No, they didn’t turn into magical glossed papers and saved me from a burning building or some such nonsense.

As you may know from some of my posts (or may not know because seriously, who reads text posts), I used to have some really bad self esteem problems that landed me in some dark corners of my life. I felt alone, unlovable, misunderstood, etc…you know, those adjectives that you’d never want to hear used as descriptions for someone. I felt isolated my a lot of my peers, even my friends. Hell, even the clubs that I joined didn’t make me feel quite right. I was actually so confident in my lack of confidence that I believed that after high school, my life would become some empty, angsty vacuum full of…well angst. I was all about angst, you see. I needed to find a new hobby to get me started on looking at more positive things.

I had read a few comics in middle school, but I wasn’t really into them (in retrospect, it’s probably because they were those scratchy-arty X-Men comics from the 90s). At my high school there was this teacher who had an entire comics/graphic novel library. The first issue that I picked up was Week 1 of 52. “Who are these interesting characters?”, I thought. I knew very little about the DCU, so starting comics in the middle of a fucking crisis seemed like a horrible idea. I read more crises and story arcs that forced me to do the same, but doing so made me dig really deep for more information on these characters. And they were all so (when well written) wonderful. Relatable. HUMAN.

Big Barda’s relationship with Mr. Miracle showed me that you can be raised to be a killing machine, manage to find love, and be even stronger because of it. I didn’t have to feel ashamed because I wasn’t small and cute and dainty. Ted Kord didn’t have any powers and was as silly as they come, but that didn’t stop him from being a hero. Doing a few bad things didn’t make you a bad person by default. Batwoman was gay and she wasn’t a sex symbol to be mindlessly drooled over by a male audience (it’s okay to drool over her, she’s so badass). She was a human being with weaknesses and strengths and hopes. Everybody had these things. And here is where I’m going to give a super special shout out for Gail Simone’s Secret Six. Here were these individuals who were mistreated and did some bad things and still did a few questionable things here and there, but that didn’t make them the villains, did it? They had morals and they cared for each other like family and things weren’t so black and white. Deadshot, Catman, Scandal, and the rest of that motley crew showed me that I didn’t have to be an absolute girl scout with a cape to be loved. That, yeah, maybe I have done a few sketchy things and I’ve been through sketchy things, but that doesn’t make me any less human or lovable. 

Since I’ve been reading comics, I’ve come across more characters that give me hope and inspire me to be brave and badass and confident. I was introduced into a community of absolutely wonderful people who love doing the same things I do too, and for once, I felt like everything was going to be okay. 

So no, comics didn’t save me from a burning building. But I give them some credit for making me into the person I am today. So that’s my little “Comics Did A Good Thing” spill.

tl;dr: I’m cuddled up in my bed reading some old JLI and I just wanted to talk about how happy comics make me because I’m feeling sentimental and things.