After looking for my favorite Hulk Smash video earlier today—I watch it for catharsis when I’m really, REALLY mad—I got to wondering how many Marvel movies there have been. Turns out there are 40 so far. FORTY. So I might watch one a week for the next however many weeks, for the heck of it. I’ve seen about ten of them, all about Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Spiderman, or The Avengers, but I’ve never seen Ant Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc. It could be a goal for 2023. I’m going to watch them in story order, not release date order (i.e, Captain America: The First Avenger first, not Iron Man), as I want to move along the timeline of their universe, not Hollywood.

Iron Man is my favorite. I love Tony Stark’s snark. Captain America reminds me too much of my ex-husband, but blond. Same hairstyle, jawline, and profile. Iron Man’s attitude reminds me a little of an ex-boyfriend, too. Hmm, two strikes. Maybe the next one will be Thor.

I don’t know why I fell out of watching them. My tastes run toward horror and art-house/indie films, but I always got a kick out of superhero movies. It springs from watching Flash Gordon as a kid—the black-and-white ones from the mid-1950s with Steve Holland that ran on PBS on Friday nights in the 1970s. I used to watch them with my father, who was a Flash Gordon fan going back to the 1930s and Buster Crabbe. Maybe I’ll see if I can find all of those to watch, too.

Hey, the D.C. area is supposed to get a fair amount of snow this winter. Gotta have something to go with the cocoa.