I'll admit it: I'm a comics geek. I loved them as a child: the colors, stories, and characters captured my young imagination. I loved them up until about a year ago: the writing styles of a few of the authors, the simple expressions in anime and manga, and quite a few classic story arcs from before I could read.
Don't get me wrong: I still enjoy the characters a lot. I identify with the moody Batman of Frank Miller and Jeph Loeb, the angst-ridden yet wise-cracking Spiderman of J. Michael Starczynski, and the portrait of inscrutability that is Shoji Gatoh's Sousuke Sagara. Among other things, I proudly own the entire TV series of the Flash (with matching graffiti-style t-shirt!), both Iron Man movies (with matching vintage-style t-shirt!), the first two X-Men movies (the third one isn't worth owning), and the first two Spiderman movies (same justification as the X-Men movies). I'm seriously considering purchasing The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, as they are great adaptations of the mythos; I already own the 1966 Batman (Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb!), just for laughs.
And yet, for all the art and good story arcs, the recent turns of events in both major universes (DC and Marvel) pretty much shocked me off comic books for a while (if not for good). DC, for those of you who aren't as into comics, is the one with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman; Marvel's got Spiderman, the Hulk, and Captain America. In order to boost sales, both "universes" created major story arcs across multiple titles: nothing against business, but I'm not going to catch EVERY title in order to get the entire story. And the problem is, nowadays, you HAVE to read them all in order to catch the entire plot. Wikipedia is also a good source for such things; however, you miss all the pretty pictures that way. =(
After the entire "bring back the dead" arc in DC-land, as well as the political upheaval in the Marvel-verse, I decided that the good storytellers have gone away for a bit, and so should I. It's not just in the comics that this happened: look at the vast wasteland that TV has become. Heroes is a prime example of this: it started out BRILLIANTLY! Absolutely brilliant, in terms of casting, plot line, characters - everything had the makings of greatness on it. And then, the second season tanked. As did the third. And the fourth.
I only bring up superheroes today because ABC is in talks with Marvel to bring The Incredible Hulk back to television; DC already announced plans to create a Wonder Woman television series. While I'm excited to see comics taking on the small screen again (Smallville was a success, why not replicate it?), I'm also horrified at the prospect of the stories being horrible. With the rise of "unscripted" television - and people named "Snookie" - the networks are making less and less quality programming, and instead grinding out filler. It's a sad commentary on culture when we make celebrities of people whose behaviors we despise.
Next up: considering the Doctor.
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