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A review by helpfulsnowman
Indestructible Hulk, Volume 1: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Mark Waid
4.0
There's a very cool trend in comics right now where these scientists, guys who are supposed to be smart, are ACTUALLY smart. DOCTOR Reed Richards is saying and doing smart things. Peter Parker, boy nerdo, is using his brain a little. And in this one, DOCTOR Bruce Banner is using his brain beyond trying to live in the slums of India and not turn into the Hulk. I love that, by the way. You know where I'm least likely to become agitated? Oh, probably the worst slums on the planet, a place where Mr. Rogers would probably end up tearing off the arms of a blind peasant and using them to beat another guy to death.
But they're starting to do some science-y stuff. Cool stuff.
I think this might be the positive effect of the Iron Man movies. I'm not certain, but that was kind of an early version of a tech guy becoming very cool. Granted, I recognize that this is a complete fiction. If you're reading this, think of the very smartest person you know. If you told me that the person you're thinking of is very smart, personally known to you, rich and attractive, even remotely as rich and attractive as Iron Man (or Robert Downey Jr.) I would first call you a liar, then once you'd proven to me sufficiently that such a person exists I would have nothing but questions about why you haven't abandoned all other life goals in pursuit of this person. Oh, that's the richest, smartest, most charismatic person I've ever met. I married this guy because we both enjoy badminton.
The whole nerd chic thing is kind of interesting. Because the key quality of being a nerd is being uncool. So when it becomes cool, how does it maintain any sort of...anything?
The truth, I'm afraid, is that there is nerd and then there is nerd.
Let's take an older trend. When I was a young man, full of ideas about philosophy while also beating off about 8 times a day, one of the more popular trends was thrift store clothing. Nothing would be cooler than to wear a t-shirt purchased at a thrift store featuring the logo of a softball team that you'd never heard of, originating in a place you'd never been to, and designed by someone who had just that right amount of artsy idiocy where the mascot with a baseball for a head was drawn decently but with one hand backwards.
Second hand stuff was cool.
However, it was not stuff that was REALLY second hand. This coolness did not extend to salmon/teal windbreakers, and it also did not extend to a nice sweater that nobody would be able to identify as thrift store goods. You had to both get it at the thrift store AND it had to be obvious that this is what happened. Thrift store, the anti-label, became its own sort of label.
I blame the fashion industry. I blame the fashion industry for a lot of things, but the fashion industry is the only cultural force asinine enough to cause the sorts of things we've seen in terms of trends. Only fashion could cause us to look at the same black-framed glasses two ways:
1995: You are the biggest fucking idiot ever and must also be terribly poor.
2013: There is an entire category of pornography related to people wearing those very frames.
I kind of hate fashion for this. The problem is that you cannot live outside fashion. Even if you try to dress like an idiot, it will come around to where you are. If you purposely dress ten years out of style, the pictures looked at a decade later will prove you to be the only one who was right.
What I'm saying here is that the nerd trend is in, then it'll be out. Then, who knows? It'll piss me off, I know that, but what it'll be I can't say.
So, if I'm not going to enjoy the trend as a whole, I'm happy that I can at least enjoy some goddamn comics and what nerd chic is bringing to them. Look at me, Mr. Brightside.
But they're starting to do some science-y stuff. Cool stuff.
I think this might be the positive effect of the Iron Man movies. I'm not certain, but that was kind of an early version of a tech guy becoming very cool. Granted, I recognize that this is a complete fiction. If you're reading this, think of the very smartest person you know. If you told me that the person you're thinking of is very smart, personally known to you, rich and attractive, even remotely as rich and attractive as Iron Man (or Robert Downey Jr.) I would first call you a liar, then once you'd proven to me sufficiently that such a person exists I would have nothing but questions about why you haven't abandoned all other life goals in pursuit of this person. Oh, that's the richest, smartest, most charismatic person I've ever met. I married this guy because we both enjoy badminton.
The whole nerd chic thing is kind of interesting. Because the key quality of being a nerd is being uncool. So when it becomes cool, how does it maintain any sort of...anything?
The truth, I'm afraid, is that there is nerd and then there is nerd.
Let's take an older trend. When I was a young man, full of ideas about philosophy while also beating off about 8 times a day, one of the more popular trends was thrift store clothing. Nothing would be cooler than to wear a t-shirt purchased at a thrift store featuring the logo of a softball team that you'd never heard of, originating in a place you'd never been to, and designed by someone who had just that right amount of artsy idiocy where the mascot with a baseball for a head was drawn decently but with one hand backwards.
Second hand stuff was cool.
However, it was not stuff that was REALLY second hand. This coolness did not extend to salmon/teal windbreakers, and it also did not extend to a nice sweater that nobody would be able to identify as thrift store goods. You had to both get it at the thrift store AND it had to be obvious that this is what happened. Thrift store, the anti-label, became its own sort of label.
I blame the fashion industry. I blame the fashion industry for a lot of things, but the fashion industry is the only cultural force asinine enough to cause the sorts of things we've seen in terms of trends. Only fashion could cause us to look at the same black-framed glasses two ways:
1995: You are the biggest fucking idiot ever and must also be terribly poor.
2013: There is an entire category of pornography related to people wearing those very frames.
I kind of hate fashion for this. The problem is that you cannot live outside fashion. Even if you try to dress like an idiot, it will come around to where you are. If you purposely dress ten years out of style, the pictures looked at a decade later will prove you to be the only one who was right.
What I'm saying here is that the nerd trend is in, then it'll be out. Then, who knows? It'll piss me off, I know that, but what it'll be I can't say.
So, if I'm not going to enjoy the trend as a whole, I'm happy that I can at least enjoy some goddamn comics and what nerd chic is bringing to them. Look at me, Mr. Brightside.