Hmm...

After closer examination, I've decided that I like the Steve/Tony pairing more than I thought I did. In fact, I like it quite a lot.

But not as much as I like Hank/Jan. OTP! sigh...

 A confession:

I'm in love with Hank Pym.

Oh, I've had the feelings for a long time now. You know, like twelve, thirteen years, maybe?

There have been others, yes. Some loves, like Namor and Iron Man, have come and mostly gone, leaving behind nothing more than a special fondness that isn't quite love anymore. Others, like Quicksilver, the Hulk (okay, I'm lying, not so much Hulk as just plain old Bruce Banner), and (oddity of oddities) Loki, remain with me to this day. And, to be perfectly fair, I still sort of have a crush on the Wasp.

But nothing has proved as resilient and completely ridiculous as my love affair with Dr. Pym.

Now, I've been out of the loop for a bit. There was a time when I was buying thirty titles a month religiously, though in time that list got pared down to my all-time favorites: Avengers, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and any extras/one-shots/spin-offs thereof. Then, when I moved to Rowland, I didn't live anywhere near a comic book store. Seriously. This was waaaay out in the country, probably a couple of hours from the nearest place. I couldn't go every week. So I settled for getting my books late, and only for those they carried at the local bookstore -- and for a time, this was okay, because they pretty much carried what I wanted. I even got into Morrison's X-Men, when I hadn't actually read any X-books (except Peter David's X-Factor -- still an old favorite) in years and years.

But time, and Marvel, did me in. Cancel Thor? WHAT? Kill Hawkeye? NOO! Make the Scarlet Witch (also an old flame of mine) go crazy again? STOP IT.

All my favorite characters were pretty much homeless. Avengers was gone, Thor was gone. Iron Man ceased to interest me. I was left buying nothing but Fantastic Four and the new New Mutants series... but then all the reasons I was buying New Mutants were booted from the book and, well... I just sort of lost touch with the FF.

So what was a person who doesn't really care much for X-Books or Spiderman to read? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Now I'm sorry I didn't wait it out. Because I barely kept track of Civil War, and now that I live down the road from the store, the mania has hit me again, and I'm desperately trying to catch up on all the crap I missed. 'Cause you know what? There's been a hell of a lot of Pym action that I missed.

So I'm reading Civil War. I'm reading Beyond! I'm reading The Initiative. I'm scrambling for the first few issues of Mighty Avengers, mostly because Wasp is still... really hot. (And why does nobody have those issues that just freakin' came out like in the past few months?!)

And also, I'm indulging in the sudden torrent of Captain America/Iron Man slash that's hit the net in the wake of Civil War. Do I think either of them is gay? No. Do I think they'd ever, ever sleep together? No. But it sure is fun to read anyway!

I found all my old artwork the other day. Back when I spent tons of cash at conventions getting original artwork and convention sketches, I had like... ten bazillion sketches of Hank Pym. And I scored one from Mr. George Perez, who was nice enough to draw me a nice portrait of Hank with his cowl off so I could see every adorable line on his adorable (crazy) face. And I can't believe I had forgotten that I had this thing, because it's... well, it's gorgeous! I'll scan it in later, maybe.

So I just had to share my confession. Soon I'll probably post a big long analysis/rant/something about Hank, because I can't just squee happily about something -- it would ruin my reputation for bitchiness! Maybe I'll even put up a snippet or two of the (hopefully not godawful) Avengers fic I'm writing (because the world has too much X-Men fanfic and not nearly enough Avengers fic).

I love this icon. Look at him up there on my icon, in the rain, being cute.

You're crazy and I love you, Henry J. Pym. And anybody who starts the whole "wife-beater" argument with me on here is gonna lose.