Welp. I had a good run. I had what I thought was going to be a pretty good backlog of books I'd read and that I could keep up. Then I went to my hometown's Main branch of the library and they have so many comic books, you guys. SO MANY.
Looking over my book list, I've basically got one book left to talk about before we get seriously into some Batman and the scattershot version of the newest X-Men story I've gleaned from reading them out of order and perusing Wikipedia. I'm pretty sure that Batman is sad about... something. And some of the good X-Mans are bad and some of the bad ones are good and one of them does magic but is still a mutant. Also there are two of some of them.
Alright, good talk so far.
Listen. If I have to write about comic books just so I can feel like I'm putting something into the world aside from general worries about my son going to Jr. High next year then I will. I'm not afraid to tell y'all about my crush on Rogue.
Do you guys remember Jr. High? I do. That's about when I decided that I didn't like being a nobody to everyone except for the ones who like to be scary to nobodies.
I tried to give him advice. About girls. He was pretty not on board with this. "It's not enough to be nice," I told him. "You need to offer something to the world. Also be nice though."
"Like a blog about X-Men?" his eyes seemed to say. "Bad jokes on Facebook?" his mouth seemed to say. "Occasionally wrong facts about birds?"
"Yes," I said. "Things like that. I guess."
Like, just be... interesting. Dumb teen boys (like I was) think that by not being jerks they deserve good stuff. Guess what? Not being a jerk is a good baseline, but it's not the only thing. And secretly hating people because they seem to know how to handle a decent social situation is kind of being a jerk.
"Why does she like that guy," teen me would say, fuming in my friend's basement while we played Goldeneye and got noticeably paler while "that guy" was getting good at skiing or winning another football game. "He's a jerk and I'm nice."
Big whoop, nice teen Matt. Work on being interesting, too.
I managed to go on some dates in high school. And found out too late that there were girls who even liked me. Like like me liked me. Not a lot. But some. You know why? I wrote funny stories for the local newspaper. I learned how to snowboard. I read a lot of books and would share quotes from them. I could get into movies for free at pretty much every theater in town.
I never got good at social situations. Not really. I still get intimidated by aggressive personalities. I can be very quiet in a new situation to the point where people think I'm very serious or stuck-up. I'm told that I'm terrible on the phone. I'm skinny and I have a big nose and I have very pretty eyes and now I'm losing my hair.
But there's enough to me that when people get to know me they like me more often than not. Least that's how it feels.
The storyline I'm reading in All New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men and X-Men vs. Avengers is partially about the young X-Men being pulled from the past into the present. Scott "Cyclops" Summers has gone kind of rogue, y'see. Beast thinks that if he shows him his past self, he'll see all of the idealism and boring good-guy appeal of the old Cyclops and see the error of his ways.
Young Cyclops annoys the old version and vice-versa. The world is simple in youth, and black and white sharply drawn. The war-weary older version, who has seen his wife die, has seen countless mutants killed and persecuted simply for being themselves, is tired of talk of "good" and "bad." He's interested in results. To his younger self he's just a sell-out. No better than his new pal Magneto.
One time I was wearing cowboy boots, and my sister said "Can you imagine what 15-year-old Matt would be saying about that?" And I could. He would be disgusted. But then he'd see my wife and say, "I can wear that."
