Geekerati

Around the year 2000 something happened that I never expected to see. Super heroes became cool. Thanks in large part to the “X-Men” film, and cemented two years later, with the release of “Spider-Man,” super heroes attained rock star status in American pop culture.

Oh sure, now they do.

I am 38 years old and have been reading comics since….well, since I could read. In fact, comics, God bless them, taught me how to read. Let’s not take anything away from my parents and teachers, who surely got the ball rolling, but comics made me love reading, and thanks to them, I read and spoke at much greater levels than my peers did in kindergarten and first grade.

The first memory I have of comics is of being 4-5 years old and going with my Dad to the local stationery store every Saturday morning with a .50 allowance burning a hole in my pocket. Back then, that bought me two comics! I can’t remember what prompted me to start buying them exactly, but I probably correlated them with their Saturday morning cartoon counterparts.

I instantly fell in love with the heroic icons of Marvel Comics. While I later came to appreciate the DC pantheon my first allegiance was, and always will be, to Marvel characters like Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America.

I was entranced when The Incredible Hulk was realized as a live action TV series in 1977. I was the perfect age for the show. Of course I loved seeing Lou Ferrigno as the big green guy, taking out bad guys, but as time wore on I came to appreciate the subtle grace of star Bill Bixby, as tormented hero David Banner. It’s a portrayal that has stayed with me for years.

I will never forget the night of the premiere. I was so excited that I spent the afternoon in my basement, pretending I was the Hulk. I got a bit too excited, and smashed the tv antenna. My mother was not happy, and forbade me from watching the show. I was utterly devastated. Seeing this, she relented (as was her nature) and allowed me to start watching just in time for the very first "Hulk out."

Unfortunately, back in the late 70s, comics were far from the in thing. I attended a grammar school populated by the children of tough, blue collar families. Despite the fact the school drew its kids from quaint, suburban middle class neighborhoods, the kids (mainly the boys) were a hard-nosed, bullying lot.

My friends and I, all of whom could accurately be described as geeky to varying degrees, bore the brunt of their torment and insults for several years, before it ultimately died down around the 7th grade. Not all of us read comics but our pursuits ranged from those new fangled gadgets known as computers to video games to Dungeons and Dragons, etc. You get the picture.

Ironically, for several of these years, I played little league (quite well as a matter of fact). I was a savage line drive hitter, and guarding the hot corner, could scoop up any ball hit my way (although I couldn’t throw to first worth a lick). However, because I played baseball in a different town than where I went to school none of the little apes knew I was something of a jock. They associated me with the comics and nothing else.

Thankfully, the torment was more verbal than it ever was physical. Still, it made grammar school a pretty horrendous experience for me, but for that strong group of friends who kept me going.

Things got a bit better in high school, but reading comics was hardly a badge of honor. By this time I had given up on playing sports after receiving an injury that left me fearful every time I came to bat, and had a bad experience with a coach who treated me unfairly.

In high school, it was refreshing to meet at least one other person outside my small circle of grammar school comic-reading friends who shared the obsession, and I’m pleased to say we’ve been friends for the last 25 years. I also did not get the sense he and his friends had been ostracized the way my friends and I had for reading comics. I guess every school had different dynamics.

As I said, I did my best to hide my geekier tendencies in high school. One friend used to pick up my weekly books and would slip them to me on the sly before classes began as if we were consummating a deal for illicit substances. To be fair, our school was extremely strict so we probably would have gotten in trouble. I would read them in study hall, hoping no one notice what was underneath my textbook.

By the time college rolled around the distinctions between jock, geek, etc. were not nearly as clear cut, and the social derision one felt for indulging in these hobbies was pretty nonexistent, unless you were a total and utter social misfit. It was refreshing to meet a group of people who really embraced the “geek chic.”

Concurrently, I and my grammar school buddies had started our dating lives, and were stunned to find that the girls we met didn’t even care we were geeks. Not to speak for them, but I think they found us unique and somewhat amusing, compared to what they were used to.

I never stopped reading comics. As the years progressed I read more and more, and my tastes expanded beyond the original staples. I also spent buckets of money on them that I would never recoup sadly. Throughout all this time heroes remained in the purview of both children and hard-nosed collectors like myself, who stuck with these characters after childhood.

Despite blockbusters movies once a decade, like the original “Superman,” in 1978 with Christopher Reeve, and the original 1989 “Batman” starring Michael Keaton, and their attendant sequels, super heroes couldn’t crack the mainstream.

That is, until the year 2000. Fox gambled on a very high-profile “X-Men” film, with an A-list director, top flight talent and state of the art special effects. It hit big, and even though it did not crack “Batman’s” stratospheric numbers, it did well enough to spawn an entire generation of super hero films. By this time, the technology of special effects had caught up with the abilities of these fantastic characters, and they could be fully realized on screen.

I was not really an X-Men fan growing up, and while I loved the film, I did not feel the same joy others felt at seeing these characters realized in a live-action setting. For me, that occurred two years later with the release of “Spider-Man.” I’ll admit it – the first time I saw Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker using his new found powers I felt a surge of joy that nearly brought me to tears. I had waited for that moment for 25 years and it was executed brilliantly with total reverence to the source material.

For the next eight years, to varying degrees, a host of these films have brought me back to those childhood days. I felt a similar surge this year when “The Incredible Hulk” was released, and the Green Goliath uttered that time-honored phrase he’s so well known for. You know what it is, don't make me repeat it.

As super heroes have become fodder for Hollywood blockbusters and accepted by the mainstream (and I’m sure by all the children of those who bullied me in grammar school) I find myself sneering “I told you so,” to anyone who will listen.

I don’t want to sound bitter about my childhood. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. A good portion of the people who went through it with me are still around (and still reading comics!) I’ve sold a good portion of my collection, which was sad, but I just don’t have the room anymore. Plus, I still have every comic I ever owned, and many thousands more, stored digitally. I also kept hundreds of physical copies – mainly the childhood favorites. I could never part with those.

Comics have been a wonderful constant in my life. Thanks to them I learned to read well. I had a better understanding of the “big words” at a much earlier age. They provided a great escape to a world populated by heroes dedicated to the common good. That these characters now enjoy mainstream appeal is sort of the icing on the cake. All the films are rife with sly in-jokes that only those “in the know,” like me, would understand, and that makes the experience that much more satisfying.

I can’t imagine a time when I’ll never read comics, as frustrated as I get with today’s story lines and the trend toward darker tales that supposedly mirror the world we live in now. They are a tangible connection to my childhood and a thread that runs throughout my life that I embrace wholeheartedly. If that makes me a geek then so be it.