Superheroes in Movies

Superheroes have been in movies for years now - and I'm not talking about the good old days of Christopher Reeves' Superman or Tim Burton's Batman - I mean the X-Men, Iron Man, Green Lantern, et. al. And the truth is: I don't care. I honestly could not care less.

For a while, I was upset that my beloved characters had gone mainstream. After that, I lamented the fact that many of their personalities and backstories had been Hollywoodized - again, made more palatable for the mainstream viewing public and easier to digest in a short amount of time. Then I was simply upset that I had to share webspace and conversational breath with self-styled "geeks" who had not only never read the source material but had no love for the medium of comic books.

Now I just don't care. Really.

I suppose I care enough to make this blog post but that's really the extent of it. A new Superman movie is about to be released, or already has been - I don't know - and I don't care. Some are upset that the title role is being played by an Englishman and not an American but I'm not. Because I do not give a shit.

I've hit my saturation point - actually, my saturation point was reached a long time ago. I haven't even looked at the comics I've been paying for in probably a year or more! I already know that they won't be complete stories; they'll just be elaborate advertisements for other comic books. And I no longer care! I'm only paying for them each month out of a misguided sense of loyalty to the creators who would just as soon sell me, and these characters and themselves, down the river for the empty promise of a wooden nickel. After all, it's just a work-for-hire and they walk away owning absolutely nothing, so why would they pour their hearts and souls into something they get no piece of?

I get it, I really do. And I do not care!

It's sad, in a way, but not so much. Years ago, someone let me hear the new Iron Maiden album. I hadn't listened to Iron Maiden since highschool - new Iron Maiden, anyway, I still rocked-out to my old albums on occasion - and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it sounded like old Iron Maiden. The reason I had quit listening to them after Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is that they had changed their sound so that it was more palatable to a larger audience, so it was great to hear a return to form. But the most shocking thing I discovered was that I was pretty much over Iron Maiden. They're a great band who wrote many of my favorite tunes that I still listen to on occasion to this very day but they had their place in time in my life and that time had passed.

Image is putting out some fiercely original product alongside some continuing regular series that are fun to pick up and read once in a while - and they're fun because you can pick one up and read it and walk away or buy the next installment, if you choose to, without feeling like you only got part of a story - you can be satisfied by a single comic book from a continuing series even if you aren't familiar with the series or cast without feeling pressured into buying a half-dozen trade paperbacks or issues from other series.

Some of my heroes from childhood have returned to regular series at the Big Two and they are doing throwback stuff reminiscent of their heydays. At first, I was excited, but after delving into some of it I found that it was just more of the same - while fun and somewhat entertaining, they were mere "soundbites" in the midst of a larger commercial, directing me to another issue from another series which I needed to buy in order to get the end of the story started in the issue I was reading.

And I'm just over it. I'm numb; I'm no longer saddened or enraged, melancholy, nor nostalgic. And I'm no longer waiting on the Next Big Thing or Talent to lift me from these doldrums. I guess these things had their place and time in my life and that time has passed?

© C Harris Lynn, 2013