I still enjoy my comics, but they’ll never have the limitless potential and time shrouded mystery that they once did

I hear this. I have vivid, vivid memories of rushing home from the store with the first Age of Apocalypse issue (I was probably 14 or 15 at the time) and just devouring it, and loving every minute of it. Then I had to go to my neighbors house to babysit, and when I got back, I read it again. And loved it just as much.

I still read comics, and much better comics (and some worse ones…) but I certainly don’t read with them with the same fervor and excitement as I did back in the day.

In the same way Chad has nostalgia for his willingness to try anything back in the day, I have nostalgia for the way I just LOVED everything, and had no idea that it probably wasn’t very good and I shouldn’t enjoy it that much. When I re-read stuff from back then, even bad stuff, I can still enjoy it for recalling that wonder and ignorant enjoyment it triggered back in the day.

Great job, Chad…I love a good comic book nostalgia trip.

@Greg: pretty much. When I started to branch out from the X-Men comics there was a whole variety of comics and while not all of the ones I got were good (and the good ones might not seem as good anymore), the price was right to take some chances. Now I pretty much only get stuff after they’ve been in trades for a while and read reviews since I can’t really afford to just try out a series.

@LouReedRichards: True enough. I own the whole Cap Amercia sries from Heroes Reborn and while it wasn’t good (and insanly decompressed) it had such energy to it that just elevated the work at the time. There was a lot of expirimenting with ideas at the time that even an aweful book (and there were a good amount but not as much as people exagorate) had a neat idea here and there.

For example, Bloodlines here was rough but damn if Exodus wasn’t cool or the idea of dealing with Magneto and his human (flat-scan) grandaughter (I may have to crack open these issues sometime soon since last I read them was like 1997 or so).

This. This to the power of ten. Comics used to be this whole world to me. I once got in a crazy screaming fight with my father because he wouldn’t let me (at 16) drive myself to the comics shop in a massive snow storm to get my comics (some issue I was particularly excited about was coming out – probably some lame X-book). I honestly felt wholly crushed that he had taken away (or at least delayed) my dreams. Now, I certainly these days I don’t want to be so crazy that I act that way towards anyone, least of all my father, but my god, the passion I felt for comics. That was something that I really do wish I could get back.

I know it can be somewhat depressing to go back and look at your collection and think “man, I read that?”.
But, like you said, it certainly is necessary in developing critical faculties.

You also nailed what it feels to be young and obsessed with comics. Each trip to the comics shop or grocery store was exciting. Who knew what you’d find?
Sadly, I hardly ever make it to the comics shops now, and mostly gripe to myself about how expensive everything is. I still enjoy my comics, but they’ll never have the limitless potential and time shrouded mystery that they once did.

Duursema’s art here isn’t good. But, I think it was last minute, help Steve Epting finish the book on time work, so it’s easy to forgive.

“fifth color”, as said, is an additional pre-mixed color. Neon colors, for example, like on the “Bloodlines” annuals, since the “regular” colors can’t be mixed together to make neons.

This series (Nostalgia November, not the Avengers) makes me think about all the comics in my collection that I read once and will never read again for any reason, and all the comics that I loved as a child and still do today that I wish I had more free time so I could enjoy them more often.

Then the Avengers have been “Bendis”-ized since then.

You make a good point, about how as we get older, we allow our biases and preconceptions dictate and reading and viewing habits. When I was in my twenties, I lived in Italy and my local cinema showed films in English on a Monday night. Being starved of English, I always went without fail to this show. I never knew the genre of the film they were showing, who directed it, who was starring in it or whether it had been a critical or financial success (this was before the internet), and consequently, I saw a fair few stinkers. But I also saw some quite brilliant films, which I would never have dreamed of going to see normally.

So Chad, thanks again. I think I’m going to go to my local comic shop this afternoon and try to pick something up at random. You never know, I might get a pleasant surprise.

On the bright side, they had certain voices down cold. Quicksilver, War Machine and Cortez were home runs. And this did set up Exodus as a bada$$ and set up Fatal Attractions type repercussions well

*(see Maximum Carnage, Final Crisis, Invasion, Infinity Crusade et al for interesting crossover ideas just just didn’t mesh well)

“The use of another color in addtion to the four process colors (CMYK). The fifth color is a non-process or premixed ink color used to enchance an area of the page. It can be used to print a color that would be hard to achieve with the four process colors.”

Yeah, it allowed them to use more and better colors.

In 1993, DC used five colors on their Superman titles, raising the books a quarter each to offset the increase in coloring quality (and the paper to go along witht he coloring).

“The use of another color in addtion to the four process colors (CMYK). The fifth color is a non-process or premixed ink color used to enchance an area of the page. It can be used to print a color that would be hard to achieve with the four process colors.”