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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 27 March 2024 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply
My older brother had FF #151 and it might've been a particularly bad issue to have all on it's own seeming mostly focused on some super-wrestler type dude named Mahkizmo, co-starring Thundra the lady wrestler from wrestler world or something (that's how my wee mind read it). In other words a fragmented FF mostly a fight scene issue (not seen that particular issue since ages ago). The only other FF comic around was #77 and ditto. Fascinated by the Kirby art but the story was part of too much else I didn't have to mean a lot.

I now have FF #150 and wonder if that would've made more of an impression or just made more sense... the wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver! Basically the titles that got me wanting that next issue and starting a habit were Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. The guy from the Haven For Heroes shop/webcast made a great point on how these familiar licensed characters are the best entry point for new/inexperienced readers.

We had other Marvels circa 1974 because I remember seeing many Marvel value Stamps (and probably cut them all out for extra 'fun' as I would often enough cut things out that weren't meant to be cut out). I remember a Creatures On The Loose (Gullivar Jones) and a Kull at least, but they lost their covers so not 100% on which issue #s. I did buy Supergirl and Shazam on my own, but just random single issues. My brother had a friend that would buy Ghost Rider every issue so that's the first time I ever knew of anybody who did that.
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Robert Bradley
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Posted: 27 March 2024 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply
As an 11-year-old I thought the Mahkizmo story was's so bad,  The one that I found a little hard to swallow was Gaard when he showed up a couple years later.

I was also ready for Sue to get back with the FF.  I was familiar with her from the reprints in Marvel's Greatest Comics, The Origins of Marvel Comics and the Fantastic Four Marvel Treasury Edition, and after a year, I fnally got my wish.

And I remember picking up the very rare DC comic - an issue of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes here, an issue of Superman there and of course The Justice League of America, which I knew from The Super Friends cartoon among other places.  But the DC books never got me hooked.  It took George Perez moving over to DC to actually get me reading them regularly, and it was only the books he was working on.
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Brian Floyd
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Posted: 27 March 2024 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply
The first superhero comic I read was an issue of SUPERMAN my father brought me in 1976: issue #303.

My first issue of FANTASTIC FOUR was #185.which came out in 1977. But I believe the first Marvel comic I read was an issue of THE INCREDIBLE HULK.
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Peter Hicks
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 12:48am | IP Logged | 4 post reply
Robert Bradley’s post above was like a trip down memory lane for me, as 1974 was prime time for me buying Marvel comics.  The only addition I can think to add is Jim Starlin’s Thanos saga in Captain Marvel.
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Robert Bradley
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply
Peter - I didn't pick up some of the classics - Captain Marvel, Tomb of Dracula or Master of Kung Fu until later on.  I had an occassional issue here and there, but didn't take the deep dive until later.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply
Hard to think of books being published as I was starting out as “classic”!!
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Robert Bradley
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply
Well, 50 years will do that to you!

Some things I bought off the rack that I would have no qualms calling classics -

Black Panther by Don McGregor & Rich Buckler/Billly Graham
Adam Warlock by Jim Starlin
Thor by Walt Simonson
Daredevil by Frank Miller
Fantastic Four by JB
Avengers by Steve Englehart/Jim Shooter & Sal Buscema/George Tuska/George Perez/JB
Captain America by Steve Englehart & Sal Buscema
Tomb of Dracula by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan & Tom Palmer
X-Men by Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum/JB & Terry Austin
Master of Kung Fu by Doug Moench & Paul Gulacy
Spider-Man by Gerry Conway & Ross Andru

Maybe not to the same level as the 1960s work by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, John Buscema, et al., but there's hits and misses in both eras.
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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply
Fifty years ago I was nine years old going on ten and had probably only been reading comics for a year or two. And I was three years away from losing my collection to a cross-country move, darn it.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply
I'm not sure why Jim Starlin stories work for me but they usually do. He probably breaks a lot of rules of good storytelling, but there seems a lot of room for a reader to fill in whatever they see in it, kind of like some modern Art. One person can see something half finished and another can see a whole world sort of? So I've even hunted down '70s issues of The Hulk, Legion, Doctor Strange (more than one) and Ghost Rider entirely based on a Starlin writing credit.

It did used to be that 'Classic' was early '60s and earlier stuff, but I just saw it applied to a late '80s Don Rosa Duck comic... that did freak me out a little.
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Peter Hicks
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply
“ Hard to think of books being published as I was starting out as “classic”!!”
************
And soon after starting, you began making more classics!
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Jason K Fulton
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply
Fifty years ago I was....5.25 years from existing. You're all old!
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Jonathan A. Dowdell
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Posted: 28 March 2024 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply
Congrats Robert. I am also about to celebrate 50 years since I bought my first comic book. My first book was Incredible Hulk 178 — on the shelves at the end of April 1974. My older sister had brought some comics home from college a few month earlier and I was intrigued. 50 years later…
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