Superman introduced me, Batman made me an addict.

What was that fascination that drew us all to comics as a child i know what it was for me do you?

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I know I learned to read by perusing through my father's comic book collections. So probably the first thing I read was a comic book when I was 3 years old.

What I want to know is where all these people in charge of the adultification of superhero comic books, particularly the icons, came from.

I mean, what part of the culture actually produced men who think these insipid "stories" and "events" are remotely as expertly crafted as they were in "primitive" times of the Silver Age and so on.

You hear Stan Lee talk (notably in 80-plus year old car salesman mode) and he is mind-boggled by how "good" the comics are now. What a load!

Didn't most of these current brains and talent at the Big Two go to college? Didn't they learn anything in all those English classes about story structure, symbolism, dialogue, character integrity?

Doesn't ANYone in "the Industry" care about original story-telling? Doesn't ANY of these sub-humans who slaver over the latest horsesh*t superhero fare care if they read anything actually good?

I think it comes down to "scale." Most of these people putting the comics together, and certainly the ones reading them, aren't "learned" in good story-telling enough to know what it looks like. They have nothing to compare it to, except WATCHMEN, and even proponents of WATCHMEN cannot fathom how the work is a hot-plate of anything but a superhero story.

So I go about my business as a burgeoning, belabored writer-type, another minnow in the muddy stream, and I'm fascinated by the characters in comics, at least the best ones, the ones that appeal directly to me. I read the comics news sites. I have the same look on my face, I imagine, that someone gets when they realize there's a human toe in their pasta.

I'm wondering what the f*ck is wrong with the people behind the scenes, and the people buying the books. Not because "my" characters are being smeared, but because no one seems to be able to identify a good story, or a story period, from a hackneyed script and horrible art.

I think it says a lot that the most notable superhero stories are all 20 years old and older. Even non-superhero stories, the best, the most well-known are reaching ten/fifteen years old.

Think about that: there hasn't been a watershed comic book in a decade or more. There hasn't been a movie that set a standard of excellence, created a new genre, since when? THE MATRIX? Again: ten f*cking years ago?

Think about TEN years, folks. Go back in time, at any time since, say, WW 2. Think about TEN years. Think about the movies, the books, the comics that emerged in any TEN year period. Classics, important works, integral experiences! In music, in literature, in television, in comics. People's lives could be changed by reading one book, watching one movie, reading one comic.

Nobody's life is being changed now. They're all waiting for More. It doesn't matter how piss-poor it is, as long as it's More. Nothing matters to tomatoes. They grow, they get heavy, they fall and rot. And that's not the kind of culture I thought we had, not when I was a kid. I wanted to be part of something cool and interesting and culturally impactful. Thing is, nobody gives a sh*t!

Didn't most of these current brains and talent at the Big Two go to college? Didn't they learn anything in all those English classes about story structure, symbolism, dialogue, character integrity?

They don't teach you any of that in college. The professors are too busy indoctrinating their students with crazy left wing ideas. *sarcasm.

For me too it was television, Superman and then Batman, that got me into the characters. And then somewhat later an older relative gave me his copy of BATMAN #181, the debut of Poison Ivy. I was hooked.

(But my first comic book was one I got as a very tiny tot in Greece, a GOOFY comic actually in Greek. Sort of added an extra layer of humor.)