I did not understand a lot of the Infinity Gauntlet when it showed up on the shelves of Temuka Stationery, one glorious day in 1991. I was 16 and a rabid Marvel Zombie, and I had no fucking idea what was going on in this thing.
There was obviously no internet and I only had access to a tiny handful of Marvel comics, and could only dream of getting my hands on any kind of comic news magazines, so I had nothing to go on. I had to get the execrable Marvel Year in Review magazines just to find out what the Living Laser was getting up to.
I certainly hadn't been keeping up with the Silver Surfer, after a brief dalliance with the Englehart/Rogers stories early in the run. I had no idea what Starlin was up, had never got my hands on a comic with Thanos in them (other than the official handbooks), and only knew about the Thanos Quest comic from a small mention in Marvel's bullpen pages.
But I fell in love with that first issue of the Gauntlet when I saw it. Who cares if I'd never seen Sersi outside of Jack Kirby's comics, her disappearance at the end of the issue, along with half the universe, felt like a big fucking deal. And the moody art from Perez was so full of portents, so full of doom, it instantly became my favourite comic in the whole world.
It took me years I get who all these characters were, I still have no true idea what the outbreak of insanity in the Catskills that Doctor Strange was talking about when he first shows up in the story. I've always thought it was a reference to, I dunno, Rom or some shit, but it must be talking about The Crazies, right?
It might be best to let the mystery be. I know what Sersi was doing at Avengers Mansion now, I can leave some questions unanswered.
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