20. hobby or obsession?
at the time of writing this, the superhero emoji has not yet been phased in. so hopefully instead of seeing a rando square in the post title, someday it'll be a superhero-y type image emoji instead. one can only hope.
so. what's my obsession? it's the marvel universe. yes, i'm a nerd. surprise, surprise!
i wasn't really into marvel as a kid, weirdly enough. i mean i'm pretty sure i knew who captain america and the hulk were, but i didn't read comics or watch shows or anything. i was a pretty big batman fan, though. i also liked larryboy and captain underpants. so basically all my childhood heroes were non-marvel. hahaha!
the one exception to that was wolverine. i think it's because i got a wolverine mega bloks set when i was still youngish. also i watched the x-men movies even though i was only like 6?? i think that and the x-men guide we got from costco (scary illustrations for my child eyes) kinda put me off being obsessed with anything beyond wolverine since it freaked me out so much. like watchmen!
and then 10 years ago, iron man hit theaters. i liked the movie, even though it gave me an irrational fear of being kidnapped by a criminal organization. i had a lot of irrational fears back then. i still have a lot of irrational fears!!
the seeds had been sown, but i was not yet a superfan. heck, i didn't even stay for the post-credits scene 'cause i didn't know about it!! i did start borrowing iron man comics from the library though. thankfully i figured out the difference between the mcu and the comics universe pretty quickly. and then a couple of years later the sequel came out. that time, my anticipation was considerably higher. i spent a lot of time watching preview clips on yahoo. yes, that's how long ago it was.
after the movie, i was smart enough to stay for the post-credits scene. i remember after watching it i was thinking "wait, thor is a marvel character?". goes to show how i still knew so little about comics.
so, what tied all these loose threads together and plunged me incontrovertibly into the marvel universe? it was actually three things that happened in 2012 - the avengers was released, i started playing avengers alliance, and the avengers vs. x-men event exploded across the marvel universe. just as the avengers assembled in three separate universes, so too was my love for marvel coming together. so how did each one increase my fascination with all things marvel?
1) the avengers - or avengers assemble, if you're a brit. i knew that marvel studios was setting up a shared universe, but seeing all the heroes come together for the first time still blew me the frick away. i've loved crossover events since i was a child - the collision of separate worlds is just so exciting. even though i didn't know it at the time, the establishment of the mcu would make it an integral part of my life (and the lives of many others!).
2) avengers alliance - rest in peace, greatest facebook game of all time. this game introduced me to so many heroes that i'd never heard of, including soon-to-be-revived icon black panther. there were so many new faces to take in that i had to peruse the marvel wiki multiple times each time i played the game to figure out who was who. i still browse the wiki multiple times per day. the pursuit of nerd knowledge is unending...
3) avengers vs. x-men - when i first heard of this i was like "holy crap, the avengers and the x-men are both owned by the same company??" of all the events to introduce me to the comics universe, i can't think of a more fitting event. seeing cyclops square off against captain america or the surprisingly close battle between iron man and magneto was like the fulfillment of my childhood dreams. after the event finished, i decided to keep up with as many of the new titles as i could. i started borrowing stacks of comics from the library and immersing myself in all the different stories. avx got me hooked on marvel comics real good. it's an obsession that carries on to this day. ':)
it's pretty shocking how far i've come since childhood, marvel-wise. each week, i read as many of the new releases i can. i keep up with all the abc, netflix, and hulu/freeform shows. i've seen every mcu movie to date (except for ant-man 2, 'cause i needed a break after infinity war. plus movie tickets are expensive...). i like to tell myself that i'm not too obsessed, though. i don't go to midnight premieres or conventions or anything like that. i don't hate on dc movies or other superhero films under the pretense that marvel is better. i don't really know what happened during the kree-skrull war. i wasn't alive when that issue came out...
but compared to other people, yes, i'd say i know way too much about marvel. is that bad? probably. maybe. nevertheless, it makes me happy to know that i can share my comics knowledge with others (and sometimes even discuss it with them!). and remembering that being an mcu fan since day one prevents me from feeling like a fake fan. :) and nowadays, even though the comics universe is pretty crossover-heavy and (in my opinion) tries too hard to emulate the mcu, each issue i read reminds me how thankful i am to be exposed to all the cool stories. i get to be part of a legacy that's been growing for almost 80 years. and that's pretty special to me.
excelsior!
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