You Never Forget Your First (Fictional) Crush(es)...

My taste in men has always been slightly weird.  While my first 'real world' crush was Jason Donovan on 'Neighbours' I was under no illusions it was ever going to go anywhere; Jason, after all, had Kylie, and four year old me had absolutely nothing on the pint-sized pop princess.  (Come to think of it, thirty-two year old me doesn't have anything on her either).  It didn't matter, however, because by then I had discovered my first Real Love and the pattern was set: my ideal man was going to be slightly 'odd' and I was going to be a Geek because said crushes tended to be in slightly geeky things.  It's a pattern that hasn't really changed...

My first crush, at the tender age of about three, was Troy Tempest from 'Stingray'.  (Anyone who dares to mention the fact my beloved Captain Tempest is a puppet whose head is bigger than his body will be summarily executed, got it?)  I loved Troy Tempest with all my heart, and I remember to this day being filled with irrational (to me, then, because I didn't really understand it) anger and hatred towards Marina in the show.  That bloody mermaid.  She didn't even speak, for God's sake!!!  I was firmly convinced Troy needed to get over the drippy mute and marry me instead; clearly I hadn't quite sussed the logistics of such a thing, but I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do.  Other men may have come along since then but Troy will always hold a special place in my heart...

Just look at that handsome face...those big blue eyes...the square jaw...I'm sorry, what?  Were we talking...?

Now Troy might have been a puppet but at least he was human(oid).  My second crush, far more long-lasting (and perhaps slightly disturbing) was...well, I don't really know.  Half man, half cat maybe?  But I was besotted with Lion-O from 'Thundercats' - I mean really, truly, properly besotted.  Which, now I see it there in black-and-white, makes me think I perhaps need some sort of intervention, but still.  It was Love.  My best friend James had the Sword of Omens (not the real one, obviously.  That would be weird...) and we would play 'Thundercats' all the time, running up and down the road yelling "Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats - HO!!" like some demented annoying vagabond imps.  James was never allowed to be Lion-O, though (although I was always Cheetara, which is hilarious considering I never run for anything) because there was only one Lion-O and James, bless him, clearly wasn't it.  I watched the show avidly, often with James, and it was by far the greatest thing we had ever seen.  Even though Mumm-Ra scared the shit out of us.  (Seriously.  What was up with that?  That bit in the opening credits where he comes out of the coffin and his bandages go flying - jesus).

Mmmm-mmm...

Lion-O was my number-one guy for a number of years.  I flirted briefly with Real Life Crushes (had my heart broken for the first time at the age of five by Gary Clements, then again at eight by my friend Christian), and there was also a fleeting girl-crush on She-Ra: Princess of Power (although I think that was more of an "oh-my-god-I-want-to-BE-her!!!" thing), but none of the fleeting "ooh" moments I had could ever hold a candle to my Lion-O.  Not 'Captain Planet'; not 'Bucky O'Hare'; not even the whole of the 'Defenders of the Earth' gang; none of them...until we hit the 1990's and the X-Men TV show came along, that is.

'X-Men' did three things for me.  First, it made me realise comic books were cool (a fact I stand by to this day) and I was rapidly hooked on the whole shebang; secondly, I discovered that while the boys were quite handy at fighting and beating the Bad Guys, the girls were too (I wanted to be Jubilee or Rogue, I could never quite make up my mind); thirdly, and most importantly however, it made me realise I am a sucker for a Cajun-accented mutant with magic cards...

From the moment Remy LeBeau/Gambit rocked up on screen, all flirty with a shop assistant in the first ever episode 'Night of the Sentinels', and then helping save Jubilee ("with style, petite.  With style...") I was completely and utterly entranced.  Not only did my Gambit-fixation feed into my comic book love and start me off on that adventure, there was just...something about him.  Every time he called someone "chère" I melted, and the whole "on-again-off-again" thing with Rogue used to make me go all squishy.  (Tried hating her.  Couldn't.  Wanted to be her instead).  I was convinced it was the real deal between me and Gambit; we had a standing date every Saturday and Sunday morning, come rain or shine, and he never let me down.  Ever.

Plus I totally just found this on the internet (that first ever episode) and I don't care what anyone says: it's still cool and I still love it.  It's why I was so bitterly disappointed with the way they portrayed Gambit in that shitty 'Wolverine' movie (whichever one it was): my Remy deserves better than that shoddy five minute wonder he was given, even if Taylor Kitsch did make him Real-World sexy...

Gambit sustained me for several years, in between the odd flirtation with musicians (Nicky Wire in a dress.  Fucking hell...yes please...) but then along came teenager-dom and a boy who proved that, actually, there was more to life than superheroes (apparently).  At the age of fifteen, none of the 'cool' boys in school were interested in me because I was 'weird' (their loss, if you ask me) but there was one 'cool' boy who made me see I was wasting my time on them anyway because he was clearly The One.  I refer, of course, to the one and only Mr Trent Lane.

Oh. My. God.  Trent was amazing.  Not only did he look good (earrings!!  Goatee!!  Everything in a boy guaranteed to make a parent flip out!!) he was in a band, and that was just about the most exciting thing in the world to me at fifteen.  Why Mystik Spiral weren't more of a success I have no idea...But in all seriousness, Trent was it for me.  Even though at fifteen I knew crushing on a cartoon character was probably weird, I didn't care.  (Hey, one of my friends at the time had a crush on one of the 'Biker Mice from Mars', so cut me some slack here, ok?  At least Trent was human...)  I loved 'Daria'anyway - so refreshing to have a female character who was smart and funny - but Trent absolutely made it for me...

Trent Lane was my last ever 'Cartoon Crush' however.  By that time I was moving on to other 'Real World' crushes - some were still fictional characters, to be sure, from films or TV shows (hello Spike from 'Buffy'), but they also included guys in bands and people I knew at school (who shall remain nameless to preserve the author's teenage innocence.  Ahem...) - and somehow a two-dimensional drawing just didn't cut it for me any more.  Which is probably a good thing, now that I think about it...

There was still the odd graphic novel crush to contend with (Ed Brubaker-era Captain America and the Winter Soldier, for example, or  the brilliant Alex Maleev's artwork for Brian Michael Bendis' 'Daredevil' run), and the occasional literary one (the Vampire Lestat [Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat/Queen of the Damned-era] could have bitten me any night of the week), but mostly I liked my boys three-dimensional and breathing by this point.

Obviously I still do like them three-dimensional and breathing, what with necrophilia being illegal and weird and just plain wrong, but writing this has made me think back to all the slightly-weird fictional crushes I've had over the years and provoked a fair old wave of nostalgia.  My first literary-crush, for example, was John Brooke in 'Little Women'; quite what that says about me I have no idea (I have a damsel-in-distress complex?  Daddy issues?  God knows...) and I was ever-so-slightly resentful when he finally married Meg (I mean she got her shoulders out in public!!  Hussy!!!)  Going from a Civil War hero to the Vampire Lestat probably says more about my precarious hold on sanity than it does anything else, and the less said about some of my other literary/TV/film crushes the better, but I look back fondly at Troy, Lion-O, Gambit and Trent and consider myself heartily satisfied...

Please excuse me, I have some shows to watch.  Now where's that sword gone...?  THUNDERCATS HO!!!