Comic Book Dreams

it's a bird, it's a plane, It's Superman

Comic Book Dreams (from the journals of a Mad Poet)

 

     I’ve always had a special love affair with comic books. The first thing I remember reading was a beat up old Superman comic I commandeered out of my brother’s room. The word captions were simple enough for a nine year old to understand and the drawings of super heroes and villains fueled my imagination to its limits. I was hooked. I became a comic book junkie.

 

     Reading about the adventures of the Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, Superman, Batman and the rest of the D.C. Pantheon became a glorious obsession. I helped sabotage Lex Luthor’s plans, did battle with the Joker and the Riddler, outsmarted Brainiac, roamed the galaxy in a bubble and danced with half naked mermaids while Aquaman played the flute. A dime in those days could buy a lot of dreams.

 

     In my early teens a new pantheon of Anti-Hero’s, Villains and Super Freaks captured my attention. The Marvel Invasion swept the D.C. Nation. The tales of the Silver Surfer, The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, The Fantastic Four, Spider-man and the rest of angst- ridden group of heroes and monsters, introduced me to the darker aspects of the fantastic. The lines between Hero and Villain were blurred, and rather than fight on the side of Truth, Justice and the American Way: I surfed alongside the Silver Surfer plotting Man’s destruction, crawled in the sewers of Manhattan with the Man Thing eating rats and wrestling alligators, and danced with armor-plated Valkyries while Loki played the fiddle. It now took a quarter to fill my head with those dark dreams and nightmares that a young mind craved but it was well worth that extra fifteen cents.

 

     Looking back on those days leaves me with a smile and an ache for those bygone times when the stories and illustrations woven into those comics ruled my dreams. If not for them, I doubt that my love for mythology, myth, fairy-tales and comparative religions would be as prevalent.

 

     I also credit my great love and admiration of classical and modern art to those comic illustrations that helped fuel my imagination as a young boy and man-ling.  

 

     My movie and TV tastes were formed by such shows as the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Star Trek and Dark Shadows which I was hooked on in my teens. Things that bump in the night, alien invasions, and galaxies that needed to be explored were introduced in my newly formed memes.  I probably would have never watched these or enjoyed them as much if I wasn’t already a comic book aficionado.

 

     I also would have never read the book the Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien that shaped my love for religious myth; if not for my love of adventure comic books. One of my more vivid memories of my faded army days was me standing in the gun turret of a tank, reading the Hobbit. I never would have read it if I didn’t see it advertized on the back cover of the Green Lantern. Yes: I still read comic books till I was well into my twenties.

 

     From the Hobbit I read the Lord of the Rings and from that The Silmarillion.  After that I devoured all writings that delved into fantasy, science fiction, religion, magic, supernatural anomalies and things of the fantastic.

 

     I’m no longer that nine year old boy or that teen who wanted to conquer the world but a man in his early sixties. Although “Graphic Novels” have taken the place of “Adventure Comic Books” in length as well as in price, they’re still all comic books to me.

 

     I still have some old comics which I lovingly take care of; A Pure Labor of love.  Each time I read them, I’m transported back in that nine year olds’ mind. The Cat Woman gives me a passionate kiss on the lips…