really hard for me to call them by their Japanese names even though I know that is the proper terminology. And, no, I have never seen Stars because that got dubbed by the time I became an old man. Or Crystal which really did not seem aesthetically pleasing to me. That said, I do like some of those newer slower FPS anime like the Pacific Rim: The Black series that just came out.
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