EXCELSIOR!!!

And Welcome to the introduction to Uncoolkids’ weekly comic book geek-out, hosted by your own Geek on the Street.

I must preface this with a bias warning: I am a Marvel Comics partisan. Marvel, in it’s recent format, is much more real-world that DC.

Where DC Comics relies mostly on mythos, cosmic and intergalactic conflicts and mining the same handful of heroes for as many knock-off characters as possible (The Superman “family” the Batman “family” the Green Lantern “Corps.” The same rehash since the 1940’s.)

Marvel, however, has stood on and expanded brilliantly from the four pillars of Stan Lee since the 1960’s: (Fantastic Four, X-men, Avengers and Spider-man) and focusses on the character in comics, and how these super-powered beings fit into a world of politics, militarism, prejudice, vulnerability, and the basic ethical dilemas of power vs responsibility.

I’ve been a comic book stalwart since my tweens, in the era of the deeply psychological Spectacular Spider-man and Jim Lee’s X-men, but the late nineties were a sad, sorry downhill spiral for Marvel, A.K.A. “The House of Ideas” storylines bogged down with too much drama, over-hyped storylines and the endless piling up of unanswered mysteries.

After a nearly catastrophic downturn right about millenium-time, Marvel got serious about revamping its image, just in time for the blockbuster hit X-men. All glossy pages; condensed, easy to follow storylines; dialouge that you’d expect from a prime-time hit TV show, rather than a Sunday afternoon B-movie and: “previously in” page before each issue, to help neophytes learn the ropes.

And so, each weekly “issue” of PANELGEEK will have two features:

ONE: A piece about what’s going on in comics now (or an editorial)

TWO: PANELGEEK’S Book of the week (either a particular issue, or a TPB)

STARTING TOMORROW: PANELGEEK #1: Know your Comic Shops, and Civil War. . .