The Things I Love is becoming the above, because I’m generally overworked and want this to remain interesting. So, without further ado, this Friday’s Feature is:

Superheroes.

I love superheroes. I am really more of a Marvel girl, but I’ve got places in my heart for a couple of DC characters, too. When I was little, I had this pair of black glasses frames I wore around the house while I pretended to be Clark Kent (I was strange then, too). And then I grew up and found out it was okay to read comic books, even if you’re a girl, and I’m a little obsessed. Here are my all-time favorite superheroes:

1. Iron Man. I cannot possibly communicate to you the extent of the fan-love I have for Tony Stark. I loved the movie, I loved the animated series, I love the comic book. I’ll probably go see the movie many, many more times. I like that inside it all, he’s just a normal, brilliant guy. He’s pretty much the ultimate geek hero (with the exception of Hank McCoy).

2. Superman. See intro for an anecdote. I first encountered him through the Christopher Reeve films, but I’m still a fan, even though I’ve read some of the comics in which he’s pretty much a powerful asshole. I think it has something to do with the flying.

3. Spiderman. Also a geek hero, and probably as much of one as Iron Man, but I don’t know if I like Peter Parker or Spiderman best. I think I like Peter Parker better. I dunno. I’ve kind of lost interest in him, although at one time I thought he was awesome. I actually prefer the villains in SpiderMan to Spidey himself.

4. Nightcrawler. Hoo-boy. I’m not even going to go into this, but I like him in Excalibur, because he’s pretty much a blue gypsy pirate, which is awesome.

5. Hellboy. Both the husband and I are big fans of the whole series, plus the BPRD series. The movie does a decent job (and the new one looks excellent), but I like Mignola’s art style a whole lot.

6. Wildcat and Starman, from the new Justice Society series. I’ve just discovered these two, and I’m hooked.

7. Batman. He’s angsty and an ass, but he’s also dark and brooding and has awesome gadgets, and do I really need to explain this one? I’m sure you can figure it out.

I’m probably leaving some off, but there is a point to this. And it involves knitting. You can imagine that in light of these preferences, I was very pleased to find out about this a while back:

In school I did a project that was a magazine layout for a fictional article about this guy. Click the photo for the Knitty article (you won’t be sorry that you did!)