You know how most people can trace significant life changes back to a single, surprisingly epiphanic incident?
This is what happened to me when I discovered all the marvels of actual geekery. Which just so happened to be when I experienced Iron Man 2.
The thing is, I’d never really been into comic books when I was a kid.
Actually (and please don’t take this as blasphemy), I’m not entirely certain about whether I even knew they existed. I knew the neighbour kids liked Spiderman, and I knew the timeless parody of the Spiderman theme song by Moxy Früvous, but that’s all I got.
Then I got to university, and things got interesting.
Sidebar:Â University was full of shall we say “learning curves” for me. This just happened to be one of them.
My first year at school was coincidentally the same year Iron Man 2 came out. I was nearly entirely unfamiliar with the premise; my only experience at that point had been when my high school Physics teacher decided to use a scene from the first movie just to tear it apart for being unrealistic.
I was understandably ambivalent about going to see it, but eventually my friends talked me into it.
They knew what they were doing.
By the time I left the theatre, I was utterly in love and half-heartedly reconsidering my decision to study arts, which would certainly not help me build my very own Mark IV (I wouldn’t discover cosplay for another few years).
Now, because I hadn’t seen the first movie, I was left with oh-so-many questions. What was with the fancy suit? Who was the fast-talking smartass who needed to solve a puzzle handed to him by a more-displeased-than-usual Samuel L. Jackson, just so he could survive? And would Mickey Rourke ever get his bird?
I had some catching up to do.
Backtracking to the first movie
Obviously, watching the first movie did not solve all of my conundrums.
I would never learn whether that was the right cockatoo. But I did learn much more about Iron Man, and I was even more in love.
Perfect recipe for the making of a geek, right?
