At the end of last October, DC Comics launched, with "Justice League #1," a complete reboot of its comic book lines. All of them. What a nut job idea, right? How do you call a mulligan on Superman and Batman, given their rich histories and character mythologies, which are deeply embedded in American popular culture, not to mention my brain.
And yet there was something about the DC reboot that appealed to me as a 38-year-old man. I loved comic books as a kid...the DC line in particular. It was always far more cool to be a Marvel fan, and though I enjoy many of those characters, too, DC was always my thing. I was a Green Lantern guy from an early age. Everyone loves Batman. He was cliche. And Superman? Too many superpowers. Green Lantern appealed to me not just because green is my favorite color but because I was attracted to a hero whose power was generated from what he could dream up in his head. That's the superpower I'd want.
In my office, for years, has sat one longbox of neatly-kept comic books, most of them issues of Green Lantern. Though I'd followed the hero's line for years, my most complete collection was of the Kyle Rainer line of GL titles, which ran during my college years and just after college when I was still spending money on frivolous things. Kyle was an artist. I related to that. And I thought he was cool.
But I grew up, and the comic book collection, outside of periodic flights of whimsy which ended in annual eBay binges, did not grow much outside of that one box. I got married. Had two kids. Tried to demonstrate my maturity by leaving comic books behind. Never stopped reading, but shifted into journalistic writing as per my degree, and serious literature.
The new 52 was an invitation to come back, to let the little kid in me come out again. And maybe, hopefully, to give me something I can share with my own son.
I probably have a young man named Curtis Stelter to thank for a lot of this. We were paired up in a local theatre production of "The Producers" a few years ago. As the two leads, we were thrust into situations where we were spending loads of time together and were getting to know each other. How strange to find out that Curtis was not only a college-aged comic bookie (just as I had been), but that his favorite hero was Green Lantern! We bonded immediately. I saw myself in Curtis. He was my new little brother. I found myself heading home after rehearsals to dig the old issues out of Green Lantern to remind myself of the whole back story so that I could survive conversations with him. I started going on Amazon and buying trade paperback collections of Green Lantern books two at a time, making my way through everything I'd missed since I stopped reading GL in a summer. I was in love with all of it again.
To maintain my adult-ness, I relegated my comic book purchases to trade paperbacks. I didn't want to step foot back into the comic book store where I'd been years before. I knew it to be a financial vortex that could slowly rob you of $20 a week. And since I wasn't a serious collector collecting for the value of the books, there was no value in me making those weekly trips.
But then the reboot came. And I decided that I was going to go to the comic book store each week for that first month and just pick up issue #1 of anything in the new DC line that looked appealing to me. All of the Green Lantern-related titles, of course, but also anything else that grabbed my attention.
In those first four trips to Graham Cracker Comics in Naperville, I picked up 24 #1 issues. I went back the next month and picked up 24 #2s. The guys working at the store offered to make a pull list for me so that the books would be waiting for me. I declined, thinking I wasn't going to keep doing this. Issues #3, then #4. I made the decision to follow all 24 books for their first five issues and then I would decide to whittle them down to only the titles that I liked the most. What I would do after that, I had no idea. Would I keep going to the comic book store every week, as I had in my teens and early 20s, to collect the select group of titles I was enjoying? Would I keep an eye out for the trades of the books I'd been enjoying? I didn't know then.
But life got in the way, and I was unable to keep up with weekly comic reading. And before long, I had to extend my commitment to 10 issues of each title. After 10 issues, I figured, I could really tell if I liked a title or not.
It's June of 2012 now, and DC is halfway finished unrolling their 10th issues for each title. Around issue #7, they overhauled a number of titles with new creative teams, which confused me. I had been collecting some of these titles...did this mean they were bad and the company was trying to save them? I guess I had to read to find out. Around that time, DC cancelled a few of the underperforming titles. As it turned out, my selective tastes had kept me from even starting with any of those titles, so I had nothing to be disappointed about, short of the fact that there are three or four titles I chose not to start reading that everyone in the comic shop was raving about (such as All-Star Western, Batwoman and Swamp Thing). To make things more interesting, DC then released a half dozen new titles, and I've added a few of those to my pile. All told, I believe I've added four new titles to the 24 I'd started with.
The release of the tenth issues coincides with summer vacation, so this is the perfect time for me to carefully read each title I've been collecting in a brand new longbox (which, by the way, I've completely filled). And since I couldn't think of another place to keep track of my thoughts, I'll be posting them here, on my blog. I'll review each title I've been collecting as I finish reading issue #10; they won't be in any specific sort of order.
Though I still haven't decided what I'm planning to do with this renewed interest in reading comics, I understand that I'm spending a good $80 a month on this, which is money I can't really afford to spend. So I'm hoping this activity will at least weed some of the titles out. After that, I need to think about the cost and my schedule and decide what I want to do next. But if nothing else, this has been a true joy to go back to these characters who are starting all over again, just as I've been.
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