Sep 26, 2014 3 min read

It was a great summer to be a comic book geek. It was a terrible summer to date a comic book geek.

While I love superhero movies, I sympathize with all of those men, women, boys and girls who were dragged to the cinema to see all of these spandex-clad characters saving the world (usually in the last 30 minutes).

From May until August, audiences got to cheer on Captain America, Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” was probably the film that was easiest on the uninitiated. It was fairly straightforward. World War II good guy with Rip Van Winkle syndrome who realizes Nazis still exist; they just rebranded themselves under the name Hydra. Like Iron Man, he has a black best friend, and he hangs out with a hot redhead.

“The Amazing Spider-Man II” was a little more complicated. First, you have to pretend like you didn’t see any of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies. It’s not like James Bond where they change the actor but all the other stuff from the other movies happened. You might be wondering what happened to Spidey’s hot redhead. He hasn’t met Mary Jane yet. Confused? Let’s skip over Spider-Man.

“X-Men: Days of Future Past” is so complicated even the title doesn’t make sense. It’s the past? It’s the future? Both! While every comic book aficionado got to see their favorite mutant hero on the big screen, trying to explain all of those characters was maddening. There was the big Russian dude who can turn his skin into metal. There was a lava guy, a really fast runner and a girl who could walk through walls, etc. If you can think up a superpower, chances are a member of the X-Men is already doing it. For some inexplicable reason, girl-who-could-walk-through-walls could also take Wolverine’s brain backward through time. At some point, you have to turn to your date and just say, “Just stare at Hugh Jackman till it’s over.”

The biggest blockbuster of them all was “Guardians of the Galaxy.” It was also undecipherable to the casual audience member.

Take note, Hollywood: It stuck closer to the source material than Spider-Man and did much better at the box office. But discussions about the movie were awkward. First, you had to explain there was a talking raccoon and a walking tree in the movie. A conversation went a little bit like this:

“The green girl is a bad guy?”

“No. She’s good.”

“Why’s she trying to kill Chris Pratt?”

“It’s complicated.”

“The blue girl is a bad guy?”

“Green good. Blue bad. Got it?”

“What about the big purple man with the wrinkly chin?”

“He’s the worst.”

“Yeah, but he’s been sitting in that space chair since the end of ‘The Avengers.’ Dr. Oz says, ‘Sitting is the new smoking.’ He needs a space yoga ball, or a standing work station of doom.”

“Probably.”

It might have been easier to leave your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband or whatever at home. A movie shouldn’t have to come with footnotes. These summer movies did answer one important question: Why are most comic book geeks single? Yeah. That’s an easy one.