On second thought, my first comic may have been an issue of He-Man that came with a vinyl record as well…cuz before reading that article I was like, wtf, is Bendis that old?

Amazing Spider-Man #346, my first comic and still one of my favorites. Hard to believe that Erik Larsen is responsible for me spending so much of my income at my LCS, but thems the breaks!

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/amazing-spider-man/346-1.jpg

OMG it wuz Tarot Witch of the BLACK ROSE
I LUV BOOBIES AND THAT BOOK HAS THEM REALLY BIG WITH WHIPS AND COSTUMES LOL LOL THOSE CHICKS ARE HOT AND I LIKE IT BUT I HAVE TO HIDE IT FROM MY MOM

The Mighty Thor 337 – Beta Ray Bill’s first appearance.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles Adventures. I dont remember a specific issue, but it’s what started it alllll out for me.

The first comic I read was probably an issue of either a Superman title, SuperFriends, or Spidey Super Stories. But the one that hooked me was Amazing Spider-Man 200. Spidey, Aunt May and the burglar who killed Uncle Ben. Nothing flashy about the bad guys, nothing earth-shaking. Just a really, really good story by Marv Wolfman about a hero, his guilt, his family, and his responsibilities.

Wolverine Vol. 2 (Vol. 1 was the original mini-series) #44. Don’t know why but it was right then and there that I started purchasing my own comic books for the first time after having my dad read me his for years.

Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu #80. Rich backstory, great mystery, serious and spiritual writing combined with unbelievable Mike Zeck art. I was hooked for life at the tender age of 9-10. It’s still a great read.

The first comic I ever purchased was Transformers #6 (First Dinobots I believe). I saw it at the grocery store and had to have it. However, it was a year later when I purchased Uncanny X-Men #295. That comic blew me away, it had this great Apocalypse story, and some cool stuff with Bishop and Wolverine. It was my first mainstream comic, and I have never missed an issue since. I still believe that Scott Lobdell is the best X-Men writer. I went on to open my own comic shop…all because of one issue.

2 books always stand out. Green Lantern # 181 and Robotech-Macross Saga # 5. After that, began my comic addiction

I’m not 100% certain, because I was so young when I bought my first comic. I *think* it was Incredible Hulk #287. (http://www.leaderslair.com/noexcuses/hulk2-287.jpg) I also remember being really into the Hulk cartoon and live action shows, although I don’t remember whether tv inspired my love of the comic, or the other way around.

Hooked: Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 – Death of Supergirl…

I had read a few comics before then, of course (I was 14 at the time I picked up Crisis #7), but had no knowledge of DC (or Marvel, for that matter) history. But I got into it so much that I asked my parents to take me back to the comicbook shop I found the issue while on a family vacation in Florida to pick up the back issues they had…

Haven’t looked back since…

GI Joe comics got me hooked. I still have the first issue somewhere. Loved everything about it, including the blueprint specs of their base!

I was fully into comics however once I found X-Men and Thor. Simonson’s run is my favorite thing ever, Malekith was such a cool bad guy!

Definitely the “Man of Steel” mini-series by John Byrne that re-booted Superman after ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’. My brother bought me the whole set (including the variant cover to #1) when I was 9 for Christmas and those are still my most cherished comics.

I didn’t get into comics until I was 16. The one that started my now 11-year-old hobby was Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #7 (keep in mind this was at least a year before Hot Topics exploded with more Jhonen Vasquez than anyone reasonably needed). I simply could not understand how something so violent, inappropriate, and hilarious could exist in comic book form. A friend’s brother sent it to him from New York. We lived in the middle of Appalachia with the nearest comic book store a half-hour drive away, so that comic really hit like a meteorite in our backyard. The first mainstream comic that caught my attention was an issue of X-Men that had a Larroca-drawn cover of Wolverine fighting Marrow against a crazy solid pink background. It was on the shelf of a local grocery store, and really jumped out at me.

Easy – The Amazing Spider-Man #140 – I remember picking it up at the corner store with my dad and asking if I could get it – right smack dab in the middle of clones and the Jackal and the Grizzly and a bunch of crazy stuff I didnt get but Oh My God from that day to this I dont know how I would survive without comics. A copy of it sits in a frame holder in a top-loader on a shelf in my apartment to this day.

The Amazing Spider-Man #140, circa 1975. I still remember vividly seeing it on the rack at the corner store, and asking my dad if he would buy it for me, which he did. 33 years later it sits in a shiny new toploader in a frame holder on a prominent shelf in my home.

Jackal! Grizzly! Clones! Woo Hoo!

