I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. As I remember it, I figured out right away that Howard the Duck wasn’t for kids. The first issue hit spinner racks when I was a mere five years old. At first glance, it bore a resemblance to the material I was excitedly reading at the time. Still, I somehow knew it was a comic for adults. I suspect that was attributable to the fact that adults were reading and talking … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Howard the Duck by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. I believe I’ve used this space before to expound of my youthful susceptibility to Marvel Annuals, the double-sized bonus issues of the publisher’s most popular titles that arrived every summer. In addition, I was easily enticed by a cover that offered a series of seemingly unrelated incidents that offered a preview of what was inside, effectively promising that the events of the issue in question couldn’t be contained within a single image, … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Avengers Annual #10 by Chris Claremont and Michael Golden

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. In my dull snobbery, enhanced by an equally misguided tendency to dismiss anything viewed as too girly from my pop culture consideration, I was an unlikely reader for a series featuring She-Hulk, the unfortunately named cousin to Marvel’s signature green goliath hero. Introduced in a comic book with a 1980 cover date, She-Hulk was the titanic alter ego of Jessica Walters, previously unmentioned cousin of Bruce Banner. When her relative happened to be … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Sensational She-Hulk by John Byrne

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. I had just begun my delirious jaunt into the magical land of superhero comics when the SPECIAL DOUBLE-SIZE 100TH ISSUE! of Marvel Team-Up hit newsstands, way back when that was actually a place a person could buy comic books. I wasn’t buying any Spider-Man comics yet, nor was X-Men part of my monthly habit, which theoretically have made me interested in this issue, given that it was written by the scribe … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Marvel Team-Up #100 by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. To be a youthful fan of superhero comics during the nineteen-eighties, one needed — absolutely needed — to adore the X-Men. Writer Chris Claremont took the granules of Stan Lee’s original conceit for the team, with the maligned mutants standing in for every beset group of people in American culture, and spun it into a fair representation of the sensation of being perpetually outcast that comes with adolescences, especially for those … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Uncanny X-Men #153 by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. Though the two major comic book publishers, Marvel and DC, currently operate with as much animosity towards one another as at any time during their decades-long competition, I’m under the impression, perhaps inaccurately, that the schism doesn’t extend to the fan base. Maybe because the two of them are in a nearly perpetual state of reboot, readers feel free to shift back and forth freely between the lines, opting for whatever … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Legends by John Ostrander, Len Wein, and John Byrne