I don't like them. There, I said it.
I don't harbour any sort of negative feelings towards comic books, so please don't shower me with insults and blunt objects. It's just that I don't really care? I've bought them before, mostly Marvel stuff because it was available in my hometown: Spiderman, Iron Man, Hulk and Ghostrider from the top of my head. They were all right as I was growing up, but I was never passionate about them. So what the hell is wrong with me, right?
The easy thing to blame is Hollywood's cynical superhero squeeze. Since Sam Raimi's SPIDERMAN became a summer blockbuster twelve years ago, every untalented hack and their moms are borrowing credibility from the intricate universes of their rented intellectual property to try and sell you a crap product. The latest culprit in that regard would be Zack Snyder's insufferable MAN OF STEEL he keeps defending by claiming his loyalty to the original content. As intricate and ambitious as the Krypton scenes were, it still doesn't explain the unnecessarily long action scenes and the annoying Christian subtext.
In fact, comic book readers have their part of responsibility in this, because they are the insanely loyal demographic the film industry is trying to drive to movie theaters. It handicaps movies to stay true to a character's complicated mythology. I remember getting really angry reading the criticism of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES from comic book fans. I thoroughly enjoyed that movie for being just a great movie, I didn't give a damn if it took liberties with Batman or Gotham City or whatever. As far as I know, comic books release alternate storyline of the same characters in space or crossing over to another character's universe and nobody bats an eyelash.
Seducing concept but...no.
I'd be hypocritical to only blame the film industry for my comic books/superhero apathy. For as long as I can remember, bad guys always fascinated me. Not the good guy wearing black. Not the angry white knight. The real bad guys, in comic books universe that would be: The Joker, Magneto, Lex Luthor and to a certain extent, Venom. My problem with these guys is that they don't have any moral dilemma. Everything is always black and white with them. It requires no involvement. What makes a good bad guy to me is Don Corleone's decision to prioritize his family over everything else, Walter White's consuming need to become a traditional providing figure before he dies or Boyd Crowder's life-affirming, peaceful decision to raise hell on a county he seems to profoundly despise for his personal gain. They are the kind of people I find interesting.
This coming out is probably saying all sorts of things about me, like that I'm old and losing touch with the gullible child within that was so easy to please. In fact, I can almost see him drift away into eternal darkness and I'm not so sure it's a bad thing. I don't know yet if I have outgrown comic books or if I have never really been into them in the first place, but let it be known: I don't care about them. It's not that I am above them or anything, but they're not for me.
So, does that make me a fascist?