Thread by @RobertSecundus

there are three kinds of people who read superhero comics, and normal people only know about the first two: 1. the guy who just likes superhero stories, thinks the genre is fun, & 2. the guy who just likes reading stuff he read as a kid, finds the genre nostalgic. But the third--

The third is so wild. The third is someone who, if you're being generous, reads these stories because they have developed complex internal Lore about a fictional character (either/ both about the character's Power Levels and Personality) and needs to have that Lore validated.

They have decided to devote themselves to a character like one would a god, a band, or a sports team. They cheer for the character to triumph over other inferior characters, either through their power or virtue.

These readers tend to have an extremely bad time reading comics, because comics tell stories, and stories require tension, narrative movement, etc etc. Sometimes the protagonist cannot instantly defeat everyone, overcome every obstacle.

Sometimes the protagonist needs to be something other than saintly.

In these cases, the Third Reader becomes enraged.

How dare someone write Blorpa Megapunch losing a fight to The Entangler, they shout. Blorpa Megapunch handily defeated Cosmo Dickhands, and Cosmo Dickhands is half Proto-Elder, and the Proto-Elders control the fundamental forces of the universe!

How dare Blorpa Megapunch blow off her friend Kelsey, when Blorpa Megapunch has been in stressful situations before without harming her relationships. This is Character Assassination

Lore is not the only stated cause for outrage here; typically, a moral weight has to be given to the outrage. Blorpa Megapunch is not powerful enough to instantly defeat the Entangler because of Misogyny.

When Blorpa Megapunch doesn't text her friend back right away it's because the story is perpetuating a harmful stereotype about women and neurodivergent people being incapable of thinking of others during times of stress

and so on and so forth

As, again, the nature of storytelling itself necessitates the situations that outrage these people, the generous interpretation of them is a bit unlikely. More likely is that the outrage is the point; they enjoy being outraged about fictional characters & enjoy yelling at writers

For the Third Reader, the point of reading superhero comics is to find material for your next tweet/ email/ harassment campaign (all three of which are, of course, Activism).

There are haters in every genre, and there are people whose hobby is being a hater in every kind of modern Fandom, but I think this specific flavor is really unique to superhero comics, because of the unique opportunity it provides this kind of person.

You get to build your identity and your hobby around two people: a Good Person (the fictional superhero that lives in your head) and a rotating Bad Person (the real human being who is currently writing, drawing, and/ or editing the fictional character).

a subset of the Third Reader is devoted not to a character but to a relationship between characters, and adds to all of the above a bizarre psychosexual component where, if the characters are not in the Right Relationship, they must post endlessly about the writer's sexuality

this sounds fake, but a significant number of spider-man fans on this website enjoy the character primarily by getting extremely mad at spider-man's ex's boyfriend and ranting about how the writer must have a cuckold fetish every time a new issue comes out

there's this one guy who was infamous when I first started writing about comics, who would termsearch any mention of X-Men character Kitty Pryde and scream at anyone who wrote her as bi, pointed out that Claremont wrote her as bi, or expressed a wish for a bi Kitty story

this was not, iirc, because he hated bisexual people. He just wanted kitty pryde to end up with a specific man. (colossus? I think?)

he had a whole list of characters he would do this for; Ms. Marvel, a set of disney shows. he was always posting about one of three things:

1. how awesome joseph robinette biden was
2. how anyone who had a different opinion about romantic relationships between fictional disney characters was ontological Evil
3. how he really wanted to email this woman he was in love with but hadn't spoken to in a decade

and that kind of broke the type of guy open for me; it wasn't just miserable people who enjoyed becoming outraged at Power Levels and Incorrect Romantic Plotlines. It was profoundly lonely, miserable people.

lonely, miserable people can join all kinds of Outrage/Hate Focused Fandoms. But only in comics is the work produced by a small number of people, people who are not celebrities, who are not powerful, who are forced to be on social media and engage with fans to make a living.

Only comics lets these people easily connect with another human being-- by lashing out at them, by making their lives a little bit more miserable too. But this is a connection nonetheless.

@NetherBi Really, the 80s run is the best, but it's hard to find and remains uncollected due to rights problems (supporting character Truckman was a licensed toy character), and the 00s miniseries is great, but it's extremely weird, and no one ever followed up on Morrison's ideas there

Alright, a couple of addendums now that this has gotten some eyes:
1. The moral component isn't purely a progressive one; regardless of politics, you'll see the Third Reader try to give this stuff moral weight. Lots of CGers act like this.

2. I am not a "let people enjoy things" person. It's fine to not like something. It's fine to criticize something. I have written negative articles about comics. The thing I'm critiquing here is reading comics *specifically* to find material to *yell at someone* about.

@Muaadib @BlossomLithium @93418 i'm sorry man. god, people suck

alright. plug time. Occasionally I write for @comicsxf. you can also buy me a coffee if you enjoyed reading about the adventures of blorpa megapunch here: ko-fi.com/robertsecundus

@ComicsXF thanks man, useful for folks reading along to see a prime example of what i'm talking about pop up in the replies

(and also, the feeling is, obviously, mutual lol)

https://x.com/HeavensCheez/status/1832173886428922088

here you can see further evidence of the above, that the weirdos are fundamentally lonely people. This guy doesn't know anyone that stayed friendly with an ex or befriended an ex's partner. Amicable breakups happen sometimes, man.

If you have friends who have dated within a friendgroup, you probably have friends who maintained friendly relationships with an ex, and who do things like sometimes hang out with an ex and/or an ex's partner.

Jumping to the cuckold fetish thing is replacing extremely normal human interactions with porn brain