I Hate It Here – Worst. Post. Ever.

Posted on September 27, 2013 in Articles, I Hate It Here

So. Hyperbole. It’s idiosyncratic with comicbook fans in the minds of the general populace (or muggles, as I choose to call them.) It’s the defining hallmark of the classic catchphrase of The Comic Book Guy off of The Simpsons (“Worst. Article. Ever.”) and it’s one of the things I hate most in this world, up there with rude customers and stepping on an upturned plug.

To be clear, I’m perfectly fine with the PR machines of publishing houses utilising the literary device. It’s kinda what they’re there to do. Marvel HAVE to tell you that Age of Ultron is going to be THE MOST IMPORTANT COMICBOOK IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER because if they didn’t, if they were honest, they’d tell you that it was very much a book of two halves, with most of the spectacle in the first half and all of the story in the second half and that as a story, it works on a decent level but the ramifications of the event wouldn’t be felt ’til months down the line. If they were telling you the truth they’d tell you that Age of Ultron was a solid 7/10 book – more hits than misses, but it’s not going to set your world on fire. Then, as you can guess, it would have sold about 5 copies and Marvel would be in serious trouble because they already payed Bendis and Immonen and Hitch and the books have already been printed and that all costs money. So , as you can see, they HAVE to hype things.

The kind of hyperbole that really gets on my nerves exists within the fan community itself. It seems impossible for some people to have a reasonable opinion. A book has to either be the GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD EVER (a title that is officially reserved only for Young Avengers) or, if it falls even slightly below that persons expectations then it’s suddenly responsible for the existence of cancer, Monday mornings and the aforementioned upturned plugs. And then there’s the “meh” crowd. The fans who want you to know just how cool they are by their apathy. It’s not even normal apathy, it’s aggressive apathy – they don’t WANT to care.

I think the reason why this bugs me so much is that it makes us all look dumb. It’s knee-jerk reactionary pseudo-critique delivered by people who think it’s cool to hate things. It has the result that we all get labelled with this characteristic. I know none of you fine folks reading this fall into the category I’m talking about here. The comments sections on our Facebook posts are full of thoughtful, insightful discourse and some witty banter. I’m not bitching about YOU. I’m bitching about THEM. Go read the comments on, well, ANY youtube video and you’ll see who I’m talking about. On second thoughts, don’t. You’ll lose any remaining faith in humanity you have left. And yes, I realise the irony behind ranting about hyperbole in an article that’s ABOUT raging at things (shush.)

The writer of this piece was:
Jamie_Avatar