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I love comic books.  Back in high school, I worked at a comic book store mainly to get a discount to buy more of them.  I don't think I actually got a single check from that job, ever.  I just used every dollar I earned on more comics.  At one point, I was probably reading 6-7 different X-Men titles, all of the Superman titles, and at least a couple of Batman and Spiderman titles each month, along with several other individual titles.  That's a lot of comics.  When I left for college, the hobby died off due to lack of time, money, and a good place near downtown Milwaukee to buy comics.  Then, after college, it started up again.  Slowly, at first, when I found out that there were some new Transformers comics coming out.  Then there were other shows from my childhood getting the comic book treatment.  Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, Battlestar Galactica (the original).  I'd go to my favorite gaming store - Chimera Hobby in Fond du Lac - and pick up these comics.  When I did that, I'd always ask about what's going on in the main, flagship titles of Marvel and DC.  That got me into some great, yet very time-consuming, storylines and mini-series. 

First, there was DC's Identity Crisis; a brilliantly written storyline where a line was crossed: a superhero's wife was killed by an unknown assailant.  This event snowballed into a bigger event, the Infinite Crisis, which then led to the excellent series - 52 - a 52-week long series chronicling a year in the DC universe where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman abandoned their superhero lives, and lived as "normal" people.  It allowed for stories to focus on some of the "lesser" heroes of the DC universe, and an overall plotline to clean up many loose ends for many characters in the universe.

Then there was Marvel's Civil War.  In many ways, parallel to what was going on in the DC universe, the Civil War was caused by a group of young superheroes trying to stop some supervillians, but one of the supervillians ends up exploding, killing tons of civillians.  The government wants superheroes to register, and essentially become government agents.  Many heroes, including one man that has represented the United States in comic book form for decades - Captain America - rebelled against this, and the ensuing battles had many, many reprocussions on the entire Marvel universe, including the eventual murder of Captain America himself.  This shocking death, to me, was even more sensational and unexpected than the death of Superman back in the 90's.  Partially, I'm sure, because we don't know if Captain America will be back.  Everyone, comic book fans or not, knew that the real Superman would eventually be back in the comics, there is no way that DC would truly kill off one of their big three characters, but Captain America has not been a standalone character in a very long time.  The symbolism in his death is astounding.  What does it mean?  Does it mean that the American dream is dead?  Does it mean that American patriotism is dead?  It's an incredibly powerful statement, and I think that, to an extent, the lack of coverage in the real world over this event kind of shows that maybe both of these previous statements are true.  When Superman, a symbol of the ideals of the United States was killed, there were stories all over about it, even in mainstream media.  There was actually a sense of sadness in some of the things that I read.  When Captain America, and even bigger, more obvious symbol of those same ideals, was killed, there was next to nothing.  In fact, most things that I was able to find about this event pointed to the idea that the character's time had passed.  That there was no place in today's world for that kind of patriotism.

Do you see how engrossing comic books can be?  I really had no intention of going off on that tangent at all, at least not at this time, but once you get started, it's hard to stop.  I think that's why the other forms of entertainment media continually go back to comic books for new ideas.  There are so many absolutely amazing writers out there doing these comic books that it is hard to dismiss them if you actually give them a shot.  If you don't read comic books, or haven't in a long time, I encourage you to give them a try.  No need to get as entrenched as I am (I'm actually pretty close to matching the number of comics that I was reading monthly back in high school, which is really a pretty scary thought), but pick up a book or two that appear interesting, or ask someone more knowledgable for some books to try out.  I guarantee that you won't be disappointed.