AKA The Great Marvel Comics Read, starting with Marvel Comics #1.
In 1993, I lived in Stadtschwarzach, Germany, and went to school on Leighton Barracks, an army post in Würzburg. Access to American culture was limited, so if you were into something, it was pretty likely that you could find friends who shared that interest. One thing kids in my grade were into that year was collecting Marvel trading cards; by that summer, I had managed to put together a complete collection, including all the holograms.
(I think I’ve still got them, somewhere. Looking over the checklist at the link, I forgot a lot of what I once knew, wow.)
Early that summer, I was going on a camping trip with the Boy Scouts and I took my interest in Marvel from the cards to the comics, picking up Web of Spider-Man #101 and Wolverine #69. Over the course of that trip, I must have read those comics a dozen times each. That got me started, and a trip to the States that summer broadened my horizons a lot (still within Marvel, though).
The X-Men were my favorites and I remember most of the big events from my year and a half in comics: the Fatal Attractions crossover/Wolverine loses the adamantium, Scott and Jean married, Phalanx Covenant and Generation X launch, and everything coming to a halt to start Age of Apocalypse. Meanwhile Spider-Man dealt with learning the truth about his “parents,” Aunt May had a health scare (I think she ultimately died before it was retconned, but that happened after I stopped reading), then the Clone Saga hit. Other fun developments: Daredevil brought back Elektra and had Matt Murdock fake his death, Hulk (at the time Merged/Professor Hulk) discovered if he got really angry he became Savage Banner, and Reed Richards and Doctor Doom were killed off (then the rest of the Fantastic Four in Nobody Gets Out Alive? I don’t remember how that story ended). Ironically, a trip to the States had launched my comic fandom, and a second trip to the States for Christmas 1994 kind of marked the end of it.
The idea for this project has been bubbling around in my head for a long time, and I finally decided to start it after Comic-Con this year. My original idea was to start with The FantastIc Four #1, the start of the Marvel Age, but Captain America has become my favorite character since the movies came out, and so I wanted to visit his origins, which were in the Golden Age, and… well, here we are.
So, a few more things to wrap up the introduction post:
- Marvel has, over the years, published a lot more than superhero comics. I’m probably not going to read a lot of the western, war, true crime, teen/romance comics, or comedy comics. I haven’t decided about Star Wars yet.
- I decided, when I started, not to read the text stories in each comic. I may have missed some gems (I did get a chuckle looking at the one of Human Torch and Sub-Mariner arguing whether Burgos or Everett was better), but at this point I think I’m just going to continue on as I have.
- Marvel Comics adopted that name in 1961. Before that, they were Atlas Comics, and Timely Comics even before that. For simplicity, I’m just going to use the Marvel name the whole time.
- Where will this end? I’m not sure; I’d like to think I can get to where I came in at least, but knowing me the whole thing will end up with me meaning to get back to it someday and I never do.
Next: An introduction to the Golden Age.