Let's Get Personal: My Superhero Origins...And The Sandman
Every once in a while, I like to wax nostalgia...and one of the things I like to write about is how I first became a fan of comic books.
I was first introduced to comic books via my older brother's eclectic selections. Deathlock (the terminator rip-off), Darkhawk (the teenage mystically powered dark superhero), West Coast Avengers (oy vey), X-Men 2099...the early 90's was a wasteland of expendable storylines and characters. I read all of these, however, including a lot of the now non-existent Valiant comic book company. My household was never a DC household...we got our version of Superman and Batman from the movies and TV shows, thank you very much. The only glimmer of hope in the mediocrity that was my brother's collection (which really shouldn't be called a collection; he would read them and toss them onto the floor or they'd end up in the darkest recesses of our garage) was Ghost Rider. Not the absurd literate ghost that helped out a politically correct racially diverse cast of idiots on PBS, but the flaming-skull bad ass combination of Johnny Blaze and the demon Zarathos, doomed to serve Mephisto with an awesome black motorcycle. Something about the character design and the mythos behind the stories attracted me to the comic. However, I stopped reading when my brother lost interest...which was after 2 issues.
Another one of my faves that my brother collected was the Silver Surfer. The former herald of Galactus, I was instantly drawn to the sci-fi elements of this hero. He surfed across galaxies!! He was made out of shiny skin! He was from the planet Zenn-la!! Actually, the tragedy is what really inspired me; in order to save his planet and the woman that he loved, Norin Radd offered his service to Galactus, devourer of worlds. Years passed, and the first issue I ever read was one in which the silver surfer returned to his home planet and reunited with his love. However, he soon found that everything was an illusion and he found himself swimming in a vast sea of blood, an image that still stays in my mind to this day. Zenn-la, along with his love, had been destroyed moments after the Norin Radd became the silver surfer and Galactus had simply maintained the illusion that it still existed so that the surfer would not do anything against his new master.
Then a dry spell. My brother grew out of his comic book phase, and my lame attempts to buy comics as an 8 yr old ended with me having less cash and a whole lot of Groo comics (anybody remember him?)
Read on to find out what brought me back...
July 1996. I walked into my local Quik Stop to buy some candy with the bit of money I had and I noticed the comic book rack. Lame. Lame. Lame. They were all boring. Then I saw a weird cover...It had candy cane red and white stripes, like a circus tent and a slew of characters I had never seen. Stan Lee was drawn on the cover with a quote that said something like "Who are these mutants? And who is this out to get them? Excelsior!"
I decided to buy it to give it a try. Generation X #17. The book was amazing. The art had a very distinct look to it (courtesy of my favorite comic-book artist, Chris Bachalo) and the writing wasn't your typical superhero fare. Granted the teenagers were associated with the X-Men (Jubilee was even on the team), but the characters spoke like real people. This particular story had Skin (whose mutation allowed his skin to stretch and gave him a gray skin tone) and Chamber (whose lower face and chest were blown to bits when the energy he had contained in his body unleashed itself) hitchhiking across America, trying to find their other teammates (who were hiding from the mega-menace that was Onslaught) while dodging a creepy bounty hunter.
It was awesome. Needless to say, this sparked my appreciation of comic books. I started collecting all things X-Men and I basically stuck to Marvel superheroes...DC stunk.
Anyhoo, why do I write all this? Because at the time that my brother was reading all those monkey-turd fests, a really cool comic-book series was being written. Neil Gaiman's Sandman series started in 1988 and continued on until 1996. His stories crossed a million boundaries and then some, and to be honest, I don't think I would have been ready to read his stories at the time.
It is only after years of collecting comics, and having read and loved Neil Gaiman's novels (Neverwhere, Good Omens, American Gods, Smoke and Mirrors, and Coraline) and more recently reading his marvel mini-series 1602 (in which the marvel universe is re-imagined to have taken place in, obviously, 1602) that I decided to give the Sandman series a try.
I had seen the huge collection at comic book stores, and my wallet trembled at the prospect of collecting the whole 11-volume series so I stayed away, more for the economics than a fear of starting something new and unfamiliar.
Now that I work and have a little bit of money, I can appreciate this remarkable series...and holy crap, it is worth every cent.
Despite the fact the art keeps changing with almost every issue, Gaiman manages to interweave myth, religion, fable, politics, philosophy, and history into his stories. He treats the medium with utter respect and explores themes that a normal novel would only scratch.
If you ever have the time, even if you don't consider yourself a comic book fan, I urge you guys to pick up the first trade paperback, Preludes and Nocturnes and give the series a try.
Then you'll get to learn about the Endless, and the silly games they play.
jonostarsmore
Posted to Comics, Other, editorial on 19 February 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: darkhawk, DC, deathlock, Generation X, ghost rider, marvel, musings, neil gaiman, Sandman
Frater Mine by Sean McGrath and Juan Romera
Chris Bachalo is an artistic genius. My boyfriend hates his art style though...
I also liked 1602, though the "sequel" was utter crap. I guess that's what happens when you try to follow up Neil Gaiman. :-\
thankfully, i started reading the sandman while it was still running. the upshot of this is that i frequently own at least three versions of any given sandman story - individual issue, trade, hardcover, and now, of course, the absolute editions. i'm also lucky in that i was able to collect, with only a slight amount of hunting, all ten (because i don't believe that "endless nights" should be counted. it wasn't in the original run of the sandman, therefore it's a side project, just like the two death miniseries) first printing hardcovers, which are way prettier than the ugly-ass hc's and trades they've released since and also tend to fetch a pretty thaler when slapped up on ebay.
not that i'd ever sell them - it's just nice to know that they're valuable.
my favourite individual issue is number 74, my favourite story goes back and forth between "brief lives" and "a game of you."