My (many) problems with Marvel comics.

First, allow me to add a little bit of background here, before I really let loose with the bile. I have been collecting comic books on and off for the better part of my life now. I started at 10 years old, and am still collecting today at the age of 27. There was a time when I stopped collecting between the ages of 14 and 22, when it was no longer "cool", but the comic collecting bug bit me again, and I can now say with pride that I own over 6,000 comics, with the overwhelming majority of them being Marvel comics(I'd guesstimate about 4,500 or so).

In my early childhood, I was very brand loyal, meaning that if I liked something and that something had competition, I would never, ever purchase items from the competition in any way. For example, I was loyal to Nintendo and Sega and would never entertain the thought of purchasing any rival video game units. Even now, I only buy Playstation products and wouldn't be caught dead buying an X-Box. As a 10 year old, I became hooked on the series 1 Marvel trading cards(a pat on the back to anyone who remembers those), and from there I brought my first ever Marvel comic, X-men(volume 2 )#1, the one with Magento on the cover. From that point on, my life, and my wallet has never been the same. I branched out from the X-men, who were always my favorites, and moved on to Spider-man, the other X titles, Force, Factor, etc., as well as the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer and others. Some of my friends collected DC comics, and would try to talk to me about the exploits of Batman or Superman, but I was unreceptive. If they weren't heroes under the Marvel banner, they were inferior to me and I didn't want to hear about them.

By the time I was 14, it was no longer the "cool" to collect comics, and my beloved collection of Marvels were carefully packed away, while I went through High School and other more "grown up" endeavors. When I turned 22, I discovered I had cancer(a real bummer, for sure) and had to see an oncologist. Well, across the street from the doctor's office, was a large comic book store. On a whim, before seeing the doctor one day for my appointment, I picked up some of my old favorites(X-men, Uncanny X-men and Amazing Spider-man). As I waited in the doctor's office, I was hooked once again, but this time much worse then before. Now, I had a well paying job, and could buy comics at a much faster pace. I managed to fill in several issues I missed in my 8 year comic collecting hiatus, as well as getting turned on to several other Marvel characters that had popped up in my absence. Some personal favorites included Nate Grey(X-Man, who with his potentially fatal condition reminded me alot of myself), the students in New Mutants(which evolved into New X-Men), Ed Brubaker's work on Captain America, Grant Morrison's work on New X-Men as well as his limited series, Marvel Boy, and anything penned by Peter David.

Of course, I still wouldn't even think of picking up a DC comic. Why would I, they were inferior, right? Anyway, my love for Marvel continued through the House of M storyline, which I loved and brought all the connecting crossovers. That is until the final issue of that series, when Wanda uttered the words that changed my comic book reading forever, "No more Mutants". The thing that I enjoyed the most about the Marvel universe, the mutants, had now been decimated, for reasons, I couldn't really fathom. Why kill off most of your successful characters? The one main thing that differentiated Marvel from DC was the mutant population in the world of Marvel. Without a flourishing mutant presence, Marvel had taken steps to make themselves not much different from their chief rivals.

But still, I was a Marvel fan through and through and still collected Marvel comics with gusto. However, my mood became much more pessimistic after Christopher Yost and Craig Kyle took over the comic New X-Men and proceeded to murder several of my favorite characters for no good reason. The death of Jay Guthrie angered me because it served no purpose, but the senseless death of Laurie Collins really sent me over the edge, because it was the most unsatisfying death I had ever seen in a comic book. I understand that in comics, death is necessary to tell a good story at times, but let it be a death in battle. Let the heroes die protecting innocent citizens. Laurie was shot in the back of the head in a needless fashion. She didn't even get the opportunity to have any dramatic last words like one would expect in a comic. She just died, along with 20 or so other students, leaving me with a very empty feeling inside. Yost and Kyle, then began to shove their creation, X-23 down the readers throats as the replacement for these characters I truly cared about, and for the first time in my life, I stopped collecting a Marvel comic. No longer would I read New X-Men, or anything ever written by Yost or Kyle again.

Unfortunately, this wasn't an isolated incident, as apparently, Joe Quesada(Marvel's Editor in Chief) decided that he had to change every aspect of the Marvel universe he could. Spider-man's origin was changed. No longer was his mutation the result of a science experiment gone awry, now, some nonsensical magic mumbo jumbo was added to his origin. The Fantastic Four, also suffered changes to their origin story, as well as many other characters.

