Here’s something else from the past, for those interested. First, I’ll post here two very rough drafts that I wrote up back in May. The second one of these has a pretty obvious error that I’ll leave in, untouched, because I think that it’s telling and interesting nevertheless. Then, I’ll close with some additional factoids and insights.
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An Examined Life
I did it, I think. I think I finally figured myself out.
I think that this… stuff, this reality bending thing I do, might have been going on now for 3 decades, at least.
I’m noticing now that the celebrity culture of today looks weirdly close in some ways to the fantasies I had as a kid about the Greek Gods. I mean, they’re even starting to look the same, now.
Scarily enough, I think that I might have been “molding” things for a long, long time now. Perhaps much longer than I had even realized.
I’ve not seen the comic book movies. I mean, movies like the Avengers, Thor, The X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc. I’ve not seen a single one of them except for the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie, way back then, but I have a very, very scary hunch that they might be similar in form and content to the Marvel-based fantasy world I created as a little kid about those characters. I got this idea from reading synopses of the films on Wikipedia. I mean, I don’t really know, and I hope that that isn’t true, I really do, but if it is… I wouldn’t know what to think.
My Marvel fantasies were based primarily on the 80’s comics. The ones I got from my mom’s co-worker. I got boxes and boxes of old comics from him… mostly Marvel, but a few DC. I bought some comics of my own, like the Guardians of the Galaxy and X-Men comics of the 90’s, but I couldn’t afford to buy too much that was new. So I read used comics, mostly. Back in grade school I made a huge, elaborate fantasy world off of the 80’s Marvel Universe that might be similar to the one currently popular w/ other people. Might. I wouldn’t know, since I’ve made it a point to avoid it.
If it is… IDK. I could think it a coincidence. I mean, it could easily be. How many kids had those same fantasies about those characters when they were young, back then? Maybe millions, or tens of millions. Surely the directors and producers of the films did too, right? So, it would likely be a coincidence. But… maybe not. What if it’s just a little too coincidental? As in, coincidental down to details? And I mean this seriously, guys. Those synopses are freaking me the hell out right now. What am I supposed to think, then?
I probably shouldn’t see those movies, maybe.
An Examined Life, Part II
My powers, like the rest of me, must have developed in fits and starts. As in, some years they might have grown a lot, in others, not so much, and in some they might have actually regressed through disuse.
I don’t think it realistic at all that the “Marvel Universe” film fad could be a complete fabrication of my 12 year old brain. I was too young then, and too weak, to have done such a thing. And that was a long time ago, way, way before anyone thought that a live action Thor was a good idea.
However- there are coincidences, here, that are just too interesting for comfort. A few of the storylines and plots of the Marvel movies that Wikipedia provides are indeed quite similar to what I thought about, back then. The Iron Man and Avengers movies in particular seem alarming.
But… there are glaring differences, too. Some of my primary fantasies never made it to the silver screen. Like the ones I had of Hercules (the Marvel character), Groo the Wanderer, and ROM the Spaceknight. I had every issue ever printed of ROM, ever, including the annuals, and a huge, corresponding fantasy world of him as well, but there’s no film of him anywhere. And of course there’s nothing of Groo. And I had never even heard of Deadpool.
But still, the similarities are there. I still find it hard to believe that Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man became movies at all, let alone hits. And that Infinity Gauntlet and possibly, maybe even Secret Wars are apparently going to be filmed. That’s weird, and it does make me wonder.
What I think now is this: if I did indeed have any influence over the Marvel craze, it was in pushing over the first domino. If I did do anything (and again this is a big if), it was in getting the ball rolling.
In this scenario, in pouring my psychic energy into Marvel-based fantasies back then, I opened the door, somehow, to the general movie universe becoming real in the first place. So in reading and re-reading my copies of Secret Wars and Infinity Gauntlet, and inadvertently focusing my fledgling powers on those characters and what a movie of those comics would be like, I started a chain reaction that snowballed into what could be their actual creation.
Both Secret Wars and Infinity Gauntlet were big with me, back then. I even had most of the crossovers and follow up issues, like the Adam the Worlock series that followed up Infinity Gauntlet. I don’t remember much of the Crossovers, unfortunately, except for that cool Hulk one with the cultists during Infinity Gauntlet, and the Secret Wars II Thor crossover issue with Kurse. And the Cloak and Dagger one where the Beyonder removed their powers. That one was cool and touching. I think I still have that one, somewhere. The rest, though, I don’t much remember.
