My Earliest Comic Book Memories

For many of us, comic books have been there for most of our lives. We thought it would be fun to peer pack into the mist of time and recall some of our earliest comic book memories.


Conor Kilpatrick

I was looking though some old photo albums the other day when I came across a bunch of pictures taken at my 1st birthday party. The pictures are fascinating, and not just because of the garish outfit that my parents chose for me (hey, it was the 1970s!). The pictures are mostly fascinating because the pinata that I had at my 1st birthday party was Batman. Now, keep in mind that I am only a year old at this point. I am a barely functional human being. Clearly, I cannot weigh in on clothing options. And yet, here I am with a Batman pinata. I asked my mom about the picture and the pinata and she said that we went to the store to buy a pinata for the party and that was the one I picked.

Weird, right?

I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know what goes on in a one year old’s brain and how much that maps out to late in life, but the idea that I was drawn to Batman at such a young age is fascinating and maybe a little troubling. Did my parents read Batman comics to me? Did they plop me down in front of the TV so I could enjoy the brightly colored Batman re-runs? Did I have a deep and abiding thirst for justice? I have no idea! But the fact of the matter is that I loved Batman in 1978 and I love him now in 2011 and that makes me happy.

(How much did I love Batman as a kid? My brother is three years younger than I am and his first word was “Batman” so it must have been pretty prevalent around the Kilpatrick household when I was very young.)

Mike Romo

While I have flashes of going to the comic book store after a haircut (I hated getting a haircut, and demanded some kind of “treat” after it), the first comic book that I have really strong memories of, meaning that I actually remember panels and storylines, is definitely Superman Family #200. My younger brother was in the hospital (he’s fine but he was in and out as a kid), and whenever he went in, my parents were, of course, rather stressed out and spent a lot of time visiting him and I ended up spending a good amount of time in waiting rooms and at home, so I would be alone a lot.  My parents would always make sure I had plenty of books to read, but knew that I loved comics, and every once in awhile would treat me to a comic, especially when they were going to be gone for awhile.

When I asked for this comic, I was looking for something that was thick, with a lot of stories, and this one jumped out of the spinner rack at the hospital gift shop.  Yes, it was a whole dollar, but I knew that my dad wouldn’t care at this point, that he wanted me to be happy and was understandably stressed about my brother, so I went for it.

The whole concept of Superman Family really too hold in this issue: it was about family, not just a collection stories about characters in the Superman “family” of characters. It was wonderfully innocent and I guess it makes sense that my nine your old self would take some (subconscious?) comfort by reading about a family that was doing okay and happy. I remember this glimpse into the future of Superman, with electric cars, Lois and Clark’s daughter Laura Kent, and other stories featuring pretty much every character I could want, including Batman and Robin.

In addition to being a collection of fun stories featuring characters I loved, it made me think about what the near future might be like–I’ll always remember the used car salesman admitting to Lois how he missed the orange smoggy tinge in the air that was left behind by regular cars, gone forever now that electric cars were the norm.

Of course, the whole book was out of continuity — not that I cared about that at all back then — but does illustrate just how comics can “be there” for kids, how these characters and their hopes and dreams help everyone, young and old, continue to, well, hope and dream.

Ali Colluccio

When I was a kid, I was pretty girly. Not super-girly, I mean I loved playing catch with my dad and brother, and He-Man and Danger Mouse were probably my favorite cartoons. But I would have been perfectly happy to spend my entire life in a pink poofy dress. Comic books were not something that were ever really in our house, and not something I sought after when I could just watch Super Friends instead.

Then one day, when I was 11 or 12, my dad came home with a polybagged surprise. Positive that they would only sky-rocket in value, my dad had bought both me and my brother a copy of “Death of Superman”. We were told that under no circumstances should we open the bag. We were to save these until we were adults, when they would be worth lots and lots of money. Breaking the rules was never something that came easily to me. But I HAD to know what happened. I mean, how could Superman just DIE? He was the strongest guy in the universe! He could fly so fast that he made the world go backwards. I knew ’cause I saw him do it on Channel 11 like five times. Guys like that don’t just get beaten by bad guys. And they certainly don’t die.

And so, one busy Saturday afternoon, when my parents were busy doing house and yard work, I crept downstairs and got the good scissors out of the junk drawer. I went back into my bedroom and locked the door. Ever so carefully, I cut the top of the polybag off. I can still remember the crinkle of the mylar and the smell of the glossy paper. I remember the weight of the comic being heavier than I thought it would be. Convinced what I was doing something was very wrong, I hide behind my bed and, knees to my chin, gripping the book with both hands, I read my very first comic book.