Now, I began to get angry. I paid a lot of money and invested a lot of time into my comic collection and Quesada and his ilk were systematically destroying the very fabric of the Marvel universe. For me, everything came to a head with the Marvel mega crossover, Civil War. The story was basially about the heroes in the Marvel universe being forced to register with the U.S. government, revealing their powers and identities, so the government could remain aware of their actions. Iron Man took the role of government toady, while Captain America opposed him, stating that the government had no right to infringe on heroes civil liberties. The battle raged for a while, with Marvel making the dumbest decision in the history of comics by having Peter Parker(Spider-man) unmask publicly in support of the pro government forces! Peter Parker, who valued his secret identity more then practically any other hero in comics goes on television and reveals himself the the world! What the %$&#!!!!!!! It was right about at this point, that I realized that Marvel no longer cared about the characters, the stories, or the true fans. All they cared about as making money anyway possible, and having Spider-Man unmask would bring them that money, from comic book speculators, who would buy the comic and hope to sell it at an inflated price later.

The final straw for me was the end of the climatic battle, when Iron Man's pro government forces squared off against Captain America's pro freedom forces in down town New York. During the fight, civil servants, fire fighters, police officers, etc, attacked Captain America to make him surrender. How dare they lay one hand on Captain America! He's the sentinel of liberty! Plus, I grew up in NYC, and there is no way the people of New York would be standing on the side of the federal government. One thing about New Yorkers is that they are mainly very liberal and unsupportive of the government and therefore would never be in support of the registration act. Anyway, Cap figures if the public doesn't support him there is no reason to continue fighting, and surrenders.

So, Cap surrenders to Tony "scumbag" Stark(why Marvel would character assassinate a character as great as Iron Man by reducing him to a government lapdog is beyond me), and what happens next? Captain America is assassinated by his enemies while in custody, in another attempt by Marvel to make a pathetic, cheap buck. What else is new lately? As for Spider-Man, Marvel realizes that with no secret identity, they backed themselves into a corner, so they reticon the last 10-15 years of Spidy's life. So basically all those Spider-Man comics I own, all the time I spent reading about Peter Parker and his life, his marriage to Mary Jane, everything that happened to Spidy in those last couple of years NEVER HAPPENED!!! Are you kidding me? I thought the reason there was an Ultimate Spider-Man was to show Peter Parker as a youth, in his formulative years. Now, we also have the same thing in Amazing Spider-Man. After this crap, needless to say I stopped reading Spider-Man, which was a tough decision, but let's face it, he's not really the same character I read about for all those years, Marvel has turned him into someone else.

And now we have the "Secret Invasion". Let me start picking this drivel apart by stating that during Annihilation, which told a great story, the Skrull empire was torn apart by the forces of Annihilus, and were splinted to the point of anarchy. Now, suddenly, the Skrulls are this great organized force that were able to infiltrate the Earth and take it over. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? They were decimated by Annihilus!!! How the hell can they have the force necessary to conquer the Earth!! On top of this we find out that several top heroes, Iron Man, Prof. Xavier, Mr. Fantastic, Namor, and Black Bolt had banded together several years ago in a group called the Illuminati. Really now. These very different personalities managed to hold regular meetings amongst themselves, and never told their various teammates, friends, loved ones? What a joke. This is just another example of the current crop of Marvel writers(I'm talking to you Brian Bendis), deciding they could care less about the groundwork laid by their predecessors, and writing whatever they want, continuity be damned.

After all this, I finally decided enough was enough, and picked up my first DC comic ever, Young Justice, written by the brilliant Peter David. And guess what, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not only that, but it opened my eyes to a whole new universe, the DC universe, that I had always unfairly closed my eyes to. I basically spend roughly $100 on new comic books a month. All of that money used to go into the coffers of Marvel, however, now I'd say roughly 70% goes to DC. While I'll always cherish my Marvel comic back issues, I most eagerly await the new releases of the DC comics I read monthly.

I know that I will never fully stop collecting Marvel comics. I still care about many of the characters there, regardless of the ridiculous treatment they are currently receiving, but thanks to the many dubious decisions Marvel has made recently, I am also happily collecting the comics from the DC line, something a few short years ago I could never imagine happening. In the end, all I can say is thanks for the memories Marvel, I hope you right your ship soon, I miss you.