20181114.0430

I am late in noting the death of Marvel Comics' Stan Lee, I know. For me, news of the death came as a shock that I know ought not to have been one; the man was 95 years of age, so it was only a matter of time. But I had not been attending to concerns of fandom as I might once have had the time and resources to do, so even though the death makes sense, it was not something that was expected. At least for me--and my reaction is all I can speak to. That, and what it brings to mind for me as I move forward.
The thing is, I have not been much of a comics nerd. I have been aware of the major properties, of course, and I have enjoyed reading them from time to time, but even in my adolescence and youth, I was not as into comics as I was into, say, Star Trek or Star Wars. In college, of course, I was taken up with RPGs, fantasy novels, and the work that would lead me into graduate school and all of the glories and horrors thereto appertaining. Comics were more a background issue than a dominant one, but that background is an important one. Aside from being a common cultural touchstone for me and a fair number of the people I have known, comics--particularly Marvel's comics, which I have tended to enjoy more than DC's--were an embedded part of the world I once inhabited, and, even now, they do much to support the identity I have made for myself.
In effect, comics serve as a vital member of the chord over which my life's melody has been playing. With Lee's death, one player of that note has fallen silent. The chord is still being sounded, but there is a difference in timbre that I cannot ignore, a lack that I cannot replace. And I am forced to wonder which instrument will be the last to be silenced, though I do not look forward to knowing that answer. I have to wonder how the melody will play on, how the improvisations will be shaped, over the decreasing sounds of the underlying chords, how they will sound against the hollowing-out performances below them. I have to wonder, too, what will others do when, in time to come, my own strain is silenced.
I find my melody sounding in a minor key, arpeggiating on diminished chords. I do not mourn so much for Lee as much as for losing just a bit more of what had been, of being just that much further from a world in which I could believe myself safe, of having to turn the page on a story where, despite the world that is, a vision of a better one could be. I expect I shall weep many more such tears in times to come.