And I’m not alone in this, of course. There must have been other kids with some amount of psychic power thinking these things, too. So, maybe it was a group of us, and not just me. That is very possible If not likely.
I certainly hope so. My first thought in regards to the Marvel movies was that they were popular because they weren’t about me. As in, they were popular because they were the peoples’ refuge from my mind control. Granted, of course, my powers did extend to the actors, but not necessarily, I thought, to the plots and characters of comic book movies. So it was a way for common people to escape from me when in the multiplex.
I certainly don’t begrudge people that, and I didn’t investigate the movies because I somewhat wanted that to be true.
Anyone that wonders why I wouldn’t want that to be true need only read the Infinity Gauntlet and Secret Wars series themselves. Shades of Doom, here, not wanting to sleep because of his fear that he would inadvertently destroy the universe. Or of Death mistakenly zapping herself back into her shriveled old body.
Ultimate, Godlike power has major drawbacks. To rule the universe means that you have responsibility for it, too. And that means that you must always be wary of a zillion unrelated things and how they all relate to each other. And that’s not necessarily fun. Or good.
We’ll see what happens with Infinity Gauntlet.
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A lot of insights here.
I think that for now I’ll focus on the comic book angle.
Did you spot the mistake in the second post? Obviously, when I wrote these drafts I was under the impression that the Secret Wars miniseries that is being talked about was the old one. It isn’t. It’s actually a new miniseries… also named Secret Wars. I don’t write comics, so I’ll leave my opinion of that move out of this, I think.
But- still. It is still named Secret Wars. And of course the plot is different from the series from my youth, but it does seem similar to other fantasies I had back then. So… it’s not exact, but it’s close. Kinda.
And so is the rest of it. In my old post about the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, I remarked this:
“I will see GOTG though. Yeah, def. It’s just amazing that they made a movie out of it. I don’t care if it’s got different heroes than the ones I grew up with. I don’t care if the movie was made because Hollywood is out of ideas or whatever. I actually used to daydream about what a Guardians movie would be like during those boring math classes. I’m definitely going to watch this at some point. In fact, I’m becoming more and more curious as I type this.”
This made it seem as though I wasn’t familiar with the characters in the new Galaxy team. This isn’t entirely correct. The team itself I wasn’t familiar with, but a few of the characters on the new team I did know about when I was young. Like Rocket Raccoon, for example. I never once read a comic with him in it, but I was aware of him because of a few in-comic ads for his old 4 issue miniseries back in the 80’s. So he had a spot in my fantasy world as well, along with Drax the Destroyer and Gamora, who I learned about in the mid 80’s edition of the Official Marvel Handbook.
But- Groot, I hadn’t heard of until the movie. Nor Starlord. So, there’s that.
What worries me, here, are the implications of what I’m thinking about. If my brainstorms here are correct, and if I’m not going off the deep end with the narcissism here, then the Marvel Universe fad could in fact be my primary vehicle for mind control over the masses. As in… it could well be my Trojan Horse. My way of softening them up for the kill, which comes in the form of other movies and TV shows. So, it wouldn’t be the masses’ escape from me, after all. Then… perhaps there is no escape from me, for them.
Scary thought. Truly. Let’s hope it’s wrong. But if it isn’t… then I’ll accept it, and so, I guess, will everyone else. Because that’s just how things are destined to be.
At any rate, the vampire and I need to talk, someday, about this. Not now, though.
I think I’ll close this post with a thought to one of Dr. Strange’s most memorable moments, and the one most poignant to what I’m feeling now. It was in one of those old “What If?” comics.
In it, Galactus (I think) used the Ultimate Nullifier to wipe out the universe. All that was left of creation was Strange, the Silver Surfer, and Phoenix. They find each other in the void, and after talking about their situation, eventually Phoenix and the Surfer depart to find their own paths in the emptiness.
Strange, though, stays put. As the universe’s most powerful wizard, he feels a duty to protect it even if it is now empty and dead, forever. Even if it will never again be threatened by anything. So, he does… for all eternity. Alone.
That… can’t be my fate. And it won’t be.
I’ll not go out like that- alone, the most powerful and untouchable being out there.
That isn’t the right way to live, I think.
And it won’t be mine.