One of the things I really wanted to write about under this overarching theme was Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme limited series, because it was such a major touchstone of my early comic book appreciation (not to mention other themes and motifs that would become pervasive throughout my many geekdoms), but I felt like I needed to set it up a little first, and apparently the whole notion that my brother and I were consciously oppositional in those days (Yankees vs. Mets, Cobra versus GI Joe, Marvel vs DC) wasn’t enough in and of itself to contextualize how cool I thought it was that Marvel did a pastiche of DC’s big guns. I also felt compelled to explain the idea of parallel and alternate Earths, some of the creative genesis of the Squadron Supreme as a potential intercompany crossover, and the concept of a maxi-series. I think chasing down these various rabbit holes was something I embarked on with the best of intentions, but ended up derailing me a bit.
Oh and then over seven freaking years went by?!?!?
I mean, the derailment happened right around Christmas time in 2013, and judging by some of the work-related posts from January 2014, I was entering one of the periodic actual-things-to-do phases (as opposed to bored-and-blogging-to-look-busy phases) which meant if anything was going to fall off, it was going to be a recurring long-form series that I wrote ahead of time, in addition to other random daily posts, and scheduled to publish on Sundays. And then I have to assume enough time went by that I lost all momentum for Marvel Comics: My Untold Story altogether. And a little over a year later, by early 2015, I had lost a lot of momentum for the blog itself. If memory serves this was due to a combination of focusing more on my original fiction and trying to get published in various zines and anthologies, plus joining FB, originally because it was a promotional requirement for one of said anthologies, though eventually I did get into it and found it scratched the social media itch formerly addressed by my blog. One more year and change later and it’s mid-2016, I’d changed jobs, and actual-things-to-do was the standard operating procedure, sending this blog into deep hibernation. Alas, poor Parenthetical Asides, we knew you well.
But everything comes back around eventually! And there have been a couple of recent developments which brought Marvel Comics: My Untold Story back to the forefront of my mind. One is that I’ve gotten deeper into podcasts during the Year of the Pandemic, and in particular I’ve really taken a shine to Marvel by the Month. Another is that, after years of wishing it would happen, my eldest child, the Little Guy himself (he’s 12), has finally embraced the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including watching every single movie (many of which I’ve happily sat down and rewatched with him) and now being as obsessed with new episodes of WandaVision on Fridays as I am. I even managed to parlay that into getting the Little Guy to read some of the source material comics that I still own, which will doubtless be fodder for one of these posts.
So excessively long intervening passage of time be danged! Let’s get back into Marvel Comics: My Untold Story and let’s finally dig into why Squadron Supreme hit me so deep - next time!
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