Things I do not do, a partial list:

1) Kick puppies, whether they deserve it or not.
2) Drive on the left side of the road.
3) Keep track of modern Marvel comics. (Well, or particularly the old ones, for that matter.)
4) Mine for diamonds in Siberia.

None of which would be relevant except that a co-worker happened to hand me a collection of Black Panther comics from last year in which the eponymous character goes off in search of a wife to be the queen of his kingdom in Africa. Despite hints of a super-powered bachelorette auction on the cover, apparently the Black Panther has had someone in mind the whole time: Storm, that one chick in the X-Men who controls the weather. (Apparently, she’s also their leader now? Not a big surprise that she might be without me knowing, since the most recent X-Men comic I’ve read was from 1968, well before the whole universe was reset a few years back. Hmmm. Maybe I do keep track of modern Marvel comics? Except, really, I don’t. I know people who feel obligated to keep me up, though. I’m not really sure why or anything, but I don’t mind.)

Anyway, it’s a pretty soap opera story. First they have the thing where they decide if they even like each other (apparently they have history that predates their herodom), then they have the shopping and parties and make-outs, then there’s a wedding. It all seems like an excuse to draw pictures of pretty people doing wedding things while random villains posture ridiculously and the Civil War storyline bubbles over from time to time. (Apparently, there’s a civil war between the superheroes, where some of them think they should all be registered with the US government for public safety and some of think they have a right to privacy. I guess Captain America got killed over it? Seems very involved.)

Things I have learned: comics are better when not taken in the middle, as it is easier to have an investment in the characters; super-villain-y declarations of their dramatic name and why they are not to be taken lightly because they’re so evil and effective worked a whole lot better in the 60s where it seems campy than today, where it just seems like they’re literally brain-damaged; that civil war storyline might be interesting, except that modern (and let’s be honest, historical) superhero comics are so convoluted and intertwined and downright incestuous that nobody could ever start at any arbitrarily defined ‘now’ moment and have a hope of catching up; and female superheros with average-sized breasts do not occur in nature. Well, okay, I already knew that last thing.