Dave Wiese

Superman #358 was purchased by my Dad at the Silver Snail in Toronto in 1981 when I was 5. Back then the Silver Snail had a unique smell and to this day when I smell a room filled with cardboard this is the book I think of.

Gordon the Intern

One of the earliest things on record is my brother and I both dressed in underoos and capes.  He was Superman and I was Batman…although I think my underoos were red.  At the time I was two and he was four.  There is a picture…but I’d be hard pressed to find it today.

I also remember my early trips to the LCS in Broad Ripple.  It was located right next to the post office – so every time my mother went to mail something I would run in and have a look at the wonderful things inside.  The store was dark, musty, cramped and smelled like a comic book shop.  I remember squeezing in and out of the tiny aisles looking at all my favorite characters and then begging my mom to buy me the books.  Sticking with her better judgment, she always refused to even go in the store.

Finally, I remember when I was told I would go blind if I read comic books in the dark…something that still sticks with me to this day when I try to read anything in lower lighting conditions.  I had just purchased a Superman & Wonder Woman story (I’d be hard pressed to tell you what issue number) and all I wanted to do was read it, but I had a piano recital.  So in the car on the way up there I tucked it in my sheet music and read it in the backseat while my parents thought I was going through my music.  On the way home I felt I no longer needed the mask of sheet music and that’s when I was told that I was not allowed to read in the dark that it would make me go blind.

Jim Mroczkowski

Of course, comic book “stuff” was all around us in the seventies; in a way, it was like a lo-fi version of the way things have been these last few years. I saw the Superman movie, I loved Wonder Woman, and the world stopped every Friday night for my obsession with The Incredible Hulk. As far as actual comic books, though? Officially, the first one I ever got was Marvel Team-Up #105. We were visiting my grandma in Hannibal, Missouri, and knowing that there is absolutely nothing for a six year old to do in a grandma’s house in Hannibal, Missouri, she was kind enough to go down to the corner drugstore and get something for me to look at for the afternoon. It was one of the three or four issues of Marvel Team-Up that didn’t have Spider-Man in it, but I didn’t care, because it featured the Hulk fighting two amazing-looking guys called “Power Man” and “Iron Fist.” Its cover is seared into my memory forever. Having tracked it down in adulthood, naturally, it turns out to be one of the worst fill-in comics I’ve ever read. Lesson: do not track things down in adulthood.

Unofficially…? I hate to even think about it, because when I was teeny, teeny tiny, I think I bought an issue of Amazing Spider-Man at a neighbor’s garage sale. I vaguely remember the cover and nothing else… and when I browse old covers trying to figure out which one it was… I’m pretty sure I owned the issue Gwen Stacy died in when I was four years old. And I’m sure I folded it in half and tore it into a hundred pieces. I’d really rather not think about it.

Jason Wood

My first memory of buying comic books was at a local 7-Eleven store, but that wasn’t my first awareness of comic book characters or comic books.  The first comic book I ever possessed was a copy of the comic that came with the Power Records Batman: Robin Meets Man-Bat, which was given to me as a gift when I was three or four years old.  I can still remember listening to the record over, and over, and over again.  In retrospect, it was a frightening tale that fit more into a classic horror mold than into a superhero genre that we all came to know and love, but as with all Batman stories, Bruce ends up saving the day.

John Siuntres

I started buying comic books with my own money when I was 7 years old. I’d walk to Alpine Pharmacy, and spend part of my 50 cent allowance on 2 comics per week. Life With Archie #125 stayed with me for a long time, and while I wasn’t “afraid” of the story, it did disturb me on some level for years.

Mr. Lodge buys an old deserted mansion, and the kids join him to check it out. They find a nursery which has, among the toys, a teddy bear with a weird eerie smile. When Betty picks it up, she falls into a strange possessed state and tries to jump out of the window. Archie grabs her and when she drops the Teddy her mind clears up.

After talking to an elderly neighbor they learn an evil governess practiced witchcraft and tried her black magic on the child who lived in that nursery. The bear maintains its spell on Betty who’s compelled to pick up the bear again, and head for a cliff over a powerful waterfall. Again Archie saves her in the nick if time, and the bear falls out of her hands and over the falls. Mr. Lodge returns and doesn’t believe the kids story. As they drive away, the last panel goes back to the bed in the nursery where the Teddy is laying on the bed, soaking wet, covered with leaves, but still smiling it’s evil smile. Way to make make me wet my pants Archie!

