Comics and Cosmic Transportation

I'll admit, I am not exactly well-versed when it comes to comics.  In fact, the only comic I ever seriously read when I was a kid was Calvin and Hobbes, which I loved dearly.  However, I never really got that deep into stuff like Superman or Marvel, D.C., and the many heroes that encompass these worlds.  I've often wondered why comics never truly resonated with me like they did for so many other kids (and adults) but I never really found an answer.  However, McCloud brought up several key points that I feel simultaneously explain the popularity of comics to the world at large, and why they never really captured my attention, save for some specific examples.

While McCloud does an excellent job as describing what a comic is, he also succinctly highlights what makes them so appealing to people.  When humans are presented with a distinct face, we simply see that face and realize that it is another person; not us.  This is why we often find it hard to put ourselves in another individual's shoes - we know that we are us, not them. But illustrations, media, and comics serve as what McCloud calls on page 36, "an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm."  But how, exactly, do comics do this?  As McCloud would show through his illustration of the 'stick figure face' and more detailed faces, we can project ourselves onto a indistinguishable face and live the life of a superhero through a comic.  My major point is, comic characters are usually representations of what we aspire to be but they aren't so detached that we feel like we could never achieve the greatness experienced by comic characters.  I find it difficult to express how I feel about this, so please pardon my rough example: Popular superheroes like Batman, Iron Man and Spider Man live downright cool lives.  I mean, what's not to love about driving around the Batmobile or swinging between buildings in red tights?

The 'coolness' aspect of superheroes attracts people by default, but it's the fact that these characters all have something in common (especially in their earlier, pre-movie stages) that make them so likable: they have masks.  McCloud briefly touches on a topic similar to this, but I'd like to expand upon it.  We don't really see too many distinguishable characteristics about these heroes that would cause us to see them as "them," but rather we see vaguely human characteristics that allow us to imagine ourselves as Iron Man, Batman, or Spider Man.  In other words, when we read comics we don't really feel like we're a passive audience, but we feel like we're the hero.  Doesn't everyone want to be the hero that saves the day from the bad guy?  Comics give people a chance to live in a world they would otherwise not experience.  Superheroes, and their ambiguous identities that anyone can put themselves in, act as the vessel for us to fulfill our dreams of saving lives and being the good guy.

Citations: McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics:. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994. Print.