Beloved Comic Books--The Uncanny X-Men

[Nathan Dodge]

The arrival of Summer--at least where I live-- has inspired me to once again read some favorite comics. I just got an Uncanny X-Men Marvel Masterworks in the mail--the Claremont-Byrne run- #111-121-- and the upgrade in color and paper quality will no doubt help me to better enjoy the stories and art! Higher-grade paper and colors and all. Looking through my old, slightly beat-up books, (even though in bags and boards; but hey, I'm a reader first) is like looking through a dirty window with a cataract, so I'm happy to upgrade.

Anyway...

There's quite a bit of nostalgia coming through the X-Men of Claremont/Cockrum/Bryne. These stories were powerful to me when I first read them and coupled with the memories of being a dorky kid also comes back. These stories were important to me and emotionally gripping. No other super-hero books affected me this way. I think part of the reason I stayed away from these was because of the powerful (and perhaps painful) associations I had with these books. They were a comfort and I actually cared about these characters. I'm still stunned by X-Men #137, and always will be, which made Jean Grey's eventual resurrection all the more disheartening.

I haven't read these stories in over twenty-five years. I didn't have many of those books (111-121) and I look forward to catching up with this, my favorite super-hero book of them all.

I also recommend that X-Men fans seek out the two-volume "The X-Men Companion" which has extensive, in-depth interviews with all the creative people behind the comics. Great, great insight and as candid as can be. I had volume two as a kid and only found volume one about twelve years ago. I had those interviews memorized as much as I did the actual stories.

My ego's sated knowing that the Claremont-Byrne tales have endured and been praised as the masterpieces they are, yet they were just good stories when I read them growing up. Thirty days seemed an interminable time to wait to see what would happen to my beloved Jean Grey, but now it's been thirty years since those tales were told so brilliantly.

I've been reading one issue of the Claremont-Byrne run each night before beddy-bye, barely able to keep from rushing through the entire holy hardcover!

One more thing: I love the artistic leeway given to Stan the Man in those 1970s "In-House" ads for Marvel books--Lee's ever-present plaid shirt and ripped physique! Was he really like that then? His words were jacked full of strength, that's for sure!

I intend to throw down my hard-earned dough for some Fantastic Four and Lee-Ditko and Lee-Romita Spider-Man next! I'm revisiting all the legends!


'Nuff said!


P.S. I haven't seen the Wolverine movie, either! (or the third X-Men movie)

So...what are your beloved comic book stories? Feel free to share your memories relating to the time you were reading the books, too!

[DutchIndo]

I was into Sgt Rock, The Haunted Tank, Archies, Fantastic Four and Spiderman. 12 cents for a Comic in the late 60s. A Quarter bought me a double dip Ice Cream and a Comic at Sav-on. If I was not in a Comic book mood 5 rolls of "Butter Rum" Live Savers candy. A can of Soda (no CRV) and a Candy Bar was also had for a Quarter. People think I'm lying when I remember full size Snicker Bars for a Nickle !

[Don Vito]

Once I started getting a collection going I would take a run of Byrne's F.F. or Stern/Romita Jr. Amazing Spider-Man on a Sunday night and hunker down for a few hours and sllllooooowly flip through the pages. Loved losing myself in those pages.

[JennyLou]

I've only recently started reading comic books but some of the ones that I like are Sgt. Rock and Superman and some Star Trek ones.

[Geesie]

I used to follow Fantastic Four and The Flash but comic books are one of the things I gave up when I went back to school and had to tighten my budget.

[Bruce Wayne]

i have close to 400 batman comic books in my room right now. i am only missing maybe six between issues 400 to present (683?)

otherwise i have close to 800 dc comics.

[Nathan Dodge]

I was into Sgt Rock, The Haunted Tank, Archies, Fantastic Four and Spiderman. 12 cents for a Comic in the late 60s. A Quarter bought me a double dip Ice Cream and a Comic at Sav-on. If I was not in a Comic book mood 5 rolls of "Butter Rum" Live Savers candy. A can of Soda (no CRV) and a Candy Bar was also had for a Quarter. People think I'm lying when I remember full size Snicker Bars for a Nickle !

I've only recently started reading comic books but some of the ones that I like are Sgt. Rock and Superman and some Star Trek ones.

Sgt. Rock is my single favorite comic books character! I have nearly 200 issues as well as the three vols that DC Archives released. But I liked all of DC's Battle Books: Haunted Tank (aka G.I. Combat); Unknown Soldier, Enemy Ace, etc. I've kept up with the war books over the years, at least the ones from the sixties through early eighties but I guess they stopped publishing them after that.

I love DC's early-eighties run of Star Trek, as well. They did a sequel of to the "Mirror Mirror" episode that was quite good.

I also am fond of Marvel's Star Wars and Indiana Jones comics. When you had to wait three years between *good* Star Wars films, the comic books and strips helped ease the anxiety!

While my friends and I preferred the war and western books (like Jonah Hex) over the super-heroes, but I always had a soft spot for the X-Men back before all the crossovers, alternate covers, dopey new characters, and so forth.

