A Lifelong Love Affair with Spider-Man

The costume was more exciting than any of the others.  He was funny – equal parts heroic and hilarious.  His powers came from this awesome mix of accidental mutation and his own ingenuity.  He was the underdog, occasionally on the superhero/super villain battle scene but always struggling to make ends meet and balance his own life.  He stood up for the little guy, protecting his neighborhood and leaving the world/cosmos saving exploits (most of the time) to the other guys.  He experienced incredible loss…but let it teach him.  He held tight to a moral code that was nonnegotiable – with great power, comes great responsibility.  I’m not sure which of these first drew little four-year-old Michael to the amazing Spider-Man but I have loved him for over thirty years now.  This is perhaps my most personal post yet, the story of why Spider-Man has always stood above all other superheroes for me.

Profile of a Pull List

There were two powerful and seductive forces that pulled me back into the world of comic book collecting.  Those forces are named Jeff and Kalie.  As I discussed in my first post, I stopped collecting comic books around the time I turned sixteen, as comic money turned into gas money.  For seventeen years I was only peripherally aware of what was happening in the lives of my favorite comic characters.  But those seventeen years would fall away (with surprisingly little resistance) last fall.  And again, all the credit (and/or blame) for my return to this wonderfully addicting and captivating world can be laid at the feet of Jeff and Kalie.

Why Am I Blogging?

So why this blog? That’s a valid question. I’ve asked myself that too. I’m a teacher and an extroverted guy by nature so it’s not like I’m ever at a want for a good discussion. I do enjoy writing but I doubt that alone would have ever lead to the birth of this little endeavor. So I guess this is the intersection of several passions. You see, I’ve loved comic books and superheroes for as long as I can remember. I loved Spider-Man long before I could read the comics myself and some of my earliest and fondest childhood memories are of sitting on the couch, captivated by the amazing illustrations of Spider-Man’s latest

‘Web of Spider-Man’ #12 is the first comic I remember Mom reading to me

adventure, as Mom read me the comic we just picked up at the grocery store. As I grew up, I never lost the passion. I stopped collecting comics around sixteen (when a comic budget had to turn into gas money) but the characters stayed in my heart. I never stopped reading articles about superheroes, being aware of what was happening to the characters who filled so much of my youth. I’ve come to appreciate them in an academic sense too, deconstructing the stories and discovering the intelligent and varied layers to these modern myths. I watched them on my TV and, eventually, in movies that finally seemed to capture the excitement I remember feeling when I’d open a comic as a kid. Recently, this has lead me back to Books Galore, my local comic store. Hey, I’m an adult with a job now! I can budget money for gas and comic books. Yay!