I didn't know a part of my grand awakening was that my impetus for blogging would take a downturn. I'm not obsessed with certain ideas that I feel have to tackle with on a public forum. That and I've been busy with other work. But I still buy comics and damn it, what's stopping me from blabbing about them here?
At WonderCon I sat in on a conference of fans talking about their memories of the medium. Many fans talked about the reason why they follow comics is because they've been reading certain characters month in and month out. They stick with the stories when they're real bad because they know it's going to be worth it when the stories get good again.
I could not relate to this. I never followed series for any amount of time as a kid. I didn't have any subscriptions. It was rare that I would have more than three consecutive issues of any title. There's no nostalgic kick in following a series month in and month out. But now I have Ed Brubaker to thank for showing me what all the fuss is about.
Reading Captain America #36 this week honestly feels like the first time I've gotten that rush from reading a monthly comic. I've been following the story but I haven't read or thought about it in 30 days. As soon as I open up the book there's the in media res opening and I'm back into it. The book ends on a cliff hanger, as good serial fiction is known to do. This current "Death of a Dream" arc is in three arcs but reading it feels like reading one giant epic that hits every point a great Captain America song does, all with Steve Rogers being dead. Captain America can truly be an icon here without also having to be down-to-Earth. It's Bucky, Falcon, Tony Stark and Sharon Carter that have to grapple with both the man and the legend. That's the human drama in the book.
In my adult life reading comics has always been a game of "what's getting canceled next?" For some reason I latch on to ideas that are doomed from the start. My longboxes are full of series that last twenty, ten or even six issues. That combined with the fact that a lot of creators basically see long running books as series of mini-series I've basically been trained to expect stories in six issue chunks. With Captain America I finally feel like I'm reading this never-ending string of stories. It feels like a return to what I dig about '60s and '70s superhero comics without any retro feel. It's a return in spirit I suppose. Thanks again to The Brube.
