Nostalgia as an older person?

I've recently had an interesting experience in my comic reading.  I read all the X-Men comics.  From the sales numbers, there seem to be about 35,000 of us out there who will read any additional title that says, "X-Men" on the cover.

Didn't they forget a few of these story lines?

So, of course, I've been reading Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender and (sometimes) Jerome Opena.  The comic is getting a TON of positive press from the blogosphere.  "Best comic being published by Marvel right now" is a common refrain.  And that puts me in a funny position because I think it's okay, but I hardly think it's the best thing being published by Marvel (that would be Amazing Spider-Man).

However, I've noticed that the guys who LOVE X-Force are all a little younger than me.  They were reading comics when the original Age of Apocalypse when it came out in 1995.  I wasn't reading comics at the time.  I was mostly into using my new legal drinking status to buy drinks for for attractive young ladies.  Since I "returned to comics" a few years back, I've read AoA and I think it's a fine X-story, but reading a old story as a grown-ass man is different because AoA will never be connected to some of those wonderful memories that we all have from our teenage years.

Aww yeah!

That's not to say that I'm immune to nostalgia.  Sticking with X-Men theme, my very first comic off the rack was Uncanny X-Men #162, so I have a tremendous soft spot for The Brood or the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or other early/mid 1980's stories like Secret Wars and Spidey's black costume (before it turned into Venom).  Put any of those things in a comic book and I'm likely to start calling it "the best thing published by Marvel".  That's just how nostalgia works.

This has made me a little concerned about my enjoyment of superhero comics going forward because they're mostly written by guys who are younger than me.  What if they ALL begin to be rooted in mid-90's nostalgia?  Will there be anything left for me to enjoy in the superhero world?  And, is that all that superhero comics are for us adults: nostalgia?  Or can they actually be intrinsically good?

But another part of me wonders if I'm still reading comics in 30 years, will I get the same nostalgia rush when future writers call back to some of the great stories of 2010.  What if there's some kid out there who is just LOVING Scott Snyder's Batman stories or Jonathan Hickman's SHIELD?  Will nostalgia still happen the same way when a future writer uses James Gordon, Jr. as I do now when I see a comic book that features the Brood?

I'm actually optimistic I still have the ability to form the basis for nostalgia.  It seems like nostalgia works best for things you enjoyed as a kid, but talk to your parents and grandparents and you'll find they have a LOT of things from their 30's and 40's to be nostalgia about.  It's just that those memories will be tied up in things related to my job or my family rather than crazy stuff I did with my friends when I was 16 (seriously...you have no idea).

Let's just hope that no kids dig up Fear Itself in the year 2035.  That'll suck.

- Dean Stell