Ben Simpson

I think the first comic book I ever remember owning/reading was Batman #451. Looking back, it was the second part of a two-part story featuring the Joker, but at all of five years old I didn’t care about looking for a new #1 or a “New Direction!” All know was that cover looked amazing, and it had Batman and not one, but TWO Jokers (I think there was a mobster posing as the Joker, and I think he either died at the end of the issue or was never seen again). The other great thing about the issue was that it had Jim Aparo on art, who, like Dan Jurgens on Superman, essentially defined the look for those respective characters for me and any other readers who started reading Batman and Superman in the early 90s. The issue came out in late July, 1990, which is probably around when Tim Burton’s Batman began playing regularly on HBO, and planting myself in front of the television (possibly wearing the Batman cape my mother made for me) for that was Priority One.

 

Those are some of our earliest comic book memories. What are yours?

Comments

  1. My earliest comic memory is dressing as Superman for Halloween when I was 5 years old. My big brother was (and still is) a huge comic fan and I’m sure he played a part in my costume choice. I am proud to admit that I am the most adorable Superman on the planet. Eat it, Tom Welling

  2. My earliest comic book memory is definitely me dressing up as Batman for Halloween for three years in a row. I don’t know why I was drawn to the cowl… But, I still continue to rock a cowl whenever I get a chance.

    • I had a string of super-hero Halloween costumes – Batman, Flash, Cyclops, Nova – my flash mask was just a bald cap colored red with a marker. When I got sweaty (from running at high speed,of course) the marker bled through and my face was a total mess. It was awesome.

    • Haha, I didn’t really stray away from Batman when I was younger. Something about the cape just got me, lol. I actually was thinking about buying a Flash costume, just for the hell of it.

      I’m curious to see how the Cyclops costume looked, lol. 😀

    • It was Cyclops early 90s costume – so it was basically a blue sweatshirt and sweat pants, with the yellow belt/shoulder strap thing sewn out of yellow felt. And then some yellow tinted safety glasses with a piece of paper attached to the lens to make it look more like his visor (it was very hard to see out of). My younger brother went as Banshee that year. We were pretty much the coolest kids on the block. 😉

    • Lol, dude, that’s a pretty legit Cyclops costume. I wouldn’t have been able to come up with that, haha. I would have been seriously jealous if I saw that.

  3. Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham #2
    & Mister X #8

    Got them both at the same time when I was 4 or 5.

  4. These are great – iFanboy Origns

    I can’t remember the moment I got hooked on comics, but I do have several memories that I’m sure were formative moments.

    I had an issue of Justice League with Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and Mister Miracle that floated around my bedroom before I could even read it. The cottage we rented in the summer had an early 80s issue of Brave and Bold stashed in the bedroom closet (batman and black lightning versus….kite man I think). I remember my Dad reading an issue of BRUTE force (animals in armored suits) to me and my brother while we waited out a rain storm while camping at an air show in maybe 1989. I got an assortment of comics for Christmas in 1990 (pretty sure they came from the Sears catalog) that kicked off my collection, those were the first comics I intentionally “collected” and they’re all still in a long box in my guess bedroom closet.

    Good times!

  5. Since I grew up in a country that was occupied by Soviet Union, you can imagine I didn’t have much access to American characters like Batman, Superman or X-men. When I was 7 or 8, my uncle bought me “3 Stories” – a comic by Estonian artist Olimar Kallas (you can check out a few pages here http://nihe.ee/monteneta/3lugu/index.html), that I read over and over until it fell apart.
    Then comics and I parted ways for awhile – except some issues of Mickey Mouse (only book they translated and published in Estonian at that time).
    But the burning love I feel for comics today was ignited by the trades of ‘Preacher’ my friend lent to me around 5 years ago. And I haven’t looked back since.

  6. This is great!

    I started reading comics when I was 4 years old. The earliest comic book I remember reading was Batman in Farsi. I have since found that the comic was “Daughter of the Demon” by the O’neil & Adams. What I remember most about the comic is Robin getting shot, Batman wearing jacket over his costume in the mountains, and one of the bad guys wearing a goats skull as a mask.

  7. Marvel Comics Presents Wolverine 86. Written by Peter Davis, Art by Sam Keith. Picked it up at our local Safway back in 1991. Sold it with most of my books when I was in Jr. High. Got back into comics 2008, bought it again…..I still remember reading it think, WOW this is really intense! No one drew like Keith back then. Good times.

  8. I have a hazy memory of my grandfather handing me an issue of Spiderman fighting the Scorpion (on a watertower I think) when I was a kid. But my real first memory was sitting on a bus ride witha bunch of kids at camp and one kid had a stack of X-Men From around 150 through the Broodworld storyline. I was hooked forever. To this day my favorite all time comics are the X-Men fighting Dracula (Fantastic Superhero/Horror) then surviving Belasco (S’ym! Degenerate Nightcrawler!) and Wolverine alone on Broodworld.

