Gary Jackson's collection of poems entitled Missing You, Metropolis illustrates different events that take place in Jackson's life by integrating allusions to comic book storylines and characters. The stories told in the comic books are what we, the readers, regard as fantasy or make believe. However, Jackson contrasts this by including poems that reflect real life situations and emotions which are not usually present in the lives of superheroes. This contrast between real life and the perfectness of the comic book world is a prevalent theme throughout the book, especially when looking at the two poems "The Secret Art of Reading a Comic Book" and "When Loving a Man Becomes Too Hard." In reading these poems alongside one another, we are introduced to two different ways of seeing the real, human sadness that is secretly part of the comic book world. By expressing this, Jackson explains that no matter how happy we may be or how much we believe in our own fantasies and desires, we must be wary of them actually being successful, for no one person's life can truly be flawless; in the end, regular humans and super
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The shift in situation and tone ultimately drive the downfall of the fantasies described in both poems In "The Secret Art of Reading a Comic," the first three stanzas were all about a fantastic world of superheroes and hailing "the returning hero" (29). However, in the fourth stanza there is a clear shift to darker events including Bucky's death and even actual events occurring in the human world such as World War
The shift in situation and tone ultimately drive the downfall of the fantasies described in both poems In "The Secret Art of Reading a Comic," the first three stanzas were all about a fantastic world of superheroes and hailing "the returning hero" (29). However, in the fourth stanza there is a clear shift to darker events including Bucky's death and even actual events occurring in the human world such as World War