Just Like The Ones I Used To Know

This past weekend, it seemed like anywhere I turned, every TV station and cable outlet had a superhero movie running. Spider Man. Hulk. Thor. Iron Man. Captain America. X-Men. Originals. Sequels. Everywhere. It was saturation programming, obviously in anticipation of the release this coming Friday of the highly anticipated "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, it should probably be pointed out that there are are plenty of folks who look to the first of May as a celebration of the Workers of the World, not a chance to sit inside on a lovely Spring day, watching a bunch of spandex-clad goofballs perform computer graphics-assisted feats of heroism and strength. I will be in the latter category, staring at the screen in wide-eyed amazement, as if any of what I was about to see was new. These movies have been playing in my head for decades.
I grew up reading comic books. Lots of them. Most of them from Marvel. Much in the way that I became a Coca-Cola drinker instead of Pepsi, I found myself drawn to the titles of Stan Lee's company more than those of their main competitor, DC. The DC line was too straight down the middle for me. They were the ones who were selling their characters to the American Broadcasting Company to form "Super Friends." These were cartoons in the most juvenile sense. It would be years before Frank Miller would come and resuscitate their goody-two-shoes characters. I wanted pathos. I wanted soul-searching. I wanted drama. Marvel gave me that. First in Captain America, the super soldier the Avengers found floating in the North Sea. A man out of time, a hero from another era, who is asked to find his place in the modern world. I followed Cap and his partner Falcon for years. It was a short hop from there to the teenaged slinger of webs, Spider Man. As long as I stayed away from the CBS TV show, which may have been produced in my back yard, I was fine. The action contained in the images that fairly exploded off the pages of those comic books kept my mind racing.
It wasn't until Sam Raimi worked is magic on everybody's favorite wall crawler that I believed that I would ever see a movie as lovely as a Kirby. Then came the flood, and all of a sudden I believed not only that a man could fly, but a Hulk could smash. I don't read comics much anymore, but I do go to the movies. Especially when they swing, fly, smash and blow up just like I remember.