Self Reflection: My Obsession With Superheroes

I've spent the last four days with my mind in an indecisive state. I've been juggling whether or not t do a Make It So post asking for a Kingdom Hearts anime, talk about Bioshock or writing a strongly worded essay about how comparing Avengers to the Transformers franchise is giving the former a vast disservice for all its hard work. But my mind started looking into my own life, I came to a question: why am I so obsessed with superheroes?

I guess it all started in kindergarten. I fell in love with Power Rangers and Batman: The Animated Series and that colored my vision and imagination towards superheroes. I dressed as Robin for one Halloween in third grade (pictured above). I collected every Power Rangers figure I could up to Time Force (with a brief spat of collecting during SPD.) The Teenagers with Attitude inspired my five year old self to take up martial arts, which I kept up with until I earned my black belt at eighteen.Then, when DVDs got big, I got the 4 disc collection of the Burton/Schumacher Batman movies. Those films still hold a place in my heart to this day. Yes, even Batman and Robin. Never got Batman: Mask of the Phantasm on DVD or VHS, but I have fond memories of getting it every now and then at the local Blockbuster.

Next came the first Spider-Man movie and with it, the first time I ever got interested in comic books. I remember getting the first trade paperback of Ultimate Spider-Man during a family vacation to Florida at the Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. I've never picked up  any of the subsequent volumes, but the thing opened the flood gates. After that I was looking to see if my town had any local comic shops. I was lucky enough to find two, but one closed down after a year. The survivor, Arcade Entertainment, still stands and I still frequent it.

Then high school came along. It wasn't a hell, but I can't say I was any sort of social fixture. 
I spent many a study hall going through my school library's collection of graphic novels. I discovered Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Saga of the Swap Thing, cementing my love of Alan Moore. I was introduced to the Teen Titans, Daredevil and one orange red book containing the origin stories of plenty of golden age superheroes that I never discovered the name of. If I wasn't reading, I was looking up comic info, reading reviews of comics and generally falling deeper into the collector's hole.

During the time I spent hiding in my dorm at UW- Milwaukee, I didn't follow comics as much as I would have liked. (I also neglected schoolwork, got put on probation and was ultimately expelled for two years, but that's a whole other story.) After that, I spent time working or looking for work, so I spent more time on the internet until I found the Kamen Rider franchise. That opened up the whole world of tokusatsu to me. Since downloading episodes was free, it became my new obsession thanks to me being broke. And that basically brings us to today.

So, back to the question at hand: why am I obsessed with superheroes? Basically, they've been with me since I was a baby. I always love heroic people in spandex fighting the forces of evil. And I'll probably love them for as long as I live.