    I think I have to go drag out my longbox…

  9. Awesome thread. My grandma bought me JLA 115, Batman 259, January 1975. I was 9 years old. I love these books to this day.

  10. The first I really remember is a Spanish reprint of Amazing Spider-man 39. I was not yet 5 and it really left its mark. Before that my mother insists that it was a Mickey Mouse comic book my very first one. Anyway, at 35. I still enjoy reading comic books. But my tastes are very eclectic. I love the medium, not just a genre.

  11. My first comic book that I remember was when my parents took me to Sam’s Club and for some reason decided to buy me a large bundle of comic books. That’s right, they sold the collected issues of Zero Hour at Sam’s Club (that tells you when I first started, huh?) I’m not exactly sure what went through my immigrant Asian parents’ minds when they decided to buy their normally academic focused son comic books but there you go.

    I remember reading the crisis-filled issues being SO confused why were the numbers going backwards towards Zero while the storyline progressed. I remember wondering why did this purple guy (Major Force) stuff a girl into a fridge, who was this menacing green cape clad ghost character (Spectre), and who was this punk-looking kid claiming to be Superboy.

    I also remember sometime early getting an issue of Fantastic Four #1 (it wasn’t the first volume…) and I had thought that it WAS the first issue of Fantastic Four and that one day it would be worth thousands. I totally read that to pieces – probably water damaged beyond recognition.

    I have no idea where all those comics are now though – my mom probably threw them away and my comic book love lapsed until I rekindled it with the Timmverse and iFanboy.

  12. DC’s 1988 Christmas with the Super-Heroes Vol 1#1. Written by Denny O’Neil, penciled by Frank Miller, cover by John Byrne. Is it any wonder I was forever hooked on comics after that?

  13. I was probably five or six, so it had to be 1994 or 95. I was in Seven Eleven and it was the first spinner rack I’d ever seen. I had been playing Sonic The Hedgehog at my cousin’s house all weekend so my eyes immediately were drawn to SONIC #1 A collectors Item. I actually found it the other day, good memories.

  14. I remember being in a book store, gearing up for a big family trip. I was maybe 7 or 8. I went to the spinner rack and found an issue of Superman emblazoned with “The Death of Superman.” I thought, “What? No way they kill Superman!” So I bought that and a Spider-Man issue with the trial of Peter Parker (this was before the Clone Saga I believe). I was familiar with both characters from cartoons and such. After we got back from vacation, I immediately road my bike to the comic shop with some left over spending money from vacation and bought all the issues I was missing from those storylines. I’ve been going every Wednesday since (minus a brief hiatus in high school).

    • The Trial Of Peter Parker was slap-bang in the middle of the Clone-Saga! I remember that period of Spidey’s history ridiculously vividly… Ben Reilly sat in jail for him as Peter was accused of murder (he had no alibi because he had been buried alive by Kraven at the time of the murder) until it was proved that Kaine had killed the victim after he burned his finger-prints (and therefore Peter’s) onto the DA… Crazy Clone and Traveller stuff going on. I think it’s the final part of the Trial story where Ben is revealed as the ‘real Peter’ and Pete hits MJ by accident…

      I wish my memory was as good for important things. Or even just better stories… 😛

    • Yeah, if I remember correctly, you about summed it up. I remember shit got real when they brought out the foil covers. I was like, “No way! That’s so amazing.” Luckily, I was a broke kid at the time because I probably would have bought 4,000 copies.

  15. My uncle had a complete run of Asterix that I flipped trough even before I could read.

  16. 2000ad and star odd early issues. Star wars Marvel adaptation. Mid 70’s green lantern / green arrow. Ff and powerman & ironfist. Happy memories.

  17. My mother started it all with a comics pack at Woolworths( yup I’m OLD) Manthing,Star wars and an issue if Turok(Whitmans comics?).
    Years later I bought Uncanny X-men#175 with my allowance and started my love affair with mutants

  18. I’m so young… And grew up in a Scottish town that barely stocked anything comicky…

    I do know that the first comic I ever read was a Spider-Man British reprint of the second part of the six part of ‘Round Robin: Sidekick’s Revenge’ – featuring Punisher, Darkhawk, Moon Knight, Nova, Night Thrasher and Midnight. It was very definitely the nineties. It was really early in Mark Bagley’s run, I think, and even though I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on (and have still never read the rest of it) but I loved it. Then my brother started buying the Marvel UK reprint Exploits of Spider-Man and the cartoon came swiftly after and I’ve been hooked ever since…

    I also totally watched the Batman and X-Men cartoons too, but in terms of actual comics, Spidey was definitely my first.

