As a fan for over 30 years, it's interesting to see the way in which comics are simultaneously more prevalent and more marginal in pop culture. Based solely on box-office results, the characters (even second-tier ones like Iron Man) are more popular than ever, but the comics themselves are much less so. Once upon a time, selling less than 100,000 copies a month would get you canceled. In the current environment, that's frequently enough to make you the top-selling comic of the month.
Other people have written insightful pieces about why that is, generally focused on a mix of higher prices, complex continuity and a broader range of entertainment options for kids. Without getting into anything overly nostalgic, I'll just say that's shame because I love these characters. It's easy to dismiss the likes of Superman, Green Lantern and Iron Man as muscle-bound, vigilante crypt-fascists, but the fact is they stand for a principle that I wish seemed less quaint than it does these days. They represent the idea that people with amazing abilities which they could easily use to subjugate others would choose to do the right thing. I suppose I'm just idealistic (and a touch naive) enough to want to cheer for that.
In closing, I'll sat that, while I very much like my current comic shop (Beyond Comics in Gaithersburg Maryland), I miss the first one I ever went to. This was the Book Swap (more recently the Comic Swap) in State College, Pennsylvania, which became my regular shop again when I went to college at Penn State. I still remember buying that old (a whopping 3-4 years old!) back-issue of Justice League of America with Superman punching out Green Lantern on the cover. I don't have it anymore and don't think they've re-printed it, but I'll definitely check while I'm out shopping on this pleasant Free Comic Book Day.
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