It says a lot about my pathetic state of affairs that I just want more time to live so I can see more Marvel Studios films. But I was born in 1964. I was comic books when comic books were not cool. And, I grew up with these characters. NEVER thought I would actually see these characters, even obscure characters, on the silver screen. THIS is MY mythology. I have waited longer than some of your grandparents have been alive to see films like this. Avengers: Endgame??????? At age eight, if someone had told me I would see THAT on-screen when I was 55? I would have said they were nucking futs. But. WE GOT IT. They actually DID IT. So, these days, I can walk around with a Captain Marvel t-shirt, or a Captain America faded shield t-shirt, and I am not shunned like I'm some kind of nut. (Well, I AM, but who are they to know?)
What I mean is this. We live in a GLORIOUS TIME. ALL the confusion around us, all the stupidity, and the madness. But, right there, in the middle of the madness, Marvel, and other comic book movies, they have given HOPE to this world. In places you never would have thought hope would spring. THESE ARE the heroes I grew up with, and, in some way, kept me going when the going got rough. Today, deep in China, some chinese kid is going through a bitch of a day. And, you know what? In a tiny corner of his mind, Tony Stark's sacrifice gives him a little boost in his imagination to make it one more day. Somewhere, in this world, some kid who is beaten down and thinks all hope is lost, tells himself, "I can do this all day." Some orphan out there looks at Billy Batson becoming Shazam, and his family becoming the Shazam family, and thinks, "Hey. Maybe, I can give these folks a chance?"
THAT is what comic book heroes are all about.
HOPE.
"To the End of the Line."
THIS is our MODERN mythology.
This has shaped my own life.
And, even though we may not realize it, this little thing called comic books has shaped the lives of BILLIONS on this planet.
Rejoice. Be happy.
For frack's sake, life could be worse. You could be ME.
So. Your thoughts? How do all of you, in retrospect, think that these comic book movies actually made a few lives better on our "miserable, little, annoying planet"? Have they done some good? Or have they been detrimental, in some way?
Discuss.