Have Shield Will Travel

This past Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. A day of celebration of comic book nerddom in all its glory and all sorts of stuff like that. I feel like this year I was completely unprepared for the event. I hadn’t seen much of any announcements that it was coming up or anything. As opposed to last year where I had notifications of when it was going to be happening and even links to information about the comics that would be available.

Yeah, if you haven’t ever experienced Free Comic Book Day in the past 15 years, I will save you a bit of suspense, it is a day where shops across the country give away a select set of comic books. The concept serves several purposes. At the base it is an effort to share comics with people who haven’t yet discovered the magic of these beauties. For the seasoned readers it is an opportunity to discover something new and different than the stories they have already been reading. Shops have different events throughout the day to make the whole day something to celebrate and what not. But really the important thing is the free comics. At least for me anyway.

I scored the preview book for the new Stever Rogers Captain America series. For me, he will always be the Captain. I don’t care how many times they take the mantle away and give it to someone else. The Falcon/Captain America hybrid does play a role in the issue so it was interesting to see how they worked that character mash up, but it doesn’t change my view on who should carry the shield.

And like I mentioned, I felt like the whole day snuck up on me. I had to work in the morning so I planned to hit the shop after work. It was the anticipation before I got out of work that a second realization hit me. The new Captain America movie had started the night before.

My wife and I had thought to go opening night but the day got away from us so we picked the next day (yes, free comic book day) to hit the theater. Can you honestly think of a better way to celebrate free comics than going to a movie with one of the greatest super heroes of all time?

Where was I?

The realization. If I took my wife to the shop with me then we get double the comics. Or maybe I should say I get double the comics. She doesn’t read em. She comes from the time when girls didn’t do stuff like read super hero comics or other geeky pursuits. I consider it a victory that she enjoys seeing the movies with me. (if you ever wonder about the strange looks that girls get when they go into comic book shops and such, it comes from a whole generation of girls that wouldn’t be caught dead in such places. And the girls who did go in, were just as offbeat and strange as the boys you found in such places). But I digress…

So yeah, I ended up with a few goodies for me and we even picked up a few trinkets for my granddaughters (I believe in early geek indoctrination. I may even get them playing some RPGs with me and their father when they get older). The best part of it though, we didn’t have a line to wait through. We were in and out of the shop in a matter of minutes. We still had time to make it to the matinee for Captain America Civil War.

You know I am going to spend a few minutes on that now right?

First off, the movie is still too new so no spoilers or at least I will work to avoid them as much as possible.

But…

This movie is everything you would expect from a Modern Captain America movie. Sure there is a bit of the Avengers and super powered beings present in the whole of it, but for the most part it played out as a spy/thriller/adventure story. We have intrigue, betrayal, explosions, and super powered battles of epic proportions. You name it’s there and so worth the price of admission.

With that said, I screwed up. I made the mistake of reading some stuff when I got home later that night. The worst of it was a Salon article (never worth my time, your mileage may vary). And to drive the pain deeper I made the biggest blunder (aside from taking the war to Russia in winter) I delved into comments.

I will not bother with links to the article. I would never wish to inflict moral strife on those around me if I can avoid it. I have so many better ways to torture others. But upon reflection it brought something much deeper into my mind. Political discussions online can be likened to tabloids at the super market check-out line.

First and foremost, these discussions serve absolutely no purpose what so ever. And much like the tabloids you find yourself sucked into them for far too long and then you end up wondering why you have lost faith in humanity. Because these things have a tendency to show us the most vile face of the world around us.

Second, the question then becomes, why is it that we must take a political critique of every form of entertainment we encounter. Do we honestly need to search through every nook and cranny of something to find the things that will offend us? Have we honestly reached a point in time where we spend so little of our creative energies exploring new and different and now all that is left is to destroy the things that others find engaging?

And then to add to that, I ran across something on Facebook recently that showed the new nitpick (and by golly I hope this is satire). But the new thing that has taken issue with the movie was the size of the location titles on screen. I refuse to go down that rabbit hole but wow, if that is the thing that pushes you over the edge, I have no hope for you or your future.

But alas, the movie was awesome. Go watch it, watch it now. Drop everything you had planned and give them your money. (by golly I’m cheap and hate crowds. So you know it must be good)

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