I cared more about the characters than about the powers...

[elfs]

Speaking of the X-Men, this memory came up because I was asked today, "What was your first same-sex crush?" and I said, "Kurt Wagner. You know, Nightcrawler. From the X-Men. Why is everyone looking at me like that?"

Twenty-eight years ago, I worked in a comic bookstore. It was just a short summer gig, and it gave me an opportunity to make some cash and buy books at price, so it was a pretty good gig for a teenager.

As I was putting a new shipment on the shelves, I heard two other kids, easily within my age range, talking adamantly about a new Marvel comic of... something. It sounded interesting, but nothing I was familiar with. The characters had the typical superhero names: "Cannonball," "Psyche," "Sunspot," "Wolfesbane," "Cypher." I couldn't see what they were holding in their hands.

It wasn't until I gone back to the counter that it hit me: they were talking about the new Chris Claremont / Bill Sienkiewicz series, The New Mutants.

I had followed the first two years of that series quite faithfully, and yet never bothered to memorize the characters' "code names." They rarely used them in the series. I always wondered what made the difference between readers who used the names above, and the ones who just said "Sam, Dani, Roberto, Rahne, and Doug"?

Comments

[urox.livejournal.com]

What makes friends different who use their online identities with each other rather than birth names?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand the question. The superhero "code names" given to the characters in The New Mutants were obviously contrived, adopted by third-generation mutants who had no need of them at the time. The names were contrived, pointless and, in the context of the first four years of The New Mutants, rarely used. It surprised me that readers would latch onto the codenames rather than the character's mundane names-- the names used in every issue.

It seemed to me that those two kids were reading a completely different book from the one I was reading. Despite being rarely exposed to the code names, they'd chosen to think of the students at the Xavier School as being superheros, not people.

I don't see how this relates, except tenuously, to online nicks.

[urox.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the series so I guess I'm missing context, both how they were used and how the characters identified themselves. Many people I know adopt their created online username rather than given because their online is who they created and who they are to another person. So I have a friend that I always refer to as Keth even though I also know her real name. I could see a mutant not wanting to go by their original name, but again, I'm missing context.

[kenshardik]

I had a crush on Rahne. "It's not proper!" *sigh*

[fallenpegasus]

I knew them by their "personal" names, but was very geekily proud of myself that I knew their code names.

You are also missing two... Do you remember their codename and personal name?

[moiety-tx.livejournal.com]

My first same-sex crush was Strawberry Shortcake. I think I was 3.