  19. my earliest comic memory is my dad giving me about 50 issues of mighty world of marvel (Marvel uks flagship comic in the 70s which reprinted in black and white the us stuff) which featured spider-man a character I knew from the 90s cartoon which I liked and i enjoyed the comics then I remeber being in a newsagents and seeing a comic called Astonishing Spider-Man (another uk reprint book but this one reprinted stuff that was alot more recent ) and I asked my dad to buy it. I could not read properly at the time but I enjoyed the pictures anyway my dad seeing how much I was enjoying the comic asked the person at the newsagents if they could keep the tittle for me each month and they did at it was non stop from then about 6 years ago I stoped buying the reprints and started buying the us comics.

  20. GI Joe #21. The silent issue. The first book I remember reading. That was cool.

  21. Lol i hated hair cuts too(kinda still do) and the comic store was right around the corner,My first comic was X men #1 first edition.I still have the same copy and my cousin always gets on me for not keeping it in good condition but i was 6 so it should have been kinda expected.

  22. Batman fighting the KGBeast in Batman #417.

    I wonder what the KGBeast is up to lately. Has anyone used him recently?

  23. My grandma bought me a coverless copy of Action Comics 426 at a flea market which was my first introduction. That following summer I visited family in Colorado and biked about a mile daily to buy a comic at the 7-11 telling my family I was getting candy or soda.

  24. I don’t remember the issue number, but my earliest memory is a issue of Savage Sword of Conan. My Dad would always bring them home to me, when I was around 5-6 years old.

  25. My first comic book was Darkhawk Annual 2. I didn’t know anything about the character or about comics but it was free when I had all A’s. I don’t have it anymore and can’t really remember the issue but i definitely remember the cover.

  26. i was so immersed in GI Joe cartoons and toys, that i discovered the comics and got in that way. Also i’ll give credit to Choose your Own adventure books for getting me into illustrated fiction stories. Soon after other cartoons like Batman the Animated series and so on brought me into superheroes and i started seeking out the comics. I remember an issue of Detective where Batman teams up with Etrigan the Demon and they become buddy buddy.

    I always had comics around the house, but they were kind of a random assortment of hand me downs and such. I was probably in middle school before i started using allowance money to start buying my own comics at the drug store.

  27. OK, here goes…

    In ’59 we moved from The Bronx to the wilds of Queens. But my father would never change his high school barber shop until the the day he died in 1998. Every two weeks, come rain or shine, we made the trek to Harlem, dropping mom off at her hairdresser and made the crawl to my old man’s spot in The Bronx to have every follicle clipped off our heads. Trash-talk, man-gossip, and number takers mixed with talcum, after shave, old copies of Jet… and the most beat up comics you ever saw.

    It didn’t take me long to find the yellowing, dog-eared, staple-deprived copies of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen among the Bob Hopes and Our Army at Wars. What a revelation it was to see Superman in COLOR! Up until then it was strictly Black and White on The Adventures of Superman. My dad talked his barber into letting me go home with one and I still can remember reading it in the back seat of our car on the way home, watching Superman’s costume change colors when the traffic lights turned from green to red.

    Good Times.

    • Just a great story. How many times did you read that thing?!

    • I reread the living crap out of that book! It was coverless when I got it and when I was done, it was crumbling like a Dead Sea Scroll.

      This thread got me wondering just what issue it was so I just looked it up: Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #31, cover dated September 1958. First appearance of Elastic Lad and almost a year old by the time I got my grubby paws on it.

  28. My earliest comic book memory is probably reading an issue of Blue Beetle in the dentists office waiting room. The first comic I ever bought was from a spinner rack at Walgreen’s, it was a reprint of the first appearance of the Sandman in Amazing Spider-Man. Ever since then I have loved any and everything Steve Ditko has ever drawn because he drew Peter the way I saw myself, as a skinny kid with glasses and brown hair, which is probably still the way I see myself, just with a beard added.

  29. Avatar photo JeffR (@JeffRReid) says:

    One of my earlier comics memories is reading WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #239 when I went to Indian Guides camp with my dad. The issue came out six years before I was born, but it somehow came into my possession through a used bookstore or garage sale. That cover stuck with me for a long time. Why wasn’t Superman stopping this Gold guy from killing Batman!? It blew my mind.