Spanners Galaxy #3 and Atari Force #15. Back in 1984 if I’m not mistaken. Mom came home from the grocery store one night and gave me two comics and I didn’t even ask for them! Perhaps it was her secret way of getting me to read more. Now of which I don’t have enough time for… pity.

Tie: Punisher Magazine #1 and Sensation She-Hulk #1

Transformers #9 and Spectacular Spider-Man #151.

I still argue that that issue of Spectacular has one of the best covers ever!

Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth #29–reprinted just last week. I was three. It was 1975.

My first comic and therby started my little love affair with funnybooks was Green Lantern #76 and I have not looked back since.

GI Joe #7 – 1st comic
I still remember the story to this day. Most books I forget, even when I enjoy them, but this one stuck. Early enough in the series that there was still mystery about the characters. And, the story had it all: good guys, bad guys, espionage, team-ups, deception, great character interaction, and fighting. Plus, it was the 2nd part (which was never really a problem for me) of the 1st appearance of the Oktober Guard. Just awesome.

Later, I was excited about Marvel’s New Universe. Maybe because it was “real”. And J.R.Jr. did the art for Star Brand. Incredible.

Then I bought a bunch of comics from a neighbor, and really got into it. Mostly Marvel. Fell in love with the mutant books with Fall of the Mutants (Silvestri on Uncanny – still amazing). Read the scene outside of Forge’s tower in Dallas, for one of the funniest moments in X-Men history (Wolvie’s claws and Blob’s butt)! Mistakenly bought Avengers #287, thinking it was part of Fall of the Mutants, and fell in love with the Avengers side of the universe (as well as Stern/Buscema).

My wallet has been crying ever since.

My first book was a Detective Comis issue during the knightquest run (the whoe Azrael/Bane thing). But I quit reading comics during the late 90s, due squarely to the BattleChasers delays (remember those?).I picked up the habit once again 3 years ago, and it was joe q’s variant for New Avengers 1 that got me.

My dad had bought me Teen Titans comics for a while when I was a kid and while I had always enjoyed them, I was not really all that into them. Then he bought home Uncanny X-man issue 221 and it all changed, for that moment on, comics have been a major part of my life.

Mine was most likely an Archie or Richie Rich comic/digest, then I moved onto the toy tie-in books (Rom, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Marvel’s BSG and Star Trek’s) during the late 70′s/early 80′s.

Jim Lee’s X-Men #1. I was five and fell in love with Psylocke. Thought Gambit and Wolverine were the coolest characters I had ever seen. Oh the good old days

My first comic that I remember was either the first Marvel Star Wars treasury edition or Amazing Spider-Man #181. Either way – I was hooked. The Spider-Man issue was an origin recap and from that point on Spider-Man has been my favorite Super Hero.

Amazing Spiderman #251! Still a classic, as far as I’m concerned!

Secret Origins #2 (I think), featuring the origin of The Atom.

My father read me that story. I can hear his voice reading me the splash page. He died when I was six. My three most vivd memories of him are of him reading me comics

There’s a longer version of this story at
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?p=5322523#post5322523

I really can’t remember my first title. I know seeing Spidey on The Electric Co. had an effect on me, and I bought Spidey Super Stories for a good long while as a result. That led to buying some ASM as well. I remember having issues somewhere around the #200 mark. Isn’t that when Spidey finally confronted “The Burglar”?

I also remember him having a broken arm around that time, and having thise huge all-out slugfest with Kingpen. Kingpen eventually wins and walks away with his wife, which made me mad, but if Spidey had been at full strength it wouldn’t have turned out that way. I might still have some of those, packed away. I need to go looking for those books.

I also had “The Untold Legend of The Batman” miniseries (and I still have it!), and what a shock that was after only being exposed to Batman via Adam West and Superfriends. That series made me a Bat-fan for life. I bought some Superman too, but I enjoyed the Supes team-book “DC Comics Presents” more than Superman (proper) or Action. But I had a few of those. Even then I felt like Supes was too wimpy a lot of the time… Mr. Miracle took him a fight?

Ed mentioned the Batman/Man-Bat book and record combo… I had that too! I have no idea what happened to it, but I sure wish I had it now. I think Adam West may have even done the voice for Bats?

And Star Wars comics of course… They weren’t my first comics, but once that series premiered I had a reason to go back to the drug store to buy comics on a regular basis. I sold most of SW issues while I was in college (a guy’s gotta eat), but I kept the issues that chronicled the first movie, along with a few others.
Remember that big green rabbit guy? And Crimson Jack? Those were the days.

