Comics: The One(s) That Hooked Me

[stevekenson]

(Borrowed from gmskarka)

Entertainment Weekly has a feature where comics pros talk about the first comic book that hooked them.

Mine were actually two: an issue of Action Comics and one of Fantastic Four that I bought at a 7-Eleven in Las Vegas one summer. My family had moved there and, while my parents were house hunting, we lived in the Ponderosa Motel on the edge of the city. Not much for a bored ten year-old to do except watch TV... and read comic books.

I don’t recall the issue numbers offhand, and a quick Google image search didn’t turn up the covers, but I still remember them well. The Action Comics story was about Vandal Savage changing history so he ruled the world and Superman worked for him (surprisingly similar in concept to the “Savage Time” story for the Justice League animated series). The Fantastic Four story was intended to wrap-up the Shogun Warriors series, with the FF fighting “the Samurai Destroyer,” a big Japanese robot, in Tokyo.

Those two were the start of my perusing convenience store shelves for months to come, eventually discovering things like comic specialty stores existed and doing extra chores to earn money so my Dad would drive me down to one to buy my semi-weekly comics. I’ve still got those original two, along with the probably thousands of others in the boxes in my basement.

Comments

[xomec.livejournal.com]

That would indeed be them!

[technocowboy.livejournal.com]

Uncanny X-Men #183. Err, I might have that wrong. I did a search online, and that's not the cover. I'll look when I get home....

[saxon-pagan.livejournal.com]

The first comic I turned on to was of the "illustrated classics" type, and related an abridged version of Shelley's Frankenstein. We were visiting friends of my parents in Cape Girardeau, so I was in a strange house, and the comic (which was completely uncomical) scared the crap out of me.

The heroic/action character I later grew to love was Batman. I'd go down to Kressge's (the chain that later became K-Mart) with my dime and buy the latest issue from a vending machine they had just inside the door. I'm really looking forward to the new Batman movie coming out this summer, because the Christian Bale interpretation of the Caped Crusader feels like a return to the original Batman, before the ears on his costume got big and he began to depend on batcomputers and other batcrap instead of his own smarts.

It doesn't hurt, either, that Christian Bale is sort of hot.

[saxon-pagan.livejournal.com]

>>before the ears on his costume got big<<

Ooops, I meant "got small". He used to have big pointy ears, but then for some reason the illustrators changed them into little nubs.

[mancerbear.livejournal.com]

Like you, it was two comics that hooked me. I was 15, and browsing through the magazines at the newagent around the corner from where I lived when I stumbled across an issue of the X-Men that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was the one where Storm is shown in the various stages of turning into a Brood. Amazing. I bought it straight away and devoured it, eagerly looking for more. That hooked me onto the X-Men.

The other comic was found at the local convenience store. It was a b&w copy of an Australian compilation of the Teen Titans by Federal Comics. It had the first appearance of Starfire, and the Titan's (first) big showdown with Trigon. Man, it was amazing, and I was hooked on the Titans. I trawled both the newsagent and the 7/11 for new issues for weeks until I stumbled across the direct outlet in the city, and I was done.

From the X-Men I went to New Mutants, then Fantastic Four, finaly to the Avengers. From the Teen Titans I went to the Justice League, Legion of Superheroes, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

I no longer have those first issues I bought. In fact most of my collection had disappeared over time, and I have struggled to regain it. The pride of my collection is the full runs of Micronauts and Rom :)

About three years later, I discovered a little game called Champions, but that, my friend, is another story :)

[gamerguy.livejournal.com]

I read comics along, but the one that made me a fan was Batman #238, one of the 100-Page Spectaculars they used to do. Batman, Robin solo story, Doom Patrol, a Golden-Age Atom (head-fin era) story, Sargon the Sorcerer, Plastic Man and Aquaman.

(http://s147.photobucket.com/albums/r293/wayneligon2007/?action=view&current=bats238.jpg)

[senatorhatty.livejournal.com]

My story's slightly skewed, I think, because playing RPGs brought me to comics, rather than the reverse.

As a child growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was exposed to the TV versions of lots of Marvel and DC characters (Spider-Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, and Iron Man all had animated shows I watched with some regularity; I think there were a few Fantastic Four series too. And then there was the Super Friends). I never sought out comic books, though older relatives occasionally dropped them on me as gifts. I don't think any of my friends or family collected them, either. I did, however, quite like the IDEA of super heroes.

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons at around age 7. A few years later, TSR released the Marvel Superheroes RPG. One of my friends picked it up because even at the age of 12, he knew he liked variety in his gaming. And because I had, by that time, become the default GM, I started collecting comics as story reference material for Marvel campaigns, and then later because I really enjoyed the stories.

[darktouch.livejournal.com]

You're not that unusual I don't think. My progression was Vampire -> Aberrant -> Mutants and Masterminds. Though I had a few graphic novels and the occasional old comic (mostly fantasy or toy related) I didn't actually start purchasing comics en mass (6 today from the comic store) until AFTER I started playing M&M.

[senatorhatty.livejournal.com]

I would have THOUGHT I was unusual, but yeah... none of my friends read comics until after we started playing the supers RPGs either.

Clearly, someone in marketing needs to take advantage of this!