What Was Your First Comic Book?

I'm curious to hear from readers on this one - what was the first comic book you remember picking up? 

It doesn't have to be the first one you actually purchased, just, what was the first one to light a fire in your memory? Whether it came out fifty years ago or last week, doesn't matter. Maybe you never read a comic until last week but you were inspired by the Bill Nye/ Creationist / internet-zoo-animals-mating to purchase and read:

and

Whatever! Feel free to let me know at whatever length and with whatever meanderings you require.

If you're anything like me, trying to answer this question will lead you on a merry adventure through time and space and associative memories (and probably comics.org.) The year I began purchasing comics was definitely 1981, but my brother must have started bringing them home in the late '70s. I definitely remember seeing this one around the house:

I especially remember that cover price, as they were up to $.50 when I started bring my $2 allowance to the drugstore.

Marvel used to cover-date issues a few months ahead, so though that says April 1979, it was probably published in January or February of that year. As I have no memory of the story that goes with that cover, though, I don't consider Ghost Rider 35 my first comic book.

Nor this, although he definitely had this one, too. I can't say with absolute certainty that this is the first time the X-Men came onto my radar, but it most likely was.

I recall this one somewhat more vividly, both the cover and the story:

But I don't consider this my first comic, either. It tingles my Spider-Sense, though, so I decided to use August 1981 as my starting point.

This proved to be the right approach. It was definitely the summer of 1981 that I began taking monthly trips to the drugstore. But the plot thickens somewhat, as this was also the year when we moved from the States to Germany, and the delay in new comics was about 5 or 6 months. So everything I read 1981 to 1986 was 5 or 6 months behind what kids were reading stateside. (Excepting those summers where we'd come back to the States, when I'd stockpile.)

I apologize for overburdening you with McBackstory when trying to answer the simplest question. 

Long story short, I came up with about 20 comics from this time period, any 1 of which I could legitimately name as the primordial root from which grew the 9 or 10 long boxes currently in my closet. I whittled that 20 down to the following. 

PRELUDE: These first 2 were definite "kiddie comics," something I knew my brother and his pals looked down on, so naturally I pretended not to enjoy them.

Secretly, though, I loved these. These Richie Rich comics actually had some wild stuff going on - he was always time traveling and what not. Someday, some enterprising grad student will win a lot of old Richie Riches and write a dissertation on capitalism and America and make his or her reputation.

Probably not a dissertation-in-the-making for Spidey Super Stories, though. Prove me wrong, nerds of tomorrow!

LET US BEGIN IN EARNEST.

What was it that made me pick this one up? I'm not sure. To tell you the truth, I think my memory is playing a trick on me, as I may have picked up this one first:

and then because I liked it, went back to the drugstore and got #171, which was still on the racks. Or did I pick up #174 and go back and get 171 and 172? (I was missing 173 for years and years; I ended up paying top dollar for that at a convention in the late 80s.) It's a dang ol' mystery. On par with the pyramids, the Piri Reis map, or the continued careers of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. All I know is by the time this came out:

I was telling anyone who would listen that Daredevil was my favorite hero.

 

I have no such confusion when it comes to this next one, though.

Art by Michael Golden

Now that's a cover! As with many of the records I'd later bring home, my parents immediately took this away from me but gave it back after reading/ listening to make sure I wasn't being recruited into some Thrill Kill Cult. (They were cool like that)

This storyline culminated in a war with Satan himself, by the by.

METAL.

EVEN MORE METAL.

Sharing a cover date with Defenders #96 and Daredevil #171:

To be honest, I'm not sure how  I ended up getting into Green Lantern. No one else I knew was, but I liked his costume, I think. It might simply have been the Super-Friends cartoon. 

That would explain how I came to collect this next one, as well.

I had a subscription to both The Flash and Green Lantern for years. These were the only DCs I ever picked up prior to Justice League International and Batman, years later. 

Although I definitely read this one over and over again in 1981. If memory serves, I did not choose this one myself. My grandmother bought it and this next one for me.