Darkhawk #4

This would be a good idea for a book. !t would be nice to read not only the responses of comic creators, but also the responses from people in other fields. I think it’s easy to forget that comic books have played a huge role in the development of all sorts of people

Tie:
Uncanny X-Men 212
Avengers 275

Superboy 115 “The Atomic Superboy” and 116 “The Wolf-Boy of Smallville”. Simplicity in comics.

Ahhhh, I remember it well.

I wandered into my 7-11 out in Huntington Beach, Ca. in May 1977 and bought my 1st comics ever!

Avengers #159(fought Graviton!)
Amazing Spiderman #168(Will-O-The-Wisp)
Marvel Team-Up(with Black Widow VS Silver Samurai)
FF4 #182(The BRUTE!)

Man, I really took up reading during that time.

Been hooked ever since!

Hey Ed… Good to hear from you again! I worked at bookshop part-time a few years ago for some extra cash, and that b&w mass market reprint of Untold Legend of The Batman was on our shelves. I handsold a number of those to kids and parents alike as Batman Begins was about to come out.

We also had a b&w mass reprint of Action Comics #500. I can’t remember what the book was titled, but it was definitely Action #500, because I had that one as a kid too. Lame story about a Superman museum opening in Metropolis.

That’s really funny about your old collection of comics with records. I can actually remember a few lines of dialogue from the Batman/Man-Bat story, and it’s Adam West’s voice I hear in my head when I think about that. I also had some Superman record (that maybe had a comic?) with a goofy theme song. Sample lyric: “From another planet/Muscles made of granite/X-ray eyes and super brain…” What a shame they don’t make stuff like that anymore. Hilarious!

Now I gotta go dig up my Star Wars comics… I think the green rabbit’s name was something like Jax-Ur. Although that kinda sounds Kryptonian, doesn’t it?

Hey Ed… Good to hear from you again! I worked at bookshop part-time a few years ago for some extra cash, and that b&w mass market reprint of Untold Legend of The Batman was on our shelves. I handsold a number of those to kids and parents alike as Batman Begins was about to come out.

We also had a b&w mass reprint of Action Comics #500. I can’t remember what the book was titled, but it was definitely Action #500, because I had that one as a kid too. Lame story about a Superman museum opening in Metropolis.

That’s really funny about your old collection of comics with records. I can actually remember a few lines of dialogue from the Batman/Man-Bat story, and it’s Adam West’s voice I hear in my head when I think about that. I also had some Superman record (that maybe had a comic?) with a goofy theme song. Sample lyric: “From another planet/Muscles made of granite/X-ray eyes and super brain…” What a shame they don’t make stuff like that anymore. Hilarious!

Now I gotta go dig up my Star Wars comics… I think the green rabbit’s name was something like Jax-Ur. Although that kinda sounds Kryptonian, doesn’t it?

I had kind of casually read comics all through childhood (and like Bendis I loved those comics or picture books that came with albums; I had a great one with the Super Powers that I used to play over and over again). But then when I was 12 my father (who read comics as a child) heard about the Spider-Man 30th anniversary comics and very specifically bought me Amazing Spider-Man 365. I must have read it 20 times waiting for the next issue to come out. And I remember how disappointed I was when 366 finally came out because it was a fill-in and Bagley didn’t illustrated it. Ah well, it was too late. I was already a goner.

Man, I really wish that EW (or anyone else, for that matter) wouldn’t do “list” articles like this in that damn “one page per entry” format. That’s a really big web pet peeve of mine.

Suicide Squad by Ostrander was the first book that I picked up with any regularity, I used to get my comics at the local pharmacy, and it was hard to pick up anything, I used to miss a lot of issues, but I never missed an issue of the old Suicide Squad, and than it was like crack from than on in. Ostrander did it to me!

My apologies for the message that posted *three* times earlier… High-speed internet, my a**!

The hardcover editions: Superman from the 30′s to the ’70s, Batman from the ’30s to the ’70s, and Shazam! from the ’40s to the ’70s.

Marvel Teamp-Up#141 drew me in with an Art Adams cover featuring Daredevil, Black Widow and Spidey in one of his 1st appearances in the alien duds. Then it was Uncanny X-Men #182′s story, a solo tale featuring Rogue and her Ms. Marvel persona freeing a friend from SHIELD, that got me hooked forever.

I remember the first comic I bought was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meet Archie. Awesome.

The comic that got me hooked was Robin 3: Cry of he Huntress #3. I remember there was a preview for it in the local newspaper along with a Batman Adventures preview and some other DC stuff. The Robin preview just grabbed me as kid and I had to have it. Made my Dad take me to the LCS and it was over. I was hooked.

