Antic-i-pa-tion

My favourite student has posted a (hopefully) slightly tongue-in-cheek account of having her enjoyment of one good thing tainted by the prospect of something even better, coming down the pike but currently unattainable. And of course I can never resist trotting out the Instant Gratification Generation mantra at times like this: I want it all, and I want it now! since it seems to sum up that perspective so perfectly.

But really, is anticipation (or delayed gratification) becoming a thing of the past? Or even just an unhappy occurence, rather than a source of excitement? After all, regardless of your age, who doesn't love the time right before Christmas when you're wondering what you'll get this year, or how that special gift you wrapped for that special someone is going to go over once they open it? Isn't that the same thing? Sure, it may only be days or weeks that you have to wait at Christmas, compared to months or years for some other thrills that just won't come quickly enough, but that's just a matter of scale.

I started thinking about past highlights of anticipation in my own life, that still resonate with me years afterwards. For me, there's a clear cut winner in this category, despite lots of great runners up:

Superman Vs Spider-Man: If I live to be 100, I'll never again experience the unbridled eagerness I felt for this comic. It started approximately half a second after I saw the first full-page ad for it (and simultaneously learned of its existence) and lasted several months, until sometime after I read it for the third or fourth time in a row. At no point during that long wait did I wish it would come sooner, because I wanted to enjoy every second leading up to it!

I had dreams about that comic, including one incredibly scary one in which it turned out that the comic was really just Superman and Spidey each introducing reprints of solo tales of theirs. In other words, they didn't really meet in any true sense, but rather just shilled old stories I already owned. I woke up from that dream (nightmare, really) and had to convince myself that there was no way DC or Marvel would pull off crap like that and call it Superman Vs Spider-Man! I mean, c'mon, the cover proclaimed it as The Battle of the Century and The Greatest Superhero Team-Up Of All Time! They couldn't really claim either of those, let alone both, if it was just reprints, right? Right??

And unlike some other much-anticipated events, this one absolutely lived up to the expectations of my 13 year old heart, and then some. Every big and little moment that a fan could ever reasonably hope for was found between those oversized covers, my friend! Both girlfriends were front and centre in the story, although I'm sure neither MJ nor Lois could've realized then that they'd later become spouses of the heroes. And for villains? Had to be Lex Luthor and Doc Ock, of course! Anyone else would've been second rate. So the only real concern left was: how the heck could wimpy ol' Spidey be fighting Super-freaking-man when their power levels were so disproportionate? Leave it to writer Gerry Conway to introduce a red sun radiation ray gun that Spidey gets unwittingly zapped with, such that Supes is weakened around him just enough to make for a fair fight.

And wasn't it just perfect that the story put forth the idea that both heroes had always operated on the same world, one in NYC and the other in Metropolis, and they'd just never bumped into each other before? Why yes, yes it was! It's sort of like when your best friend from school meets your close family friend for the first time: sure, at first they might fight a bit, maybe one punches the other through a building or two, but pretty soon they're chumming around like you always figured they would. Lex and Otto didn't stand a chance once the boys in blue and red put their misunderstandings behind them and teamed up.

Now, had pages from that giant comic been previewed on the Web for weeks before its publication, would I have enjoyed it as much? If some of the plot twists had been spoiled, would I have been almost quivering with excitement as I turned each new page? I say thee nay! (OK, that's more Thor than Superman or Spider-Man!) My point is: all I had to go on, for months, was that one shot of the cover, but that was all I needed. I didn't even know the exact release date initially.. just the month, as I recall. And I knew something very, very special was waiting for me down the road, and don't tell me that didn't get me through some crappy days at school, because it did! All that, over a $2 comic!

And so I say: delayed gratification will set you free... ;-)