  30. There is a good chance that Ali’s memory might be my favorite thing ever.

  31. Danger Mouse! Classic.

  32. Avatar photo JeffR (@JeffRReid) says:

    You know, Ali’s opening of her Superman #75 means that my unopened issue is just that much more rare. Thank you, Ali. Your gift of that 0.0005¢ in value added to my issue is much appreciated. The rest of you could learn something from her.

  33. My earliest comic related memory is my Super Friend bedroom set. I took the comforter to Pre Kindegarden it was covered with all the Super Friends. I can’t forget Underoos.

  34. I don’t remember this but my older brother, who is 9 years older than me, said when i was very young I got a meat tenderiser yelled out “THOR!!!” and hit him with it like it was a hammer – Classic Ed.

    I also have a very early memory which hunted me though high school. There was a photo (and if i actually remember the event or just remember it from the photo, i don’t know) of me as Batman and a girl who was in my grade at school as a nurse when we were both 2 years old. She used to pull that thing out from time to time and show the other girls much to my chagrin – Classic Ed

  35. I can’t say I recall a specific early memory. I do recall watching Adventures of Superman re-runs on Nick-at-Nite as a kid, catching re-runs of He-Man and Batman on USA during the day. I started reading comics somewhere around 3 or 4. My mother used to take me to the dancing school she owned two days out of the week while my father worked and each day she’d take me to the pharmacy to get coloring books. Once we cleared them out of coloring books my mother took me to the newsstand across the street and bought me comics. I don’t have many of those comics left – they were over-read books which lost their covers and staples before long. I know I owned the 90s X-Men #1 and Uncanny #300 (the only original comic still in my collection.) and I loved that Zero Hour issue of Robin where Tim Drake meets young Dick Grayson. I really remember reading and experiencing a comic (as opposed to just knowing I had the books) – and they were a little later in my comic reading – where the trades of A Death in the Family and A Lonely Place of Dying. I adored those comics as a kid when I read them. I still have the original Lonely Place of Dying collection, but A Death in the family had to be replaced.

  36. @ Connor

    You are freaking rockin’ that red bow tie!

  37. i have a poloroid of me sitting next to my grandmother at a very young age as she read me the free Captain America anti-drug issue we got from a department store. i am either in a bad mood or shouting in intense triumph in the picture and my grandmother is smiling down at me. on the poloroid itself is an old faded incredible hulk sticker she put next to me so it looks like me and hulk are raging. she passed away in 2008 and that picture remains a prize posession of mine. Not only is that a great early comic-memory of mine, but to this day that is my favorite memory of reading comics.

  38. What a great topic.

    The first comic I remember having was 1969’s Spectre #9. It found it at my grandmother’s house after my uncle had left it there years prior. I thought it’s cover was the coolest thing I had ever seen (still do). I didn’t know what I was reading but I loved it.

    The first new comics I started getting were mainly war books. My father would tell my mother he was getting them for me but he was actually reading them then letting me have them. Sgt. Rock, Fighting Marines, even Sad Sack. I still have some of these books. I used to read them over and over and over and over….

  39. Boy, I love reading all these comments about getting into comics! I especially love all the over-seas accounts.

    I got into comics secondary to being immersed in the rampant card collecting craze of the late 80s and early 90s. I believe I was in 2nd grade when I was most fully consumed by the craze. It helped me know the characters very well before I even began to dabble in the comics. But dabble I did and, in once very crucial turning point, I traded a few cards to a kid for 25 Marvel Tales comics from the early 80s that were reprints of Amazing Fantasty #15 through Amazing Spider-Man #25 (excluding #5, which had Dr. Doom!). I probably read those issues 50 times over since then, maybe more. One thing that is great about that is that, being a stupid little kid, I felt like these were new stories and I was “in” on the hot new thing. This was right around the X-tinction Agenda in the X-Men comics, so I also started getting into the X-Men. So, I guess my earliest comic memories are Steve Ditko and Jim Lee intermingled.

    • i recently found my complete set of Marvel Cards series 1 in a box of my stuff in my parents garage. Don’t know where the hologram cards went, but that complete set was awesome.! i studied the heck out of those cards, and learned a lot about characters that i wasn’t even reading in the comics.

      I remember those cards being VERY popular at my first LCS and they had an entire case dedicated to comics related trading cards like that.

    • I can’t believe I forgot the cards! The young comics fan’s wikipedia of 1992. I don’t remember how I got into those, but I had all kinds of Marvel trading cards (followed by X-Men and Wildstorm cards) several months before I got into the comics themselves. I think I still have them all. I specifically remembering saving up to buy an entire box of a new X-men card series, just to make sure I got the whole set.

