Monday, December 12, 2011

How the Iron Man movie changed my life (and why that’s okay)


 Iron Man as a thing, character, or comic book didn’t register with me until my mom and brother bought the DVD in October of 2008 and forced me to watch it. My brother had seen it in the theater with his friends, my mom trusted his word, and my dad really wanted to see what a flashy movie would look like on our new television. So we started the popcorn maker my dad’s had for over twenty years and pushed play.

I now, sometimes, think of my life as Pre-Iron Man and Post-Iron Man.

It’s not that my personality drastically changed the week following this night or that I’ve decorated my room at home with images of Tony Stark, but something about the story made me flashback to cartoons on Saturday mornings before soccer games in the park. I began to think again, “Superheroes are so cool.”

At some point, especially when you’re a young girl as I was, it becomes less important to stick with what you really enjoy and necessary to find someone in the group to stand with. I can’t say I ever stopped being nerdy because I know I didn’t; I still read more than almost anyone I knew and I had a drive to consume anything and everything relating to what I was reading. But there comes a point when I felt I couldn’t be completely honest about the things I enjoyed the most because they weren’t cool.

As an avid reader, book series were my favorites. Anything with a mythology that I could enjoy for longer than two days satisfied some deep inner demand for more. Books and later television led me to the internet in search of other fans, and those fans led me into the eager and waiting arms of fandom. I’m proud to say I never looked back. 

But this new Tony Stark appearing before me in vivid red and gold touched me in a way I could not ignore. Fascinated by this version of his story, I turned to the internet to tell me more. I read about all of the different suits, about Pepper and Happy, about Tony’s alcoholism, about the culture of comic books I had ignored my whole life. As I fed my curiosity by clicking on every link available, I found my way to the X-Men, then across the metaphorical pond to DC and the Justice League. I asked for Flash comics for my birthday and picked up TPBs of Sandman at the bookstore. The next summer I took my first steps into Heroic Adventures, the closest comic book store to my home, and found a peace I had never known.

The smell of new book pages and the old box some guy had his D&D figures in flipped a switch in my mind, and now whenever I’m home, I love going there and picking up the latest issue of Uncanny X-Men. 

The thing is Iron Man hit me at a time when I was just beginning to step into who I am today. It took three more years to develop a consistent self-confidence and I have much more growing to do. However, I now know more than I ever did growing up that there are people who think like me, who want the things I want, who make things to please me. I know that I can enjoy whatever I want and there will always be someone out there, wanting to talk about it. Iron Man introduced me to a community that I was born to be a part of and settled a quiet yearning that made me feel out of place.

I’m not saying that Iron Man was the greatest superhero movie ever made and it’s definitely not the best film ever shot. But if it touched people like it did me, if it led someone back to their childhood, if it ended up introducing someone to the Avengers, Justice League, The Walking Dead, if it brought someone to a convention where they met their best friend- if it did that, then Iron Man has proven its worth a thousand times over.

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