Looking at these two especially, I'm chuckling over how many times I have packed them up and moved them with me over the years. I sold the bulk of my collection in the early 90s (though have re-acquired most of it,) but I still have my original copies of Buck Rogers #12 and JLA #194. Which means these have moved from Germany to Rhode Island to Ohio to Georgia to Chicago, multiple times. I haven't cracked that Buck Rogers open since Germany, I wager, so that's kind of funny. (And, I suspect, not an unfamiliar scenario for many of you, as well.)

I definitely associate this one with summertime in Pawtucket, RI, 1981, though not for any particular reason - just a powerful associative memory from looking at the cover.

As well as this one:

We took a trip to Georgia that summer, and I remember reading this one in the safety of my grandmother's trailer. 

Awesome cover.

(I was convinced - thanks to my older brother and my cousin - that if I stepped outside I'd be bitten by snakes or eaten by a crocodile. Plus the trailer had air conditioning.)

Finally, there's this issue of Micronauts:

But I'm not sure if that actually was the first issue of Micronauts I ever picked up. I definitely had this one in my collection by 1982, as I remember reading it that summer in Germany and realizing it was the oldest comic I had. 

How I ended up with it, though, I don't really know. A yard sale, maybe? Did someone see I liked Micronauts and got this for me as a present? I wracked my brains to answer this for you, but, as with those Daredevils, I'm afraid the answer has been consumed in the temporal sandstorm between hither and thither.

Captain McPike has an illusion, and you have reality.

May you find your own way as pleasant.

Your turn!

EDIT: The author of the Defenders comic aforementioned - among many other things, including (now) ongoing titles for DC and my all-time favorite run on Captain America (then) not to mention JLI, Brookyln Dreams, and a dozen other things I've loved over the years was kind enough to respond to my tweet at him.

A) It will never, ever get old to get a reply from J.M. DeMatteis. B) That link is shortened in the above, but here is the post, and it's great fun. Click and enjoy! and C) He referred to this very blog as a "fun read." Day made!

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

Next up:

1982 (Still one of the all-time great titles.)

Brent Anderson went on to do some fantastic work for Astro City, among other places. According to Neal Adams (scroll down at this site to see his original pages) this was originally plotted by Jim Shooter, but Shooter has no memory of this and Claremont denies it. Regardless, Anderson's artwork for God Loves, Man Kills is pitch-perfect: searing images and cinematic visual storytelling at its finest.

Continuity-wise, it takes place somewhere between X-Men #167 and #168, though the events of the story are not acknowledged or ever referenced again until 2003. The seeds were sown here, though, for Magneto's evolution from arch-villain to redeemed headmaster. As this was more or less my first introduction to the character, I had little difficulty adjusting to this version of the character though there are those that to this day still prefer him as a more traditional villain/ X-foil.

THE PLOT: A demagogue priest (William Stryker) has become the popular face of a growing anti-mutant agenda under guise of religious fundamentalism.

His operatives capture and stage the faked-deaths of Storm, Cyclops, and Professor X.

Can't fool Wolverine, of course. (I love this I've staged more'n a few such 'accidents' line. Details of Logan's past were teased for years. Eventually, he became more loaded with backstory than Kate from Lost, but it was great fun at the time.)

Stryker's endgame is to use Professor X's powers as a weapon to further his agenda, something he very nearly accomplishes by subjecting Xavier to "a truly inspired, utterly horrific unending virtual reality loop (where) demonized versions of the X-Men brutally attack and mutilate him." (description from here as are the quoted sections in the captions below.)

"There is so much going on in these panels."

"From the obvious comparisons to Christ on the cross to the utter depravity of the demonic X-Men."

"Not to mention Anderson's striking art work and the moody coloring job that only uses blood red and pitch black to intensify the horrors on display."

Elsewhere, Anderson utilizes a sepia-drenched style to tell Stryker's origin story. (A combat vet whose military service exposed him to deadly radiation, leading to his wife giving birth to a mutant. He kills both his wife and the baby and attempts to kill himself, but he survives. Recovering, he comes to believe God has chosen him to lead the crusade against the mutant infidel. Just another day at Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters on Graymalkin Lane.)

Are you worthy, Charles? 

I can't stress enough how much of an impact the images above had on my young mind. This opening, as well:

Anderson's cinematic style (which was perhaps influenced by the type of visual storytelling Frank Miller had near-perfected on Daredevil) amplifies to great effect the emotional violence and anxiety of the plot and dialogue.

