Flash Friday: That Comic Talk

Happy Flash Friday everyone! Today’s topic is about the Flash, but it needs a bit of setup before I jump into it. Today’s topic is about how long I’ve been reading comics and how long I’ve been rushing to my local comic shop. I’ve mentioned before that my love for the Flash started with a tiny comic packaged with some candy. But I was really young then and my comic buying was completely at the whims of my family. It was probably around middle school when I became a comic collector.

There was a drug store on my way home from school that sold comics. I was grabbing the Flash of course, but that was also when I discovered the New Mutants. At that point I didn’t really pay attention to DC outside of the Flash; I had gone down the Mutant rabbit hole. My parents would go to this large flea market about once a month. It was there that I discovered my first comic shop. Suddenly I had a place that would hold my books for me, which was important when I didn’t have a way to get there on my own.

That comic shop got big enough to leave the flea market and opened their own shop right about the same time I got old enough to drive. Image was happening and I fled the stacks of X-books and Ghost Riders crossovers for just about anything that said Wildstorm. Wildcats, Stormwatch, Backlash, Team 7, Gen 13, DV8s, etc… I was buying a lot of comics. I kept up with the Flash during all of this. Eventually I signed up for the Military and ended my pull list.

I went probably two years without collecting at that point. I don’t know why exactly, I still liked comics. Playing in a superhero themed RPG got me started back up again. I quickly caught up on Flash, Impulse, and Starman. I figured, I could hold myself to just three titles. That didn’t really work. Once I was out of the service and working back in my home town I had a giant collection again. Then all of the DC Crisis stuff started happening and I started enjoying things less and less.

I’ve been pretty disappointed in DC since the new 52, because it isn’t what I want out of those stories. Which is why I’m currently looking at the Flash and saying, why am I still buying this? Regardless of what is happening in the comics now, he’s still my favorite superhero. No current book can erase the hundreds of stories that I love and are currently sitting on my bookshelf. I have about 3 months of back issues that I’m going to pick up this weekend. I think I’m going to sit down and read the entire new run of Flash as one story. After that I’m going to be honest with myself, if it isn’t what I want I’m going to stop collecting the Flash comic.

This isn’t the end of Flash Friday, like I said above this doesn’t change how I feel about the character. Next Friday I’ll probably talk about my thoughts on the current run as a whole and what decision I’ve made. It’s strange how hard it is to stop collecting something once you’ve done it for a long time. I just need to figure out if I’m collecting the Flash comic because I want it for the collection or if I enjoy it.