START // 2.20.03

CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND
by Dan Carroll

I have a bizarre urge to see the DAREDEVIL movie.

I say bizarre because I've never actually enjoyed the DAREDEVIL comic. There have been aspects of it I've enjoyed… I like Gene Colan… I adore David Mazzuchelli… but I've never really seen the appeal of Matt Murdock. Say whatever you want to me about Frank Miller or Brian Michael Bendis, but it's not going to wash. For some reason that comic just never clicked for me. No matter how talented the creators behind the helm have been, I've never found the comic as a whole to hold any real appeal.

There's no nostalgic pull for this movie, either. There's none of the charm of childhood memories that brought me in to the X-MEN movie, or to SPIDER-MAN. I never put on sunglasses and swung a cane around when I was eight, running from couch to couch pretending to be the Man Without Fear.

It's not even as though I like the actors. I have no special love of Jennifer Garner, no affection whatsoever for Ben Affleck, and the two of them making out in leather suits is about as appetizing to me as an all-nude episode of Golden Girls. I have nothing against anyone involved with the movie, but none of them are exactly what I'd call a draw.

So where the hell is this urge coming from? Subliminal messages in my copy of X-STATIX? Are there mind-numbing drugs in the ink of NEW X-MEN? Is Avi Arad hiding outside my bedroom window, whispering to me as I sleep?

I wish the truth was that simple. I would give anything for a nice, tidy, Marvel-run conspiracy here. I wish Bill Jemas was beaming messages directly into my brain, or that Kevin Smith was poisoning my drinking water. But the simple fact of the matter is that somewhere deep inside me, there's a twelve year old collector screaming to be free.

This son of a bitch in my gut is the same guy who wants me to buy "Game of You" and complete my full run of SANDMAN, even though I didn't like that story. He's the one who makes me drool when I see the bonus-footage DVD of Fellowship of the Ring, even though the ordinary version is sitting on my shelf. When I was twelve and he had full reign, this little bastard was the one who littered my house with Magic cards and copies of WIZARD.

And every time I think he's dead, his hand shoots out of the grave like a Marvel Zombie hungry for human flesh-or at the very least, old issues of ROM. He takes command of my limbs, and begins to move me toward the movie theater. He is amused by my attempts to resist.

Being a former collector is like being a recovering alcoholic. You're never really cured. All you can do is take it one day at a time. And every time you see your local pusher (i.e., comic store owner) selling some poor kid their first booster pack, a small part of your brain will scream, "Clone the doppelganger! CLONE THE DOPPLEGANGER!"

I'm one of the lucky ones. I have people who love me, support me, and hate Ben Affleck. The chances of my actually seeing the DAREDEVIL movie are slim. And it's a good thing, because relapses can be ugly things.

Just ask my girlfriend. Better yet, ask the pusher who recently sold her the first fifty issues of NEW MUTANTS. Which isn't as bad as it sounds, even though they're all written by Chris Claremont, because there's some early Sienkiewicz art in there, and some old Butch Guice stuff, and I think Walt Simonson too, and…

Ack. See?

Habits are hard to break. And maybe the dogmatic approach to breaking the bad hadbits need to bend and relax a little because sometimes it really can be just harmless fun or a fun little indulgence.

But somehow, it'd all be simpler if aluminum foil on my head would just make it all go away. It'd certainly be a lot less guilt inducing. And certainly cheaper, too.

* * *

Speaking of the DAREDEVIL movie, we've got a nice flyer in the Toolbox section for you to use in conjunction with the film to promote comics-DAREDEVIL comics, and non-DAREDEVIL comics. We did one for the SPIDER-MAN movie last year, and it was well received, so here we go again. Look for more when other comics related movies open throughout the year.