"John Varley - Anthology - Super Heroes - Various Authors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

corrugated cardboard? That's what I concluded, but the notion that I may
have missed out on the greatest toy deal of the century simply because I was
mail-order gun-shy still nags at me. Did anybody out there ever order the
Space Ship or the Polaris Sub? What were they like? Did you have lots of
fun?)
This is why I missed the great comic revolution of my generation: the
quick rise and ascendancy of Marvel Comics, which in a few years had the
old juggernaut of DC on the ropes. My friend Calvin, who probably still
reads a lot of comics, told me the reason was that Marvel comic heroes were
more vulnerable. More human. Subject to unreasonable rages, like the Hulk,
or having the same problems I, as a teenager, was then experiencing, such as
dating problems and, possibly, super-acne, like Spider-Man. There were
antihero superheroes, supermen with feet of clay, protagonists who not only
didn't have the Gotham City or Metropolis police forces at their beck and
call, but who were being actively pursued for imagined or trumped-up
crimes.
Well, the police don't get on well with the Guardian Angels; why should
they like a wise-ass like Superman who goes around making them look bad
by showing what a poor job they do? It all made sense, the Marvel
universeтАж but what was the pointl Wasn't the whole idea of superheroes
that they were above all that?
Apparently not. Marvel-type stories are still around and, from what I hear,
even DC does stories like that now. Heck, a while back they even killed off
SupermanтАФin seven or eight high-priced issues, certain to be followed by
ten or twelve more issues concerning his resurrection. It makes one wish for
the good old days of green kryptonite. Or at least it made me wish it, but I
know I have no real right to, because to this day I've never read a Marvel
comic. Maybe if I did, I'd see why they're so much better. ' ┬л
See, what you have here in your editor is a comics conser-
John Varley
vative. While I'm certainly no expert on either Batman or Superman, I
know all the history: Ma and Pa Kent, Smallville, Robin, Lois and Lana,
Krypto the superdog, the Joker, the Fortress of Solitude, and so on and so
on. And I know a little about the classic Marvel characters. Unless you don't
have a television set, you pick up some of this through some mental
osmosis. I never watched The Incredible Hulk on the tube, but I've seen
pictures of Bixby and Ferrigno.
But I must admit to you that I know virtually nothing about any comic
character of the last fifteen or twenty years. I don't have any figures, but just
from casual observation it seems these have been the very years when
comics have had their most phenomenal growth, and the time when they
have achieved a degree of respectability. Hundreds of people get together on
weekends to buy, sell, and trade comics at astronomical prices.
Sorry, folks. I missed all that. I own one comic book, which I paid two
dollars for.
So where do I get off editing a book about superheroes? you are probably
asking yourself along about now.
It's a fair question, one that deserves an answer. And just to show you
what a generous guy I am, I have two answers for you.
The first concerns a story idea I got one fine day a few years ago. It was