My attempts to get back into American comics has traditionally not gone well for nearly two decades at this point. That might not seem odd with no context but with the context that over the course of a year I read what even I consider a staggering amount of Chinese, Korean and Japanese comics (to the point where one could probably argue its an addiction or certainly an ersatz opioid) I do find it odd that I never got back into reading, not just American comics but more or less any English language comics. This specific attempt to get back into Marvel, as mentioned here, started in this form in 2014, then 2016, then again in early 2022. Where it stuttered along for three months or so, then jumped to February 2023 and now here we are again at the tail end of 2024.
I’ll be honest. I’m not even sure if I legitimately want to read American comics. I’ve gotten interested again. Which is why I’m writing this. But there are a growing category of things that I used to like, and feel I should like, but just can’t seem to get into. Whether that’s genres, activities, authors, etc. I sometimes feel that I “should” like them when the reality is I feel no real excitement or have no lasting interest in them. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. People’s tastes change. But I sometimes wonder if the number of things that interest or excite me is constantly shrinking that, as the common element, it may be something to do with me. Crippling depression perhaps? But just like my doctor did when I mentioned that I’m going to ignore it.
Tangent aside and back to Marvel comics. One brother has been singing the praises for the Krakoa era X-Men stuff and another showed me the Venom 3 trailer which was surprisingly decent and made me interested in Knull. A character I know primarily through Marvel SNAP (which I am to my own surprise still playing). There doesnt seem to be any nicely siloed off story arc to read to get info on Knull (or at least none a casual googling threw up). So I will perhaps return to my arguably self defeating attempts to catch up on the entire Marvel continuity.
Up next we have Grant Morrison’s X-Men run. Which I have many thoughts on.