Pan-Generational Geek Nirvana

I have an embarrassing moment every week when I go to the comic book store to buy the latest issues. I’m half-way between 45 and 50 years old. When comics books first started, guys were lucky to live to my age; I don’t think very many of them were still buying comics.

And I don’t know how many are now. Because I live in a small town, the two independent comic stores nearby rarely order everything, and if your requirements aren’t already on file at the shop, you’re likely to miss out on getting your hands on the more obscure books if you’re not on-site when the store opens its doors. Consequently, there’s hardly ever anyone there, young or old, when I do my shopping.

Just one harried clerk, peevishly unpacking UPS boxes while I peer over his shoulder and shuffle through the careful stacks he’s trying to make. Who cares? I already have a friend.

And if there are people there, they’re usually youngsters playing some inexplicable fantasy-related card game together at long, thin tables, the kind the parish used to pull out from storage when they had BINGO in the rec center. I lamented to the counter help the other day that comics used to be a refuge from the stress of human, peer-to-peer interaction and that now the industry seemed to promote it. These card-playing kids seemed almost completely lacking any outward evidence of suffering the ill effects of social stigmatization.

What was the point? They might as well have been playing soccer.

I should put a dollar in a drawer ever time I have to type this: But I digress…

Anyhow, even though I look a little younger than I am, I'm still an old fart buying funny books. That’s how I feel and how these kids must be seeing me. I remember being a kid and seeing older guys in the comic stores and feeling sorry for them.

And I swear, I would have quit by now. I would have! If comics had remained the same as when I was growing up, I would have grown right out of them. I look back at most comics from my childhood now and they seem so quaint. Kind of the way episodes of “All In The Family” look precocious next to “Family Guy.”

Times have changed and comics have kept up with them. They have artists now, and drawing and printing tools now, light years more sophisticated than existed even a decade ago. And the characters have become increasingly three-dimensional, with storylines thought-out and cooked up by guys who must be smoking stuff better than Tommy Chong’s private stash. The two main companies, Marvel and DC, are currently locked in an ever-escalating cycle of “Event” mega-series that tie together every piece-of-shit book in the company to a single over-riding storyline, which inevitably leads into the next storyline. It’s like an unbroken string of multiple, rolling orgasms. The fun never ends.

And of course, most of it is driven by financial imperatives. For instance, as soon as the “Iron Man” movie hit big at the box office, the creative team (writer and artist) on his regular book got bumped up to the A-List. It’s been one of the best reads for months now, and it’s all leading up to the un-death of Captain America in a couple months and the reformation of the Holy Trinity of original Avengers, Thor, Captain America and Iron Man.

And that’s just the comic books. In movie theaters, plans are afoot for another “Iron Man” movie next summer, a Kenneth Branagh-helmed “Thor” film in 2011, a “Captain America: The Original Avenger” flick in 2012 (an election year – that could be really cool!) and then an “Avengers” film the summer after, featuring all the onscreen talent from the individual franchises.

Print may be dead, but as long as film thrives, it looks like the four-color versions will continue to exist if only to keep the characters in the public consciousness during the brief windows between the films’ theatrical and video premieres.

And if Chris Nolan makes another “Batman” film… I kind of hope he doesn’t. I can’t imagine topping “The Dark Knight.” I’d hate to see him soil the franchise by milking it past its expiration date. Marvel, on the other hand, has a plan, and if the films on-deck measure up to “Iron Man” and “Spider-Man” levels of quality and box office success, they’ve got a license to print money for the next five years. Money, and comic books!

But I digress.

As a result of the boom in the industry overall, the dream team-ups I fantasized about in my youth are the bread and butter of today’s four-color funny industry. The one pictured at the top of this post came out this week.

It features 1930s-40s pulp hero Doc Savage and Batman. Now, my dad grew up reading the original Doc Savage pulps, and when they were re-issued in paperback form in the 60s and 70s, he introduced me to them. The paperback covers always featured the buff ‘Man Of Bronze’ in a ripped dress shirt in front of some apocalyptic background, prompting derisive howls of alleged homoeroticism from The Missus to this day:

I just don’t see it.

I keep telling her, “No, if it was Doc’s sexy female cousin Pat Savage in peril and a ripped shirt on the cover, surrounded by a bunch of other shirtless guys, that would be sexy. All these covers say to me is ‘Doc’s a lot tougher than his shirts are,’ and isn’t that something you want in an action hero?”

Anyhow, the comic pictured at top – which could have been complete shit and I would have bought it anyhow – turned out to be great! It mixes and matches elements from Doc’s 30s/40s milieu, like the dirigibles in the sky and the auto-gyro on the cover, with more recent tropes like delivering exposition through the use of TV broadcasts. But by not dwelling on the melding of the disparate eras, they get away with it and the new world comes alive, thanks in no small part to the art of Phill Noto, who somehow marries the Art Deco glamour of Doc Savage’s New York with the film noir nihilism of Batman’s Gotham. It’s frankly a brilliant effort.

Now, Doc has been rendered in comic book form before:

...at least one time I can recall in the mid-70s to coincide with the release of a supremely lame movie version at the same time:

But regrettably, the comics were pretty standard-issue stuff at the time. No effort was expended to keep the flavor of the character from the original pulps intact and the whole sorry enterprise was gratefully short-lived and completely forgettable.

[A word of disclaimer: I’ve come across some of the aging 1960s Bantam reprints of the original pulps and the writing is laugh-out-loud bad. Conan should have William Shatner do dramatic readings of them on “The Tonight Show.” I don’t even know how to write a properly constructed sentence myself, but I can spot a howler when I see one. If you want a good laugh, go to powells.com and order yourself up a “Doc Savage” paperback or two.]

But if you want a crackling adventure yarn, well-written and beautifully illustrated (by Brian Azzarello and Phil Noto, respectively) featuring a young Batman still learning the ropes and The Man Of Bronze at the peak of his Man-Of-Broniziest, race down to your local comic book joint today. I haven’t enjoyed such a pleasant four-color surprise in quite a long time.

Longer than some of you young punks playing card games have been alive. Now get off my lawn before I call the police!!