Before the comic store boom of the early eighties, I had to score my comics at 7-11 or the local news stand, "Sonny's", which is where all the gambling men of my grandfather's generation bought their racing forms or whatever it was they wasted their money on!

[Doctor Strange]

My long comic book history has broken down into three phases:

1: Little kid - early 60s - I learned to read on Superman comics. (How many 5-year-olds know "invulnerable"?!?) I devoured the main DC books and Classics Illustrated for several years (plus Mad, which I had a subscription to for about a decade). I had a Marvel-maniac friend who evangelized their books; I read a few Fantastic Fours in 1966 (the Inhumans introduction arc) but then gave up comics as other interests took center stage.

2: College and after - early to late 70s - The resident assistant on my dorm floor was a dedicated Marvel fan, with nearly everything published 1968-1973 (including all Marvel's reprints of earlier stuff) in his collection, and he made a practice of lending them to the guys for relaxation reading. (This was, of course, before we had TVs in dorm rooms, much less PCs and the Internet! The hot technology at the time was component stereos and electric typewriters.) Overwhelmed with the sophistication of the stories, cross-book continuity, and the ability to read years' worth of series at a shot, I read and reread them. When the RA, who was a senior, graduated, he gave his collection to me and my roommate (instead of one of the college libraries) with two provisos: that we keep lending them out, and that we keep buying every current Marvel book as long as we could manage it.

Eventually, I stopped buying everything, though I made a point of getting special treasury edition issues and #1s for a while. The last book I bought was Giant-Sized X-Men #1, which introduced the "new" X-Men... who as we all know, went on to levels of mega-success that had always eluded the first version. (I should also point out that by this point I had film prints of many of the Fleischer Superman cartoons, had enjoyed the Chris Reeve film, etc.)

3: Late 80s until now - A younger guy I worked with revived my interest, and loaned me samples of the new wave of graphic novels - V For Vendetta, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, etc. A few years later, a different friend lent me Marvels and Kingdom Come, and I just had to get my own copies... And the Batman movies - and even more significantly, B:TAS - got me really excited. By then, I was buying coffeetable books and collections when they turned up in the bargain stacks at Barnes & Noble (also packages of remaindered comics at the dollar store, which sometimes had a gem amid the dross), and taking Marvel Masterworks reprints, etc., out of the library. The arrival of the Internet made keeping up with the backstories and recent developments easier - still without being a regular reader. And it goes without saying that I watched Lois & Clark, Smallville (for a while), etc. Then we had the arrival of the Marvel movie age with X-Men a decade ago...

So here I am, in my mid-50s, with a couple of large storage bins of Marvel comics, lots of coffeetable books and graphic novels, and a lifelong love of mythology - both the old Greek, Norse, etc., kind, and the modern kind that finds nearly its purest expressions in comics.

But I am also deeply ambivalent about the endless comics-based movies of our time: as much as I desperately wanted this happen when I was younger, and despite my enjoying a lot of them, I find myself missing the more serious and intelligent fare that used to be the mainstream, before comics-type storytelling became the mainstream. (Thank you, George Lucas, et.al.!) As much as I'm thrilled that the entire entertainment industry now uses Jack Kirby comics as their template, I think something valuable has been lost along the way.

As Stan Lee would say, I sometimes feel "TRAPPED IN A WORLD HE NEVER MADE!"

[Nathan Dodge]

But I am also deeply ambivalent about the endless comics-based movies of our time: as much as I desperately wanted this happen when I was younger, and despite my enjoying a lot of them, I find myself missing the more serious and intelligent fare that used to be the mainstream, before comics-type storytelling became the mainstream. (Thank you, George Lucas, et.al.!) As much as I'm thrilled that the entire entertainment industry now uses Jack Kirby comics as their template, I think something valuable has been lost along the way.

As Stan Lee would say, I sometimes feel "TRAPPED IN A WORLD HE NEVER MADE!"

I agree with this sentiment completely. The "rules" of adulthood changed and we did lose those rites and sophistication that your parents (and my grandparents) enjoyed. Having said that, I'm glad that the comics I grew up with--which were vilified and routinely dismissed as "kid stuff" for decades--still have that ability to teach and entertain, and are considered great stories (Phoenix Saga, Miller's Daredevil and Dark Knight). Yet I just couldn't imagine a director like, say, George Cukor, at the helm of the next IRON MAN film!

BTW, I learned the words "ignorant dolt!!!" from Fantastic Four #213 as an eight-year-old back in 1979; I've met many who fit that bill in the thirty years since! (no one here, obviously). Thanks to Terrax the Tamer for the valuable lesson.

[DutchIndo]

Mad Magazine ! It's kind of a comic book I guess. What kid in the late 60s early 70s didn't read it. I also bought their little paper backs. I liked the folding back page they always had. Who can forget Alfred E. Neuman ! I have a rubber mask of him I bought 20 years ago. I used the mask to traumitize the nieces and nephews. I read somewhere that Alfred was originally a poster child for some Dentist. Sadly the last Mad Magazine I picked up was too political. Sometimes politics should just be left out of humor.