For Mark

This afternoon when I was checking my email I saw a message that grabbed my attention. It was a facebook message from the sister of my friend Mark. The message didn't say too much, just that she wanted me to call her as soon as possible. The subject to the message was simple: Mark.

It took me very little time to decide to call. I thought maybe he was in trouble and needed some help. Maybe some emergency came up. Any number of things ran through my mind, but since this message was from his sister, it just felt a bit different. A bit off.

I called her and through her tears she somehow managed to let me know that my friend Mark somehow died this morning. I'll admit, it felt like the darkest, cruelest joke I could possibly imagine someone doing to another, but from her tears I could tell it wasn't a joke. Life doesn't work like that.

From what I could gather they said it might have been a heart attack that took my friend. That's still hard to believe because out of all of my friends he was in the most physical shape. He'd run, work out, he was active. His job made him stay physical. It just didn't seem right, like it didn't fit into the overall puzzle of what could take my friend away. But that's probably the worst part about things like this. The people who are left behind try to make due with the pieces and are forced to make sense of something that doesn't make sense at all.

I'm still very numb to what happened, so it's hard to even get my head around the news. All I know is, if you didn't know my friend Mark, you were missing out.

A few years ago I started a part-time job at a local comic shop in Camp Hill, Comix Connection. It was a thrill to be working there with things that I love, characters I grew up caring for, and in such a different environment to the daily deadlines of the magazine. I was getting paid to geek out, which was something I would do for free, really.

At that point in my life, I didn't really have a social life. I didn't have many friends, just one loyal Wookie who liked to hang out whenever I asked him to. Working at the shop changed all of that. One of the first people I met was Mark. He would drop in from time to time and talk with me and anyone else I was working with about comics and his various takes on things. One day he stopped in and was throwing an idea at me that intrigued me about telling the story of the Fantastic Four who were children of the Cold War, if I remember right. After that I was looking forward to him dropping by so I could talk shop with him. He started stopping by more and more and after a while we started kicking ideas around. He'd always make me have to bring my A-game to the table any time we'd discuss ideas. I remember thinking that if I could be friends with this guy, I'd be amazed and fortunate.

Turns out that's what happened. Mark along with Jeremy (the Wookie), Matt and Kevin all started hanging out with me giving me something I didn't have for a long time: a good group of friends to geek out with. Wednesday nights after the comic shop closed we'd all meet up at Applebee's across the way and talk about any and all geek topics that could possibly come up. After a while Mark and I would stand outside until the wee hours of the morning talking about our comic book ideas. He and I even created a universe that we called Ultimate DC, which is a saga I hold near and dear to my heart because of the way we bounced ideas back and forth, distilling the characters from DC comics that we loved to their essence to recreate them in a new way that thrilled us.

Without Mark, I wouldn't be able to tell people of the awesomeness that is Ultimate Batman (think Darth Vader in Gotham City) to Ultimate Superman (which Mark kicked off the project with, throwing at me how Superman's ability to absorb sunlight could be looked at as a bit of an analog for a diabetic's problems) to Ultimate Green Arrow. We couldn't talk about this project without a gleam in our eyes and enthusiasm, hoping that anyone we told it to would share even half of our excitement when we'd tell them about Doomsday verses Batman or the 24 hours of constant death and destruction that WOULD be Doomsday on Metropolis. And don't get me started about the death of Superman. Yes, we tried as hard as we could to make him stay dead until we discovered a way we could bring him back and then resigned ourselves to it.

Mark also was the first person I wanted to share my idea of a superhero story that's based on all of my friends. As geeks, each of us got a nickname that would define who we were to each other, just because it amused us. My friend Kevin loves Batman, so he became Bruce to the group. My friend Matt is a big Green Lantern fan, so we affectionately called him Hal. Mark became Clark, nicknamed after the Man of Steel himself. All five of us loved to joke that we were the JLA and after a while I asked myself "what if we really could be heroes and have powers?" I threw the basic idea at Mark, wincing to see what he thought. Instead of a shrug or a "eh" it was met with excitement on the same level of the Ultimate DC idea. For the last few years I've struggled with a way to make that idea come to life somehow, but I am thankful every time I sit and think about it that he willingly kicked around ideas with me to make the story have heart and soul while also giving it a humor that only he could provide.

I know Mark meant a lot to everyone in our group, as well as people who didn't get to hang out with us every week. Still, if you knew him, you knew he was funny, incredibly witty, extremely humble, incredibly creative and talented, as well as someone who made you hope to earn his respect and his friendship. I've used this quote before many times, "the key to immortality is living a life worth remembering". Through the things that Mark helped create and the various universes that he breathed life into, there is no way he can truly die in my mind. For someone who only lived 25 years of life, he managed to create so much more life through the characters that he loved. I am honored to have known him and called him my friend. I also hope I can do him justice if I ever find a way to bring my idea to life and let others see him for the friend he was.

There's so much more I wish I could say, but it's still too close for me to say it all. Something I'll remember about him most is he'd say "family is a choice." He used that phrase when we'd talk about Ultimate DC, but he'd also use it to describe how he viewed his friends and the people that meant a lot to him in life. I can honestly say today I did lose a brother and I feel there's a huge hole left behind. I'll miss you, buddy.