The Marvel Universe
Why Marvel?
The Marvel Universe of super heroes is a metaphor for my psyche. Or my psyche is a metaphor for the Marvel Universe of super heroes. Either way, someone else owns the copyright to Marvel super heroes, but I own the indelible impression that they have left on my mind and spirit. This work before you is original in that I have not accessed any other database or resource to create it except for my own gray matter and soul. Every word here is composed from my own memory, without access to any other resource at the time I composed it. Every image is my own scan of my own personal collection. This site says as much about me as it does the characters known as Marvel super heroes--at least, I hope it does; if not, this is a marvelous waste of time on my (and your) part. Have my hours, days, and decades of ingesting the stories of Marvel's super heroes been a waste? If so, that waste has been spectacular, fantastic, amazing, mighty, incredible, and astonishing, and I have enjoyed every nanosecond of it, regardless.
Why Iron Man? Hulk? Wolverine? Captain America? Doctor Strange? Luke Cage?
These are my favorites, and each of these characters says something about me, strangely explaining some facet of my personality. Was I attracted to these particular--and peculiar--characters because of something in me? Or has each of these characters created something particular--and peculiar--in me? The answer is simple, and yet beyond the binary--the answer is "both." I have always, to this day, wanted to be Iron Man. I have the temperament of the Hulk without the green skin or strength. If I cannot be Iron Man, then I want to be Wolverine. I admire and aspire to the selflessness and devotion of Captain America. I believe that science and faith can be reconciled, as does Doctor Strange, since I know there are things beyond my ken. I spent a large part of my formative years in a blighted ghetto and was changed forever because of that experience, much as Luke Cage was, although I did not get steel-hard skin of any shade. Regardless of their origins, each of these characters (and hundreds of others, to be named later) has lent me a yearning for the heroic impulse.
Why Not DC?
Where is Batman? Where is Big Barda? Superman? Dr. Fate? Wonder Woman? Do I still believe what I wrote on the cover of my notebook of lists I compulsively made as a twelve-year-old? That "DC" does not stand for "Detective Comics" but rather "Dumb Comics"? Of course not. DC was my origin. The first comic book I remember reading--and, in fact, the first thing I remember reading in my life--was "Wonder Woman" when I was but a three-year-old. I wanted to be Batman. I had a Superman poster (just forget that I ended up using the poster as a dartboard, even while it was taped to my bedroom wall...sorry, Mom). I loved DC (and please, do not ever say "DC Comics" because it is like saying "ATM machine") early on, and even off-and-on through adolescence, but it never became as organic a part of what made me who I am as Marvel. I thought the DC universe was imaginative and fun, but I really believed the Marvel universe could happen, to me, in the same way I hoped to get in a car wreck so I could get bionic limbs like my favorite TV hero, Steve Austin, the six million dollar man. Whatever this thing that you are perusing may be, it is certainly an autobiography of sorts, and as long as I am alive, it will continue to form and change. Perhaps someday I will (or have...in case I forgot to come back here and update this page) delve deeper into the recesses of my mind and spirit and discover how Diana Prince helped form who I have become and am becoming.
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Like most of my life, this site is currently under construction and not quite done yet | Site
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text © 2008
Karl M. Kindt IV | graphics © Marvel Comics (sue me, Marvel, and you sue my very psyche! please, leave this True Believer alone!)