I have a few comic book t-shirts: Batman Evil Villians, a Spiderman one, and a Jayna from the Wonder Twins one. I’m on the hunt for the perfect Wonder Woman as she is the mac daddy of them all for me and so I am being extremely picky. I bought one I like that is too small so I’m going to cut it up and make a patch out of it to sew onto something else.

The thing is I sometimes feel like a fraud. I have to confess that as much as I like the comic world I have a hard time actually reading comic books. There is something about the stilted way of reading them – words to pictures, pictures back to words – that I have a hard time with. I have a hard time losing myself in the story.

I grew up watching Wonder Woman, Superman, and Justice League cartoons. I of course watched the Linda Carter Wonder Woman series (and I’d watch it all over again right now thank you very much). I was even into this show called The Secrets of Isis. As a kid I watched many episodes of the old Superman “Ka-Pow!” television show. I’ve seen all the Batman and Superman films and the films leading up to the Avengers. I hope they actually make a Hawkeye movie because that is one hell of a compelling story. I’ve seen all of the X-Men films including Wolverine and have even seen the tragically bad Green Lantern and epically bad League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (don’t judge!). I am genuinely excited when a new superhero film is scheduled to come out. I even have my top pick for who I would choose to play Wonder Woman if people ever get off their asses and make a damned Wonder Woman film. I’m also genuinely outraged that there aren’t better crafted/written/drawn female superheroes out there. And for some reason I’ve really taken a shine to Silver Surfer.

Still, if you don’t read comic books…sigh.

I live with a total comic book nerd. He is in a constant state of reading comics. Constant. Always. There are a 100+ comic books on his bookshelves and they rotate in and out from various sources. There are huge filing cabinets in storage that are filled to bursting with more comic books. He also writes reviews on Goodreads. As I type this he is currently at 386 reviews. My word, I do love this man. Uh…what was I talking about again?

Right! Reading comic books.

Mike knows how much I love the whole superhero genre and I know he is a bit disappointed in not being able to share comic books with me. He is always on the the hunt for that One Book that might be the tipping point that makes me fall in love with reading them. He recently brought home Wonder Woman – from the beginning – written by Gail Simone. If ever I was going to read a comic from beginning to end it would be this one. I’ve read the foreword and got even more excited. I’ve read the first five pages. I’ll keep you posted.