      Whatever happened to the card painters like Joe Jusko or Greg and Tim Hildebrand?

  40. My earliest comic related childhood memories was watching the Incredible Hulk tv show in the 70s. I must have been around 4-5 yrs old. I remember paying in my bedroom, imagining that I was getting beat up my thugs and then Hulking out and beating the crap out of them. I must have looked insane. When the Superman movies came out, my mom would safety pin a towel to my back to serve as a cape. I’d jump off of the washing machine and pretend to fly. But Hulk always stuck with me. Eventually, I bought my first Hulk comic as a teenager, around the beginning of Peter David’s run. I’m still a huge fan.

  41. Like others, I remember dressing up as Batman for Halloween as a young kid, probably 5 or 6.

    I also remember reading comic books in the bathtub. But I did it in an interesting way. I didn’t want to hold the book because it would get wet, right? So, I had some Crazy Foam (http://www.genxtinct.com/2011/06/crazy-foam.html), which was like shaving cream or something you could play with in the tub. I put a layer of that on the tile wall and stuck the comic book, front and back covers, to it. It was strong enough to hold the comic up until I was done. Then I would wipe the foam off with my towel. How stupid! I’m sure I ruined numerous books that way.

  42. one of my insanely early memories was watching the supergirl movie on tv when i was 2 yrs old!

  43. There’s a few photos of me when i was 18 months old (~1985) jumping off a chair. Not sure how I knew who Superman was, and the fact that he flew!!??

    http://bit.ly/nORYHB
    http://bit.ly/npJFSz

    This interest in Superman continued as a child. When I was 9, I was at my grandmother’s house, and found a box under my dad’s bed. It contained 100 of my dad’s Superman & Batman Silver-age comics from the 60s!

    • As a parent of two 2 year olds, that chair jumping both exictes me and scares the dickens out of me at the same time. You must have been some kind of super-kid to be both that brave and escape unharmed. And you had your own cape at 1! Your parents are awesome.

    • +10 bonus for linking to baby pictures!

    • What’s hidden in the photo is the big bean-bag I was jumping onto! I kept doing it, because there are multiple photos off the same chair!

      The second photo had the caption written on the back: “Alright boys, where’s Lois Lane?”

  44. Jeez, this is the question that interviews with the pros usually start out with, right? Or end with?

    I had older cousins who were into all the cool stuff, and always showed me what I *should* be into long before I was into it. So my first true comic experience was actually a Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #79, though it wasn’t mine.

    http://marvel.wikia.com/Peter_Parker,_The_Spectacular_Spider-Man_Vol_1_79

    And I didn’t buy a comic myself until during a road trip I came across a cover in a Circle K where Spidey’s face seemed much different than I had seen before:

    http://marvel.wikia.com/The_Spectacular_Spider-Man_Vol_1_203

    And though the story arc was mostly over and there were almost a hundred different characters I didn’t recognize, the issue cemented these things as cool in my middle school mind.

    Now, comics-related stuff? Like everyone else, I have home movies of myself wearing Superman and Batman pj’s watching Spider-Man and His Amazing friends cartoons on Saturday morning. I think what really sold me was the cape!

  45. I remember owning a Superman annual in the 90s (mullet and all) which included a story where Supes races the Flash (Wally). This was my first ever Flash story and I was hooked. I also read the comics that tied in with the DC animated universe (I loved the Batman show) and that introduced me to many other DC characters; of which I particularly recall Kyle Rayner, Captain Marvel and the Atom. A Marvel annual completed my education, although I was clearly more of a DC guy even then.

  46. My earliest comic book memory is getting some comics from my Mom one Christmas. The comics I got were some Archie comics, TNMTs, Deathlok, an Avengers comic with Wonder Man, and a Spider-Man comic that had Beast in it. After that I was hooked and I started walking down to the local grocery store and pharmacy to buy Marvel Tales (old Spidey stories), X-Men, and Wolverine comics.

    I’ll never forget what the covers looked like, here are some.

    http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060523225339/marveldatabase/images/thumb/5/5d/Spider-Man_Vol_1_15.jpg/300px-Spider-Man_Vol_1_15.jpg

    http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/4/55485-4589-77498-1-deathlok_super.jpg

    http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/wolverine/41-3.jpg

  47. First comics which I will always remember Thor #306 “Thor vs. Firelord”, Iron Man #148 “Siege” and Hulk #272 “Wendigo”.
    Those covers are my earliest memories, as well as the fantastic stories that I still remember.

