snap judgments

Okay.

I haven’t been here awhile, mostly because I have been suffering from what I abhor to describe as ‘comic hate apathy’.  I mean, DC announced Gail Simone would write Wonder Woman the same week that Marvel revealed the supremely retarded idea of ‘Civil War Chronicles’.  As I sat there, with my mouth open at such an audacious idea as to reprint books that JUST CAME OUT in floppy form when perfectly good trade paperbacks are just hitting the shelves now just so they could show you what the real order of the books should have been and explain continuity errors that they were responsible for, I was in so much shock and awe that I simply walked away from the computer and played Guitar Hero.   I felt like ‘Sexual Chocolate’ in Coming to America, just dropping the mike after the worst set on stage and just… walking away.

Now, for those of you not into the wrasslin’, there’s this guy named Shawn Michaels.  A champ, the ‘Showstopper’, he was a pretty popular dude who gave this speech in about ‘97, basically saying that wrestling for a living had taken a toll on his life and body and he had “lost his smile”, meaning that the thrill was gone and busting his butt just didn’t do it for him.

I am fully prepared to admit that I honestly lost my smile for comics for a bit.  I mean, I stil read them, I still got angry (What the hell is She-Hulk doing sleeping with Tony Stark?), but… just not enough to spew the right amount of vitriol on the screen.

And then I got a preview copy of the Sensational Spider-Man Annual.  And it was like the clouds parted and angels sang and the smile was back.  I will tell you now (and tomorrow at B@N’s the Fifth Color) that this issue pressed every single joy button I had for reading comics.  It was amazing.  Spectacular, even (ha ha).  It was the issue that I’d been waiting for, proof that I wasn’t out of my head for wanting Spider-Man to have a cookie, some reward for putting up with all this overblown plotting.  That no, kids shouldn’t be killed wholesale to prove a book is ‘really serious’.  That heroes are heroes even out of the mask and, at heart, that is good enough for them.

And it’s good enough for me.  I’m done with all this ‘hero vs. hero’ crap.  I’m done with death after death after death.  I’m done falling through plot holes and  negotiating with the stories to ignore inconsistency for just that one cool shot or line.  I’m done because at least Matt Fraction wrote one story that proves I’m not the only one who’s done with those things too.

Smile back in place, reviews are coming tonight.  And Hell’s coming with me! You hear?! HELL’S COMING WITH ME!