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Remember those childhood days, years ago, when you picked up the latest issue of your favourite comic book and wondered what it would be like if it was real?

How would the sparks fly as Wolverine would clawed himself through the endless herds of Magneto's sentinels?

Would you notice Kitty Pryde as she disappeared into the molecules of the nearest wall or solid object?

Could you smell the fear as Batman descended like a ninja from the rafters on a gang of unsuspecting hoodlums?

And was Frank Castle (The Punisher) the merciless, criminal slaughtering vigilante that we imagined him to be?

Well nowadays it isn't so hard to imagine thanks to the plethora of comic book movies now on offer. The thing is, as great as a lot of these movies are, they don't have the same wow factor that they would have had on us when were kids.

To be a kid watching these movies must be an awesome experience, or is it? I overheard a few kids on the bus home the other night debating about Spider-Man 3, the Incredible Hulk, Batman and Iron Man.

What they said here was quite shocking. So I thought I would share it with you all.

"Tony Stark would beat the Hulk if they got down and dirty in Gotham" the lanky one says, brushing his overgrown, aardvark like beard out of his face.

"Yeah but Goku would totally p'own both their punk behinds," responds the seedy, short one, his smile wide.

"Aye man, but Batman would give them the Joker fear!" hollers the plump one.

The seedy one slants his baseball cap to the side, as his black fringe falls like a musty, old curtain and drapes over his left eye.

He opens his mouth and as if in slow-motion, he says something that will forever change the way I look at the younger of our generation.

"Have you ever wondered why Batman was always the stronger of the X-Men and the best leader of the New Avengers.... but comic books suck, I mean the only difference between Superman and Dennis the Menace is a red cape, baldy bad-guy and some super powers...."

The rest I didn't hear. I wanted to jump in to their debate, but my stop was coming up and I didn't want to be labelled the weird 22-year-old who corrects young, would-be comic book fans.

To the more hardcore, veteran fans the above would be sacrilege.

However there has been a shift in generations and how we look at comics. The older fan looks now, more than ever, to his comic collection as a sanctuary from fear of Hollywood demand dumbing down overly complicated plots and origins.

Whereas the younger fans look for the traditional good versus evil, with the occasional team-up with two of their favourite heroes.

You could argue that a lot of this younger generation are animation fans who became interested in comics after watching the cartoon-adaptation. This is by no means a bad thing, in fact, Batman: TAS was the reason that I got into comics, but these cartoon adaptations have to be simple and nowhere near as complicated as their comic book counterparts.

Perhaps, what we're beginning to see is a shift in generations and the new emergence of a comic book fan.

Something a little new age.

A fan who can appreciate all aspects of a modern, successful comic: the core comic, the animation, the video game, the merchandise and the Hollywood movie.

Maybe, just maybe, these kids will lead us forth into a new age of multi-medium appreciation where no comic book fan complains about adaptations or the watering down of a franchise.

And who knows, maybe even pigs will fly.