My Life As A Comic...



First time that I told jokes on stage was after high school in 1993. I was with friends at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles – I was only 18 years old at the time and got in with a fake ID that said that my name was Mario Fernando Jimenez and that I was 5 foot 6 inches, had short hair and lived in Anaheim. I had about four beers or so when the MC after the show said that an open mike night was going to start up and that you could sign in at the manager’s booth and –

No. Just kidding. The only stand up I’ve done has been everyday, reluctantly before work.

Ba Dum DUMB.

Anyway…

Seems that lately, not since the 90’s have previously deceased villains and defunct crime-fighting sidekicks been coming back to life in mainstream comic books.

We have Bucky Barnes, the once kid partner, coming back to haunt Captain America. I’ve noticed this because I’ve grown weak as of late and actually purchased some Captain America comics. I’ve always hated the Star Spangled Bastard. He represents everything that America stands for (e.g., ultimate gayness and lame dialogue and tepid stories that seem like they were written by our current administration.) Alien threats! Terrorism! (A.I.M.) The Red Skull! The Cosmic Cube grants unlimited power to its holder! Arrgghhh! Gee, Cap – don’t let the bad guys get it! Life as we know it could end! Wheeee!!!! Fart. Boring. Now that I look up at the beginning of this sentence, KID PARTNER of Captain America sounds kinda homo-suspicious doesn’t it?



Speaking of suspicious relationships – The once dead second Robin, The Boy Wonder is back now too. Remember? He was also a little boy who an older, sweaty man took as his ward. Yeah, he’s back – and nobody’s happier than Alfred Pennyworth, the Wayne Manor loyal butler. That means that he can break out the old 8 MM camera again. (He was getting tired of watching all of those old reels of the both of them wrestling together in The Bat-Cave.)



Back from the dead. Now, whom else? Colossus. That big, old, metal-lookin’ Russian bastard from The X-Men. He died and came back too. He likes to draw. This means that he’s gay too.

Oh yeah – Spiderman also! Yeah, of course you don’t know that he died because you actually have a life…no…wait – no, you don’t. Here I was going to make fun of myself for getting all trapped up in soap operatic monthly episodes that sometimes deal with people that fly around and wear spandex – but YOU, yes YOU – watch TV, don’t you?
Yes. You do. And that shit is built for morons, so I take back what I was going to say. Shit, I’d rather help Wonder Woman try to find her invisible jet in the morning after a drunken night at Superman’s house than watch The George Lopez Show. Yeah, so Spidey’s back. He ain’t dead no mo’.

Hal Jordan, AKA Green Lantern – the guy who was named after an appliance. The guy who was lucky that he didn’t find a crashed alien that gave him the powers of The BROWN WASHBOARD. Yeah, he’s back too. I don’t like him either, yet I almost DID buy a comic of his today only because at the end of the story Batman tried on his Green Power Ring. The whole giving-in-to-peer-pressure that GL was giving BATS had a whole TRYING-REEFER-FOR-THE-FIRST-TIME aura to it. And…AND, check this out – I almost bought a variant cover of the issue. Variant issues are something that the comic book companies do to make you become an Uber-Geek and to further deplete your already-skimpy wallet. They might draw a different picture on the cover and only make a 1:10 ratio of it available. This means that you spent the same amount of money for something that is the exact same in the other, but same issue. Ten bucks or...let’s see? $2.50? Kids could spend the mark-up on booze. Talking about comics has never helped me get laid. Being a writer has. So, what if I were a comic book writer? Comic book writers need girlfriends. Not unless you’re into belly fat and scruffy beards with shards of Big Mac lettuce in them. Thank god that I have one. (A girlfriend – not a Big Mac.)

I heard that The Invisible Woman AKA the girl from The Fantastic Four is supposed to die soon. No big loss. Ay, now here’s the rub – I think that having an invisible wife would be great. Awesome, Fucking spectacular amazingly right-on – BUT…she’s actually supposed to be hot in the comics. If she was ugly, turning invisible while having sex would seem advantageous to both parties then, huh? You wouldn't have to get up to turn off the lights. AND Mister Fantastic does have ELASTIC powers too. Can you imagine that? Your ugly wife is watching Extreme: Home Makeover Edition in the living room and you don’t even have to get up out of your chair to have sex with her? Just stretch the ol' penis into the other room. Too bad you couldn’t erase her vocal cords either, though. I’d take a mute companion over an invisible one any day. But, do her invisibilty powers make it easy for her to cheat, though?

“Honey I called for you all day. For like, six hours and couldn’t find you!”

“Oh. Sorry dear. I was gardening naked while invisible in the backyard and had my iPod cranked up. I guess I didn’t hear you.”

Actually, who would need to cheat – when you could turn invisible? You could follow home sexy movie stars and just masturbate while standing on their bathroom counter.



The Vision died and came back, sort of like in a programmed/resurrected consciousness kind of way. He was an android from The Avengers who had a wife who turned crazy and it turns out that she imagined the whole thing and that they never actually had children anyway because she was Bat-Shit crazy. DUH. He’s a fucking robot. I’d imagine sex too if I was married to A TALKING DILDO.

Donna Troy was dead for like, a year or so and then she came back. Who cares? I’ve never read anything about her. I know that some super heroes were probably sad. And then happy again. Then she named her daughter Helenov, or something like that. (waiting for you to get the stupid joke)

Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Phoenix comes back all the time.

Blue Beetle came back, but is supposed to be a different guy than Ted Kord. What kind of situation is this? How much of an effect does this have on the regular nerd? Would your reaction be like, a “oh my god – nobody could EVER replace Liberace!” or a “Why does Darren from Bewitched look kind of different – ah, who cares!” type-of-thing?



Firestorm died saving everybody from some big thing. Some other guy inherited his powers. Nobody reads about this guy either, so everything’s the same, so sit down, that-one-guy-in-Georgia-who-owns-his-every-appearance. SIT DOWN, NERD.

Speedball dies in the upcoming Marvel: Civil War and will inevitably be coming back sooner or (hopefully) later. The only people who care about this are the fidgety people who are parking your cars and stealing all of the change in your ashtray for their nights fix of Heroin and Coke.

Oh yeah, and Hawkeye. He’s an Avenger also, who shoots arrows and died. He’s been popping up all sly and Boogeyman-ish lately. So, he’s back. Hopefully, when I eventually land a comic book writing gig – I can have his arms and limbs amputated. And then I’ll write a whole 58 page comic special dealing with him trying to roll away as a Hawk tries to peck out his eyeballs.

Funny. I was going to write about people in my life that I never write about and it turned into this. I was going to give them codenames and everything. But this was funnier and unfortunately longer.

So this is what you get.

Whatever I was going to write about before is DEAD.

DISCO dead.