  48. I started reading comics in the best and worst way with Carl Bark’s Donald Duck short stories in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. I learned to read on those books. I remember vividly the story where Donald worked at a fish hatchery and was in conflict with a Kingfisher feeding on the fry. And a story where Donald and the nephews had a swimming contest—so much plot in those few pages. I then went on to the Scrooge epics. It was the best way to start on comics because Barks was brilliant—his short stories equal of Eisner’s best, his epic adventures unsurpassed by anyone. But it was the worst way because it set such a high standard. Then someone gave me a subscription to Showcase for the emergence of the DC Silver Age, and I bought Fantastic Four 2 and Amazing Fantasy 15 at (ironically) Lee’s Drugstore. But if you’ve never read Barks, forget Duck Tales and the Magica de Spell stuff, try to the “good artist” (how we identified Barks when Disney refused to acknowledge his existence) at his prime. Wonderful memories, still wonderful comics.

  49. I was taken to the newsagents to choose a comic to get each week. I picked a copy of The Might World of Marvel. It had the Hulk on the cover versus some sort of muck monster (I think not Man-thing but I could be mistaken). Inside was some non-descript Hulk story. The last few pages of a Luke Cage Power Man story that would finish that week and be replaced by something else. Some Gene Colan Daredevil, (and for me Gene has always been the Daredevil artist). And finally Jim Starlin’s Captain Marvel, part the way through the Thanos Cosmic Cube story; and with that a lifetime love affair would begin. Of course I had no idea that these stories had creators, they just appeared. It would be some time later that I would realise that Stan Lee had created everything and even longer after that, that I realised he largely just had his name on things by that point.
    I would even nag my poor mother into reading those Captain Marvel stories into a tape recorder so I could hear them played back to me again and again.
    I can still picture some of those Mighty World of Marvel covers to this day. However I will follow your sound advice Jim and not track them down.

  50. Not my first memory, but certainly one of my earliest most significant was Justice League Quarterly #8 from 1992. I was in second grade and I picked it up at a little hole in the wall comic shop in The Bazaar of All Nations in Springfield, PA (a completely unique shopping mall/flea market/farmers market-thing). The story was just one of the most fun things I’ve ever read, and introduced me to characters that would become my favorite members of the DCU, Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Fire & Ice.

  51. All these references to The Might World of Marvel makes me wonder… does anyone else think that here in the UK that there might be an inbuilt Marvel Zombieness to us due to those reprint comics being so readily available. I remember my sister wanting to read Wonder Woman but it was near impossible for us to get hold of.

  52. One of my earliest memories is falling asleep on my Mom’s lap watching Superman: The Movie on television. A few years later, when I could work the VCR and owned the tape (or was it recorded from HBO?) we’d watch it, but Mom didn’t let us watch the Krypton part because she was afraid the planet exploding (spoilers!) would be too scary. I finally watched it in my teens. So I’m all caught up now.

  53. My earliest memory is getting a toy Utility Belt for Christmas when I was about 5 – man, I miss that Batarang.

  54. I remember my mom bringing home a pile of comics one day; stuff like Richie Rich, Casper and Wendy the witch. She said I need to read more instead of always playing video games or watching t.v. I always remind her that she was the one who got me hooked on this stuff in the first place, which she of course denies. I also had a superman costume for one of my birthdays (think it was my 6th), I remember jumping off the chair pretending to fly…it was awesome!

  55. traditional towel and close-pin, trash can lid shield, pillow and belt for a turtle shell, stick and rocks weapons.

  56. I actually bought myself my first comic. I must’ve been around 8 or 9 years old. It came off a spinner rack at 7/11. Like all of us, comics had been present in my life since birth. Having been born into a family of “nerds”, my cousins and uncles made sure I was aware of superheroes and their magnificence. I even sported a Superman backpack to my first day of Kindergarten (Every girlfriend I’ve ever had has been sworn to secrecy after seeing that photo because I’ve spent much of my life explaining to people why Batman is better).

    But that first issue was actually an Uncanny X-Men. It was an Omega Red story and the cover featured the entire line-up being strangled by Red’s tentacles (cuz that narrows it down). I can’t remember the issue number because that meant nothing to me back then. The interesting thing is that I still have its tattered remains. And every issue of every comic I’ve bought since. So it made quite the impression. Thanks, Omega Red.

  57. One of my first memories is my mum reading me the archie TMNT comics before bed. She also used them to teach me to read which i always thought was pretty damn cool of her.

    The first comic i remember getting myself was an issue of spider man that featured the outlaws which had guys like rocket racer, puma, prowler and will’o’wisp i think to. I think this set me on my path of loving some pretty ”uncool” characters which i still follow.