In the early and mid-1960s, it seems that Marvel Comics had very poor circulation in my area of Staten Island, NY. (All our magazine circulation came through a New Jersey company called Hudson News, which was widely rumored to be "mobbed up"--not surprising as most newsstand circulation in the New York area probably was.) So I rarely saw a Marvel title in the local candy store where I bought my comics.
The first one I have a clear memory of buying is this one:
Strange Tales #112, October 1963--not sure why it caught my eye, especially. The internal art, however, intrigued me with its images of the Human Torch leaving a trail of flame as he flew around. It would be months before (actually a year or more, I guess) before I saw (or at least was attracted by) another Marvel title.
That was this one:
Avengers #28, September 1965. I suspect it was the image of the hero (I barely knew who Captain America was, at the time) hurtling to his doom that struck me...and I wanted to see how they got him out of it. Once I read it, I was very interested in the group dynamics of this quartet of heroes and the art by Don Heck and Wally Wood was compelling.
By this time, Marvel's availability in my area was much improved, and I was able to follow the Avengers, the X-Men (my two favorite titles of the period), the FF (getting in just as the Inhumans, Galactus and the Silver Surfer debuted), and Spider-Man (the tail end of Ditko's run).
I still followed the DC titles I fell in love with as well--JLA and Green Lantern and the Legion of Super-Heroes, especially. I was officially a comic-book fan, by the age of 13.
No comments:
Post a Comment