Marvel & Tokidoki: Unholy Awwwwwlliance

A few Christmas seasons ago, my brother and I pitched in to buy our best friend (yes, we shared, and looking back, it's not so surprising that he hasn't called or written since I moved away from home) a set of Marvel Monopoly with the removable labels that let you put whatever character's names you wanted on the properties (we usually put Doom as Boardwalk and Wolverine as one of those crappy purple ones at the beginning). We spent many a subsequent winter evening arguing for half an hour on whether or not Free Parking should come with a prize, another half hour setting the board up, and then, finally, two hours of tedious, joyless gaming that would make Risk look like strip poker. At some point I realized that I really hated Monopoly, and was confused as to why dressing it up in a comic book theme suddenly made it more tolerable.

One day, while bitching to our friend about how tired I was getting of Monopoly, we spotted a Marvel Edition of Guess Who? and must have played that for a week straight before I realized I hated that game, too. Despite my misgivings about Marvel's comics, I simply can't stop myself from buying every piece of Marvel-licensed merchandise I come across and playing with it until the novelty of it wears off and I realize I now own something I loathed in its original form. My life provides no greater example of this than my video game collection. I own every Spider-Man, Avengers, X-Men, etc video game released on NES, SNES, Sega, Playstation and arcade (as soon as I get a real job I intend to get a Dreamcast and Xbox to fill out my collection). I've played all the Marvel: Ultimate Alliances, even the shitty one for the Game Boy Advance. I've even gone to Marvel vs Capcom 2 tournaments, and I can probably tell you what teams I played as and how fast I got my ass beat.

This creates in me a sort of remorse, as I feel bad for saying the things I do about Marvel while shamelessly enjoying their products. I am ultimately no better than all those Marvel fans who hate on the direction of the label but still buy every issue of every comic to justify their hate by claiming it's all part of their loyalty. I took some solace in being able to tell myself that it's all just part of my love of gaming, both board and video, and that as long as I didn't buy things I didn't have an established interest in, like action figures or trading cards, then somehow I'd be less of a hypocrite.

And this happened to fuck up all my plans.



Marvel and Tokidoki? The fangirl in me is squeeing so hard she's about to burst from my chest, beat me to death with a mallet, and assume my identity for the sole purpose of charging every shred of clothing in this line to my credit card.

I think that, for me, the appeal of these clothes, and of all Marvel merchandise, is that it presents a purity of image; I can enjoy the likenesses of my favorite heroes and villains without having to put up with the crass and poorly thought storylines that the advertising-minded label conceive for them. There's even a shirt where Spider-Man's getting his bum nom nom'd by a cactus pup. I have those in my collection. Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

I take great shame in admitting that I'm already planning on losing weight so I can fit into one of those shirts. Even if I can't wear it in public without being indecent. I must own one! I have until February 2010 to lose a few pounds. At the very least I should be able to fit into the zip up. Or a hat, which I really wouldn't need to lose any weight or, but this is the closest thing to motivation I've had to lose weight in a long time.

If they release a toy line, I'm fucked. I'll never be able to save up to pay off those student loans. Perhaps this is where I fit best into the fandom; someone who enjoys the characters and mythos around them but doesn't follow the comics when they go in a direction that contradicts or serves to decimate the mythos that they'd grown attached to. It's a childish attitude to take, but then again, we are talking about comic books.

Besides, if I can fit into the "Thor playing with a unicorn" shirt, I just might consider all of Marvel's wrongdoings forgiven. Yes, even Squirrel Girl.

Moral of the story: Jetta is a hypocrite and a whore ^_^ But fuck, I'll be a well dressed one.