I remember what I loved about was that I found Tim Drake totally relatable. He had to cover up for how his Robin activites affected him at school (falling asleep, etc.). and deal with parents and all the other stuff kids have to deal with, PLUS he was a superhero. Totally had me enthralled when I was in 3rd or 4th grade.

Transformers #67 “The war is over and the Decepticons have won” Loved my TF’s went to the comic then Gijoe, X-men, Avengers, Spidey, and then the rest is history.

“Silver Surfer”, V3, #53. Surfer fights The Rhino, who’s letting zoo animals go free because he thinks the world’s coming to an end. Showed me comic books were more complex and emotional than I thought. Then I read “Infinity Gauntlet” #4. Thanos kills 2 dozen superheroes I didn’t knew with no effort. Bad-ass!

Got me in? Probably early Batman/JLA stuff
Got me hooked? Secret Wars 1
Got me addicted? Secret Wars 2 tie ins with X-Men and New Mutants (my first issue of NM was the ones where they fight the Beyonder and die…)

Uncanny X-men #280. The Genosha story (X-tinction Agenda) with Jim Lee drawing the great looking vehicles.

Mine was just a bit later than the issue above. It was FF #4. Namor was carring Sue Storm into the surf with Reed, The Thing, and The Human Torch in “hot” pursuit.
Stan and Jack HAD me….
I thought this comic was so good… I wouldn’t subscribe because I thought this comic company was trying to pull a “fast-one”.
Hey, these guys had some personality… and character interplay that “hooked” me right in for half a century. FF#6… and then I found FF#5… together those three cemented the deal. Jack was “THE GREATEST” … AND with Stan Lee …They were the Greatest team in comics …by me!!

I’m surprised by how many people had G.I. Joe as their gateway drug into comics collecting. Same here- G.I. Joe #63 (the “new” Cobra Commander comes to Cobra Island for the first time). I started buying the comic every month and trying to get back issues to fill in what happened in the Borovia story line. The first mainstream comic that got me into the MU, though, would have been X-Men #1 (1990). From there I fell in love with the Avengers and Spider-Man, then eventually got into DC books too. But G.I. Joe started it all.

For me it was Marvel’s Bronze age horror and fantasy titles that got me into comics.Though I’ve since gotten earlier issues I started with Conan the Barbarian 19 [1972], Monsters on the Prowl/Werewolf by Night [1972], Tomb of Dracula 7, and Kull, the Conqueror 11 [1973].I already knew Conan and Kull from the books and was a monster fan especially of Dracula and werewolves.Memories of the 60′s cartoons and love of mythology drew me to Thor about 210 [1973].When I came back to comics in 2006 after a 20 year abscence Thor was the series l was most anxious to read again so I dipped into vol. 2 while waiting for vol. 3 to start.

Though I had picked up a DC 3-pack of books at my local grocery that included Action Comics #417, Detective Comics #428 and Kamandi #1 early on, it was discovering a whole pile of coverless comics in my older brother’s room that hooked me. There were Marvel and DC titles in there aplenty but the ones that made the difference were Avengers #107-108 and Marvel’s Greatest Comics #40 with a reprint of FF #53.

First spinner rack with comics I ever saw at a store…well, that closed the deal. Actually tracked one of those down a few years back. Way cool.

It’s great to see some love for the UNTOLD LEGENDS OF THE BATMAN miniseries that came with the cassette tapes! That was one of the first things that I remember reading as a kid. The part where Joe Chill is gunned down by the factory workers…and then Lew Moxon runs out into traffic…I was scarred. And who could forget the song at the end of each tape? “Evil’s only true avenger! BATMAN!”

The first proper comic I remember reading was BATMAN #424. Jason Todd kills a guy. My primary exposure to Batman had been the Adam West series prior to that. There’s a lengthy fight sequence in that issue, and I went through and wrote in ‘Biff!’ and ‘Pow!’ because I felt it had been left out. Another early comic that I read was SUPERBOY: THE COMIC BOOK #7, based on the TV series. I loved that story immensely. Years later I went back and reread it, and it still holds up in my mind. It’s a little one off story by some guy named Mark Waid…

But the book that hooked me was SUPERMAN #49 – Part 1 of the Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite! Superman lost his powers! Lex Luthor beats him up! I HAD to know what happened next. That’s still one of my favorite Superman stories.

Man I like this post and it is so good and I am definetly going to bookmark it. One thing to say the Superb analysis you have done is trully remarkable.Who goes that extra mile these days? Well Done!! Just one more tip you shouldget a Translator Application for your Global Audience .