Familiarity Returns

I'm premiscuous when it comes to these super-duper comic book summer blockbuster movies.

You name it, and I'm fainting in utter holy-shit-I-can't-believe-it's-coming hysteria.

"Star Wars." "Spider-Man." "X-Men."

And, yes, now "Superman Returns."

It has already altered my day-to-day life.

Take my recent visit to the comic book store:

I hadn't been to the neighborhood comic book store in nearly a year, but something clicked when I plugged in a VHS of the original 1978 Christopher Reeve "Superman" for my 6-year-old son, who, like his Daddy, really kind of wishes there was another "Summer Of Vader" to define these lazy, sweltering days.

I remembered being 6 years old myself, leaping ever upwards with a red cape tied around my neck, absolutely sure that if I tried hard enough I would fly. It was still conceivable, within reasonable reach.

---

I remember my first comic book, "Alpha Flight #1" in 1984 that I bought for 60 cents at the Magik Market down the street. Since then, I always had to decide whether I wanted to read about Canadian super-heroes or a Man Of Steel instead of finish off both sides of the Nerds box with just a few bottoms-up.

I walked into the comic store this week, partly looking for a Superman comic book for my son since I got him so worked up over seeing the new movie and partly because I wanted to feel that sense of amazing possibility again.

I'm back there again, in the Magik Market, as soon as I walk into the comic book store and catch a glimpse of a cover splash of Superman or Hawkeye or Green Lantern or Colossus or Hulk or Nightcrawler.

It brings me to familiar conversation:

The owner's happy to see me. It's a been a while.

"So, what've you been working on there at the newspaper?"

"You know, I wanted to do something on the long-awaited return of Superman to the big screen, but ... well ... somehow ... I just didn't get around to it."

But here I am, a little late, but back again. Like I should be.

The owner's apprentice with the Whitesnake-esque raging mullet loves talking about, you know, what comic book guys are thinking about as they exist entirely in their own parallel worlds.

"Hey man, I've got a story for you," David Coverdale tells me. "Jet packs. Why don't we have jet packs? I mean, weren't we all supposed to be flying around in jet packs by now? Aren't we far enough along?"

Back home, I am.

"I know, man," I respond, instantly, as if it had been buried in my subconscious and Professor X were triggering my latent memories. "I thought by now we'd have a lightsaber. And why aren't the cars all flying around like they told us in 'The Jetsons?'"

"All I need is a jet pack," he says.

"I think it's all a plot by Big Oil," I decide, confidantly and prepared for a bubblegum executive summary on the theory.

"No, jet packs wouldn't run on gas," he says.

"I know," I tell him, with one foot out the door, because I simply must get back to work. "The corporate overlords don't want to see any advancement in fuel efficiency. These jet packs would run on ethanol. Or hyrdogen. Or something we don't even know about. It would be revolutionary. They don't want that."

He smiles and shakes his head.

"I don't know, man."

I walk to my vehicle, dressed in my business casual, a smile on my face.

And shaking my head, too.

"Why don't I have my own jet pack?"