Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett talks about the Inhumans trailer, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and the effort to get his broken arm treated.

Last week I wrote how I “sprained” my arm (see “Confession of a Comic Book Guy -Heart, Humor, Hope, Heroics, and Optimism”).  Well, by the next day the pain had gotten so bad after work I went to a nearby Urgent Care and had it X-Rayed, which is how I learned I’d been walking around with an “unspecified fracture of the left radius” of my elbow for the last ten days.  That’s right; I wrote last week’s column with a broken arm.

I was told it “most likely” would heal on its own, but I should have that diagnosis confirmed by a specialist.  It took days to get an appointment with someone who took my insurance and maybe it was all in my head, but knowing I wouldn’t be feeling any better tomorrow made the pain exponentially worse.  So, by the time I got to my appointment with the Orthopod it was just barely tolerable.  When they finally called my name in the outer office without thinking I put my portfolio of paperwork under my injured arm.  Seeing this the nurse-practitioner cheerily said the absolute worst thing she possibly could; “Boy, you must not be in that much pain!”

I had brought along a copy of the X-Rays taken at Urgent Care but the specialist apparently needed Glamor Shots of the break, and to get them, the RN repeatedly manipulated my injured arm like she was making balloon animals.  All the while cooing “I don’t mean to hurt you”, Not to brag, but I have pretty high pain threshold; without prompting the doctor at Urgent Care told me “I don’t know how you stood that kind of pain for so long”.  But by the time she was done, I was weeping copiously.

After all that, all I had to show for it was confirmation of the original diagnosis and a script for some super fun pain pills which, along with making me quite comfortable also nicely squelched all my excess stress and anxiety.  The sensation was akin to, on a extremely hot, humid day someone turned the A/C on in my brain.

The first teaser trailer for Marvel’s Inhumans dropped last week (see “'Marvel's Inhumans' IMAX Trailer”), to mostly mixed online reaction.  Which really didn’t surprise me, because in spite of all of the publisher’s recent efforts to make it otherwise, the Royal Family of Attilan has never been what you’d exactly call fan-favorites.  Especially in decades past when Marvel was strictly adhering to their mission statement mantra; “superheroes with problems.”  With the exception of occasionally getting themselves locked out of their Hidden City or struggling with a family member’s serious mental health issues* The Inhumans really didn’t have “problems” as such.  And other than their colorful costumes, those arrogant aristocratic aliens didn’t have a lot in common with “superheroes.”

Even with all of that being a given, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Inhumans turned out to be Marvel’s first genuine hit show.  Because large global audiences can’t seem to ever get enough of sexy prime-time soap operas about powerful people struggling for control of family dynasties, whether it’s Game of Thrones or, well, Dynasty.  The only real difference between those shows and Inhumans is these people are literally powerful.

However, everyone online seems to be in agreement about one thing in the trailer, or as the subtitle of the ICv2 article put it, “Lockjaw Steals the Show.”  He’s only seen briefly so it’s hard to tell just how the CGI character will look interacting with actual human beings.  So far I’m satisfied with him, though I do miss the tuning fork thingie on his forehead, (which in this iteration has been reduced to a white marking). That’s a minor quibble; I prefer to treasure the fact a giant teleporting dog has (somehow) made it onto a primetime network television show - especially one where the producers clearly thought the character costumes from the comics were too “silly.”

I have a friend who wanted to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 before it left theaters and I happily agreed to see it a second time.  As I watched it again, it struck me that as much as I’ve enjoyed the last decade or so of Guardians comics (especially the very recent mini-series, Guardians of the Galaxy: Mother Entropy by Jim Starlin, Alan Davis and Mark Farmer), I liked the movie versions better.  The cinematic Guardians are very much a family while comic book versions really are just a bunch of assholes constantly yelling at each other.

*I speak of course, of Black Bolt’s brother Maximus, who self-identifies as “mad,” who has always struck me as the Marvel Comics equivalent of the passive “bad because he is” villain Don John the Bastard from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.  The Inhumans have never been exactly shy about letting us know how superior they think they are to us mere humans, yet their supposedly advanced society appears incapable of dealing with someone with a mental illness.  Clearly we still a long way to go when it comes to treating the mentally ill, it sure seems as if Maximus could benefit from a psychiatric assessment.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.