This featured article is usually written about hidden treasures from comic book days past, and I was all prepared for a long-winded reflection on one of my fondest memories of comic book nerd-dom, the shlocky melodrama that was Atari Force. But, I find it to be true that memory is entirely flawed and subjective.

I went so far as to actually do some extensive research on the entire Atari Force mythology, and found everything I needed to know-- without even having to shell out some ridiculous amount of money for a series that barely qualifies as “collectible” to a diabolical comic book shopkeep, mind you-- on the only fansite I google up. Funny, it had actually been updated as recently as 2005-- that’s hardcore fanboy, guys.

Anyway, in the course of reading over the extensive, convoluted history of Atari Force, I was reminded of exactly what put me off of comics in the first place-- they just don’t pay off in the end, because there is no end. Atari Force, according to the timeline this guy gave, never technically ended-- it was never resolved. In fact, Atari Force could very well be where the downhill slide started for me, but I don’t feel like giving the book that much credit. I reminisced about how much I loved reading each new exciting chapter and seeing the on-going dilemmas of Pakrat, Tempest, Dart and Babe-- and, I would hate to forget loveable ol’ Hukka-- but then it all came flooding back as I read further and further down the page, delving into the messy melodrama trying to recapture the youthful excitement of fanboyness but instead finding the bottom of a very deep hole.

The abyss surrounded me and smothered the light of hope that I tried to rekindle beneath my Captain America t-shirt.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate comics. I hate that they never end, that they never really die. I’m tired of getting excited about the newest creative team working on a project that lived only in our childhood memories and that we didn’t think of again until Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, or Geoff Johns pulled them from the deepest caverns of our dusty comic boxes and wiped away the cobwebs from the mylar bags we’d so lovingly tucked them away in. No one ever did that with Atari Force but given that anyone could sort out the copyright mess surrounding the “Atari” name and convince Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning-- the only two guys I can see treating the property with enough respect to not make Pakrat and Hukka gay lovers-- to resurrect the long-dead ghosts of Martin Champion and The Dark Destroyer, I would still not be capable of that lost enthusiasm because of the inevitable anti-climax.

I know that the only thing that would be achieved is perhaps six or twelve issues of twisting plotlines and escalating character-driven drama that would be wiped out by another “hot” creative team coming along after the previous team is stolen away by the enticement of exclusive contracts and more prestigious projects, or worse yet, the untimely demise that is cancellation. Nothing will be achieved but dangling plotlines and shattered hopes.

So, that’s why I don’t read most comics anymore. Because I don’t have the inexhaustible patience and devotion of a true fanboy like my friend, Paul. Until someone does the impossible and kills Superman so that he stays dead or Batman hands the cowl over to a worthy heir, I will continue to just glance over at the comic stand as I pass to the fiction section of the store and hope that that little boy reading his first X-Men has more enthusiasm than I did-- and that the man in the Flash t-shirt next to him has more patience than a saint.