During this week’s Dueling Review podcast, Stephen made the point that some (perhaps even most) of the Convergence titles are only interesting in terms of nostalgia, the good feelin’s of remembering the comics of earlier days. It’s a fair point and one that does make me think about which Convergence books I have liked and whether they correspond with the comic books I read in earlier days. (The answer is: There’s more than a little bit of correlation, yeah, with a few weird anomalies.) Some of my favorite bits of pop culture, such as the superlative DS9 ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’ episode, are fun in part because of their flashback factor. There’s a reason why Saturn Girl keeps ending up wearing her 70s pink dominatrix bikini, which leads us to today’s old school query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) has to admit to really enjoying the week’s ‘Batman And The Outsiders’ issue entirely based on retro good feelings, asking: Can you justify spending your time and money on a pop culture experience that’s based mostly (or ENTIRELY) on nostalgia?
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-CAN- I justify it? No. -DO- I do it anyway? Yeah, sometimes.
But to be fair, I’m pretty darn broke with all my medical bills. I usually don’t have much spare cash afterwards for anything non-essential, with most of my stuff being either gifts or payment for babysitting or something, so I’m not really the average collector/fan. But every once in a while, if I have a few bucks to spare, I might hold off on getting a book or figure or game I really want and instead get something because of the nostalgia factor. Even within franchises I currently enjoy, there are still nostalgia-based purchases (like Transformers Grimlock figure variants repainted to look like G1 Grimlock, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers items or Star Wars figures that look like the old 70’s/80’s toyline).
Obviously I can and I will, since my last major purchase was too expensive Sideshow Collectibles Escape From New York Snake Plissken action figure.
Well, yes. I think that pretty much describes the entirety of Star Trek The Next Generation…
I say no, based on that Atari 2600 and 80 games that I bought for $120 on ebay a few years ago, played with for 20 minutes, and has been sitting in my basement ever since. But, Nostalgia is a big money business, because my generation in particular sees a bleak future and would like to go back to the past.