Ok, getting a rare breather in what is turning out to be one hell of a busy month, but going to try and bring you guys some serious fun...
What was your first comic? When did you get into it? What do you think your first comic says about you? Do you remember?
Now, for me, I remember getting exposure to comics early on, with some GI JOE and Alf comics (STFU, if you don't like Alf, then you and I can never, ever be friends, the end ). But the first comic I remember getting and reading and fully enjoying....
No, I'm not kidding - at age EIGHT, I picked up Claremont at his densest, most impentratable - at the penultimate chapter of a crossover story arc.Now, let's be clear, up until then, my ENTIRE EXPOSURE TO THE X-MEN consisted of:
-Their appearances on "Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends"
-The "Pryde of the X-Men" aborted Pilot Cartoon (yes, the one where Wolverine sounds Australian and the White Queen shoots lightning)
This means I went in not knowing about Madeline Pryor, THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA, where was Charles Xavier, why the hell Beast was Blue, or who the hellArchangel, Psyloke, Rogue, Havok, or Longshot were. Oh, and trying to figure out where Firestar was. (Remember, 8 years old). And yet, I kept up with it and slowly filled in the gaps (ah, thank you comic shop boom with your questionable back issue pricing schemes), and by 1991, I had it mostly figured out.
So...I have no idea what that says about me.
Your turn.
7 comments:
The first comic I can remember reading was one of the one's you just made a poster of: X-Men #1!
I was probably around the same age you were when you began, and it was my brother's comic, but I was drawn in by Jim Lee's artowrk. My favorite comics are still of that era, between that "relaunch" in '91 to the X-Cutioner's Song, but whether that's because of the quality of comic or nostalgia, I will never know.
Very cool
My first exposure to comics was some ARCHIE digests (one which involved Archie getting beat up on a beach!) My first exposure to MAINSTREAM comics, was during the X-Men's Australia period. I forgot the issue number, but it was the issue where Maddy Pryor got kidnapped and teleproted to Genosha (right before she became GOBLIN QUEEN). I loved the characters and the art, but thought the stories made no sense whatsoever.
However, I didn't become a fulltime reader until the Michelinie/McFarlane run in Amazing Spiderman. Those issues were FUN.
I got started on Archie, but my first Marvel comic was, oddly enough X-Factor, right near the start of Inferno.
Damn---I forgot one:
TRANSFORMERS (vol. 1) issue 3
SPIDERMAN vs. MEGATRON!'nuff said!
My introduction to superhero comics was through the localized (Hungarian) edition of Spider-Man around '97, at the age of 10. It was a classmate of mine who was buying it monthly, but we shared the enthusiasm for it (I had bought a handful of issues before that myself - I ended up giving them to him for his impressive collection...).
They printed mostly from the "Amazing" title, one chapter of a story from a couple of years back ('The Assassin Nation Plot', Blood Rose, Carnage, 'Invasion of the Spider-Slayers') and one from a "classic story" (the death of Gwen Stacy, Doc Ock marrying May Parker, the Jackal's manipulations) in each issue.
The story that had the biggest impact on me at that time was 'Kraven's Last Hunt'. Disturbing, impressive and poetic - and it illustrates why I got to like Spider-Man as much as I did. There was this wisecracking "lightweight" hero, pretty much the everyman of the Marvel supers. And then he got buried alive by a madman. And that was only the beginning... Yet, he managed to go through those traumatizing situations (including having to fight an enraged Vermin whom he couldn't defeat on his own before) without breaking down.
It was this inner strength, all the "No, I won't give up" moments at the brink of defeat that made the character work for me - I think this was always done very effectively with Spider-Man.
Outside the genre, though, I was buying 'Donald Duck Magazine' for a couple of years before (and during) my Spider-fandom. Admittedly, the gimmicky stuff included (stickers, water balloons, boomerangs, compasses) was an important factor in buying it, but I did, for some inexplicable reason, actually like the stories enough to subscribe to it...
Thundercats #1 (Marvel, 1985). I remember picking it up in a bookshop and asking my mum to buy it for me. I would have been about 6 years old. A little while after that I got into Firestorm: the Nuclear Man, who set me on the path to comic collecting.
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