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"?
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"?
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