It’s a question that comes up from time to time on message boards and blogs, and came up again yesterday when comics retailer James Sime asked folks on Twitter what comic got them “hooked for life.” Sime noted Daredevil #154 (above), and the responses he received created a list of comics that included everything from Star Wars and Spider-Man to Unknown Soldier and Kamandi. You can check all the responses out here.
For the record, mine was Uncanny X-Men #115, specifically the panel where Wolverine tore into Sauron, who had just proclaimed he was going to rule the Savage Land. Wolverine responds, “The only place you’re gonna rule is in hell!” the claws came out and I was done for.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 am
Easy. The Buscema/Claremont “Magik” miniseries. It had demons and drama and more then one female character! It was magic for a little girl.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:30 am
It’s hard to pick just one. But I can include Amazing Spider-Man 200 on the short list. A powerless Spidey up against the burglar, with Aunt May at stake. No Goblin conspiracies, no clones, no retcons, just a great little story that got me hooked on Spidey and soon on comics.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:40 am
For me, I started when I was about 8 with Groo The Wanderer, then Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a few other independent comics. It wasn’t until the 1991 X-Men by Jim Lee that I jumped into mainstream superheroes.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Amazing Spider-man #307
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I was tooling around Gotham City Comics in NYC, no real shopping agenda outside of Loeb’s Superman and Morrison’s X-Men, items I was curious about but not passionate for. The clerk told me about this book about a preacher, his hitman girlfriend and vampire best friend, and how they are tracking down God to make him answer.
I took a chance. I was hooked.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I had an on and off relationship with comics since I was kid, after watching the X-Men cartoon on Saturday mornings. What got me going to the comic shop on a regular basis up until today was picking up the first two trades of Astonishing X-Men and then finding out issue 13 was coming out that very week. I’ve been at the comic shop every week since.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Justice League America #69 or Superman #74…I can’t remember which, since both were Jurgens and I think they were consecutive parts of the Doomsday story.
Having come back after a hiatus to see Big Blue bite the big one, I became really impressed by the character work in these issues. I loved Mitch and his family and was really happy, a couple of years later, to see them resurface as a footnote in another story. I’ve always admired the way they continued to use threads from the Doomsday story in this book for years and years to come, giving it a sense of scope that man of the big Event Crossover stories don’t have because their effects wear off six months later.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I’m showing my age, but I remember reading and re-reading these hardback DC reprint books (30s to the 70s or something), then picking up X-Men #10something - the one where they go to Banshee’s castle and Juggernaut/Black Tom are waiting for them. It was unlike anything I had ever seen in a comic and I was hooked. It was my life’s mission as a kid to find the next issue.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Batman #251 - Neal Adams and the Joker. ‘Nuff said.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
As a kid, I subscribed to Fantastic Four and checked out collections of old Stan Lee comics from the library, but I was never really into comics. That all changed when I was ten or eleven years old and picked up a beat-up copy of Uncanny X-Men 281 from a free bin at a neighbor’s garage sale. The issues started out with sentinels slaughtering the Reavers, then it followed the X-Men into Emma Frost’s Hellfire Club, and finished with Trevor Fitzroy interrupting their meeting with a horde of sentinels. By the end of the issue, just about all of the characters were dead (except, of course, the X-Men). To me, that issue–with its hyper-detailed art and non-stop-action plot–was the coolest thing I had ever read. It was dark and exciting, changing the way I perceived comics and igniting a lasting obsession with the medium.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
That’s a tough one. I don’t think I have a single comic experience. I probably had superhero Underoos before I ever had a comic book, so obviously, this stuff is in my blood.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
It was a Marvel Tales reprint of Amazing Spider-Mam 112.
“Spidey Cops Out”
A looming image of Spidey pushes his hands away in resignation as a crowd of hooligans tear into each other below. “Kill each other, I don’t care anymore!”
Spider-Man was such an honest regular guy but his world seemed so dangerous. The five year old in me instantly started worrying about him. “Hmmm” I thought, “I better keep reading Spider-Man for the rest of my life.” I had to get the bed sheets, comforter and footsy pajamas too.
I also like that Spider-Man got pissed off sometimes and yelled at people (just like my dad.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I barely read comics as a kid. The Star Wars adaptation probably qualifies as the only comic I read before high school. Then I read maybe 1 or 2 issues of New Mutants. I wanted very much to be an animator as a kid and comics didn’t quite do it for me. Then, in the 90s, I found The Maxx and that’s when comics really peaked my interest.
Nowadays I’m hooked on the whole lot.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I remember just staring at Steve Bissette and John Totleben’s early Swamp Thing issues any chance I got when I was 6-7. One of my earliest memories is listening to my parent’s Thriller album (on record!) in the living room of my old house, and trying to copy all the roots and moss on Swamp Thing’s body on piece after piece of paper.
There was a spot reserved for all of my Swamp Things in the middle part of the back seat of our car between where myself and my sister sat. I had a subscription to ST too, and as I got more issues the car pile got bigger and bigger; the covers also got completely discolored from the sun, but looking at them these days brings back all those great memories of those comics.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Oh man I LOVED that Daredevil! Gene Colan still had it and did a fantastic job.
My comic was Howard the Duck #2. Can you believe it? I had bought comics off and on over the years but picking up that HTD at a yard sale was what got me started on collecting, first HTD then everything else.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 am
It was Infinity Gauntlet #4 for me!
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:58 pm
The classic Uncanny X-Men #141 & 142, Days of Future Past. I remember reading rumpled copies over at a friend’s house. Those were pure gold.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Honestly, it was the first two books I picked up, Uncanny X-Men 193 and 194. I didn’t quite understand what was going on but I knew the characters interested me and I could sense a greater overall story going on through the books. I haven’t missed an issue since.