A half-century wait is over

It wasn't so long ago, oh, right about 50 years ago, when I bought my first Avengers comic. I already had purchased the first Fantastic Four and the first Amazing Tales, in which a teen Spider-Man made his first appearance. I had learned to read from casting my eyes upon box scores in The Meridian Star newspaper, but I had learned to love to read by buying and reading comic books.

Now they're digital, I'm told. But then it was something to pick up the afternoon newspaper or go by Post Office Drug Store and buy or (if I was lucky and no one noticed) read the comic books right there in the store.

Iron Man. Thor. Ant Man. Wasp. The Incredible Hulk. The Thing (my favorite), the Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic. Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl, and then in No. 6 of the Avengers, Captain America.

Thursday night at midnight I will finally see Thor, Captain America, the Hulk, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Scarlett Witch go against Loki and his Army (I have an Army, Loki says. "We have a Hulk," Tony Stark, Iron Man, counters.

I will have come full circle. I will be staying up past 11 p.m. for the first time in memory and I will have waited 50 years to see the Avengers. Who knew I would live this long?