I must have read this graphic novel a hundred times in 1982 alone, to my brother's chagrin, as it belonged to him but was always in my possession. Oh the arguments we'd have about my endlessly appropriating all of his records, tapes, comics, et al. (This led to my mother writing our names on the covers of our comics in ink, to our mutual horror.) Reading it today, what jumps out at me is how Kitty-Pryde-centered it is. A lot of 80s X-Men was, of course; her evolution as a character anchors Claremont's decade of X-storytelling. (Technically, it's more than that, but I'm unofficially dating The Claremont Era as 1981 to 1991.) 

It reminds me a bit of when John Romita, Sr. took over the art on Spider-Man. He rose through the ranks of romance comics, and under his watch, Peter Parker slowly transformed from an awkward teenager into a more handsome adult. This was, according to Stan Lee, unintentional, but it brought a sense of realism and time passing to the character and the comic. The same could be said for Kitty Pryde's growth from scared teen with a crush on Colossus to the woman she'd become as Shadowcat.

Joss Whedon has spoken at length about the influence Claremont had on his own storytelling, and that influence is easily seen throughout God Loves, Man Kills. Whether it's the emphasis on a female protagonist learning to hone her powers and control her emotions, or a family of outsiders battling outside oppression: 

Here the X-Men gather to watch Professor Xavier debate Stryker on Nightline.

 

This family-building is perhaps made a bit too explicit at novel's end.

but it was certainly effective at the time. Great use of light and shadow, here, as well.

Or something like this:

It's easy to see how Claremont's X-verse became the Whedonverse in subsequent decades. (Fitting that Whedon is now the man in the chair for the Avengers; if only he'd take over the other franchises, too!)

Some other tidbits:

This reminded me of the end of The Dead Zone. I guess both are channeling The Manchurian Candidate, come to think of it.

Methinks the Purifiers have been reading too many comic books:

Probably should've checked the trunk first, fellas.

Additionally, presumably they hung the "Mutie" sign over the license plate to leave a message to those who would find the body. Why make it completely illegible by shooting it all to pieces, then?

Cops play a rather strong role in the proceedings. First with this unintentionally-mildly-humorous sequence:

Oh... Sorry, kid.

and then at the end of the Madison Square Garden sequence:

Amen, brother.

Speaking of Madison Square Garden, Magneto interrupts Stryker's speech by peeling back the ceiling and floating down through the arena, leading to this exchange:

It definitely makes the story better to show some of the authority figures (politicians, cops) are not mindlessly swept along mindlessly by Stryker's Old Testament-twinged invective, but it's a little funny the lengths Claremont goes to demonstrate this. "Don't be a fool, dammit! He's replaced the roof, good as new! Isn't Stryker the real monster?!"

A lot of God Loves, Man Kills was lifted for X2: X-Men United. The part of Stryker is played by Brian Cox:

who in the words of this enthusiastic reviewer "Brian Coxes the shit out of the role."

but many things were lost in translation. (For a list of alterations, check the wiki.)

I knew that a sequel was written as part of X-Treme X-Men about 10 years ago, but what I didn't realize until looking it up just now is that it was written by Claremont himself. This makes me marginally more curious to read it. If I do, I'll put it up here, but I might not. (The covers gallery is everything I hate about what happened to cover art. That's enough to keep me at arm's distance, I'm afraid.) I will cover at least some of Claremont's later X-efforts, though, when I get to X-Men Forever. 

Great stuff and well worth your time. I leave you with these words from Den of Geek's review of God Loves, Man Kills:

"The real masterstroke, in terms of story telling is in the tale’s resolution. I won’t spoil it for you here, but it is a victory for common sense. While most comic books finish with the spandex-clad hero getting one over on some ranting madman, there is a proper, thought-provoking, bittersweet conclusion here. Remember this was 1982, comics were not cool and adults did not read them. Alan Moore had not written Watchmen yet. Comic shops were still run by that guy from the Simpsons and if you told a girl you liked Doctor Who, she would laugh at you. But the ending of God Loves, Man Kills is a grown up ending – the sort you would talk about to your mates if you saw it in a film."