The Comic that got me Hooked! Part: 2

The Comic that got me Hooked! Part: 2

That Summer I got a job selling candy door to door. It was easy and it was something I could earn a lot of cash doing (by a lot I mean $15 to $20 a day, that's a lot for a 13 year old!). When I would return to Standale I would take what would become my usual walk to the comic store and stock up on comics. I was collecting Silver Surfer with the intent of learning why my heroes were scattered over one of the covers dead. The next time I went to the comic shop I was determined to collect more of the comics leading up to the a fore mentioned comic and collect what I had missed after (the first time I saw this story arc was during the Winter).

After gathering up the comics I had known a little more of the story. The Antagonist was a classic villain to the hero Silver Surfer known as Thanos. He had acquired the Infinity Gems through some means and united them into gauntlet that gave him the power of a God. Some of you reading this will know Thanos and understand that I'm paraphrasing the story and it's nuances a lot, but in the effort to invite curiosity and interest of those who do not.

Thanos has issues. First, He's trying to impress Death which is depicted as a woman and not to bad looking at times, second rather then just be happy with all this awesome power and doing something awesome with it he decides to mess with some of his favorite rivals and enemies ( I guess when you can do anything you get bored and fall back on bad habits). 


Silver Surfer learns that Thanos has attained these ultimate powers and races off to tell his Super-Hero buddies starting with Dr. Strange. I'm jumping ahead of my story to give you a little bit of insight, because even though I'm reading Silver Surfer I'm only getting about 20% of this story.  

I mentioned I was collecting Silver Surfer comics past and present to help fill in the events. As I was putting the comics onto the counter to checkout I see on the wall behind the cash register a comic of Thanos holding the gauntlet with the six gems embedded into and above him the title standing out in bold golden letters The Infinity Gauntlet! I asked the attendant for the comic and added it to my stack. This comic gave full insight to Thanos, where he received his powers and to what ends he were to use them, also encapsulating each tale of the heroes that would be pulled into the battle that would soon ensue and eventually lead to their death! 


Wow! here it was! It was like the Holy Grail, I knew already what was to be the fate of these heroes they gathered and prepared to fight a battle against a villain they knew was unstoppable! This was my introduction to Dr. Strange, Adam Warlock, and the tension between Wolverine and the Hulk (Why didn't they like each other?) All the heroes of importance were present Spiderman, Captain America, Ironman and even some villains like DR. DOOM! I remember thinking What! DR. DOOM! Aw, this was gonna be so awesome Dr. Doom is gonna whoop some purple people ass! (Read the comic for this last part, I'm not gonna ruin it).

From that point on I continued to collected the rest of the Infinity Gauntlet, which was drawn by George Perez and Ron Lim, for it's entirety. I also continued to collect Silver Surfer well past the conclusion of Infinity Gauntlet.

Silver Surfer was one of my favorite characters of that time. I learned somethings though as time went on that I will share about comic book writing and simply comic collecting in general in my next blogs. Thanks, again for reading and I look forward to your comments.

CoolCatM
  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How We Perceive Film, TV, Comics, Video Games, Etc.

How We Perceive Film, TV, Comics, Video Games, Etc. Everyone has developed different expectations when it comes to comic book based movies. Some are interested in a 'True-to-the-comic' depiction of the characters or in some cases the plot (if it is derived from a particular arc). Others like to alter the characters or plot to make it fit into a general familiarity of the human condition more or less stripping them of the nuances found in the comics over the years, but sometimes necessary to condense the character down in order for it to fit into a film lasting only a couple of hours. Some care more about the film and how it is presented and how it fits into the classic understanding of film. Finally, there is another group more interested in taking the content and turning it into a film that challenges the boundaries and the average understanding of films, sometimes this doesn't sit well with general audiences until it develops a regular audience, examples; Tim Burton,...
Read more

Chicago Comic Con

Image
Chicago Comic Con So, I tried to make a post on Friday before I left for Chicago Comic Con, but the internet went down. It's probably better because I was only going to later post what happened later. Everything started out alright until we got to Chicago. THE TRAFFIC WAS TERRIBLE! We left early in the hopes of get to the center early and we sat in traffic for an hour and maybe moved 5 miles at best! Moral of the Story: Leave Early! Know your route and if you can if there is any construction. Now that we are past that. once We go there we saw the usually suspects of Awesome Cos-players!  We made our way around the convention center when I noticed some images by Frank Frazetta that were printed to about 24 X 36in poster sized pictures. After speaking to one of the guys for a bit he mentioned that Robert Rodriguez a friend and fan of Frank Frazetta photographed the paintings in order to help raise the funds for a gallery dedicated to Frank Frazetta that would display his worl...
Read more

The Wolverine

Image
The Wolverine It's a difficult task to condense over thirty years of a characters history and experiences down to a two hour film. Some of the best moments of the character gets glazed over, connections between character and reader also lost in translation. Arguably Wolverines best moments are in the comics and not in the films, but an attempt has been made to connect the audience to the character that is Wolverine. A character that is renown for his savagery in battle and his haphazard disregard for rules, authority, or the chain of command. He's the best at what he does and he does it the best when left alone. The comics deal with his issues and like most comics circulate around the same character defects over and over. For a reader like me that wants to see his characters develop, get past there defects and develop to their potential it becomes difficult to see this recycling in comics, but it happens. The movies are some what forced to it differently. If a character d...
Read more