Comfort Food for Nerds


“When you’re chewin’ on life’s gristle, don’t grumble;
Give a whistle, and this’ll make things turn out for the best.”
– Eric Idle, Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”

Every once in awhile, we find ourselves down in the dumps; it’s just part of being human. Whether you’ve recently been dumped, don’t have a job, struggle with alcoholism, or live in a city where you don’t know very many people (or all of the above!), sometimes we just find ourselves in a funk. Never fear, you mopey chumps, for I am here to help you snap out of it and feel infinitely better about life and how we live it.

I’ve compiled, for your reading pleasure, a list of four of my favorite comic books or comic book story-arcs that always bring a smile to my handsome, rugged, adorable face (for a variety of reasons, as you’ll see). Cheer up, friends!

sin city just another saturday night1. Sin City: Just Another Saturday Night

Written and penciled by Frank Miller, released in 1998, this short one-shot features that lovable oaf Marv as the main character, and its gleeful violence really makes me brighten up. The story starts with Marv surrounded by some beat up bad-guys, two wrecked cars, and sporting a fresh bullet hole in his shoulder. He doesn’t remember how he got there, but he’s in the Projects, and he’s confused as hell.

What follows is a story told half in flashback, half in present-day Basin City of how Marv got to where he currently is. It involves strippers, booze, and a healthy dose of extreme violence. I love it. And the best part is that the violence is executed on well-deserving frat boys. If that doesn’t cheer you up, I just have to ask what kind of nerd you really are.

2. Green Lantern: The Fall of Hal Jordan

This one’s really great. Originally published in 1994, this is the epic destruction of the Green Lantern Corps, as written by Ron Marz. Coast City is blown to hell by Mongol and the Cyborg Superman, and Hal Jordan loses his sanity. What follows is a space-wide charge to Oa, where he murders every Lantern that stands in his way, eventually concluding with Sinestro and Kilowog. With them out of the way, Jordan smashes the Central Power Battery and emerges as the villainous Parallax, an identity he kept for about ten years, before the GL: Rebirth story came around.

You might be wondering why I find this destructive, depressing story so cheerful, and it’s simple. It appeals to the side of me that just loves to see good men fail and go to the Dark Side. Makes me feel better about myself, to a degree, because, hey, it’s not like you see me off murdering people in space. By comparison, I’m a stand-up dude!

foolkiller3. Foolkiller

This one is just plain goofy. It’s a ten-part miniseries that came out in the early ’90s, written by Steve Gerber, JJ Birch, and Tony Dezuniga. The first line in the first issue is the Foolkiller saying, “Live a poem, or die a fool!”

He’s a little bit like the Punisher, in that his main objective is to murder bad guys; where they split, though, is that the Foolkiller is really up for killing just about anybody, so long as he thinks they’re a, well, a fool. He works at the Burger Clown, exercises in garbage, laments after his first fight that he never trained himself to know what it’s like to experience a stab wound, and has a gun that vaporizes fools into smoldering skeletons.

It’s ridiculous. It’s over-the-top. It’s horribly written. In short, it’s amazing. Foolkiller is the ultimate so-bad-that-it’s-good story I’ve ever read, and, believe me, I’ve read a lot. If you’re looking to be cheered up by a zany, crazy, whacked-out superhero book, look no further. The best part is that you can probably find it in the quarter bin at any comic shop across the country.

4. Avengers: Operation Galactic Storm

This is one of the first big crossover events I ever read. It didn’t have a central miniseries with a bunch of background tie-ins, like we’ve grown accustomed to; rather, the story went through every Avengers-related book that was being made in 1992. Avengers, West Coast Avengers, Captain America, Quasar, Thor, Iron Man, Wonder Man — you name it, it went there.

The central plot is a war between the Kree and the Shi’ar, with a Negabomb eventually being exploded in Kree airspace to destroy the Kree homeworld (how many times has that been blown up, anyway?). At the end, the Avengers break into two different groups. One group decides to go kill the Supreme Intelligence (who somehow survived the blast), and the other group objects to the murder. Wimps.

Having been introduced to this as a kid, it reminds me of a simpler time in comics, and in life. So when I want to just zone out and forget about the problems facing the world today, it’s a great series to go back to and read through, again and again. Sure, it kind of sucks, but it makes me feel good.

And that’s what’s important.