Earliest Comic Book Memory

[Fireintheskies]

Ok, I'm new but I've read this forum and I know this question has more or less been asked already, but since its a couple years old, I'm going to raise the question again and maybe make it a little broader of a question...

What is everyone's earliest memories for comic books... both the earliest thing you remember picking up period, and what got you into reading full time?

Not know an exact timeline on the books, there are a couple things that stand out for me for earliest comic book, period...and its probably what has colored my taste in comics all around.

I remember taking summer roadtrips with my parents and they'd stock up a few comics for me for the road...I was probably still first or second grade so it was more a matter of them grabbing a few issues off the shelf for me, rather then having me pick something out... As such, I got an early introduction to the Justice League of America...and since they pretty much timed their JLA/JSA crossovers for summer release, my parents quite accidentally got me those issues for our roadtrips. I never did get the full stories just whatever was on the stand when we were leaving, but they were always the annual JLA/JSA crossovers.

When my parents separated for a year, I also remember my dad picking up Superboy issues with the Dial H for Hero as the background feature, for the weekends when I would visit.

By the time 5th grade rolled around my parents were back together and we moved to Oregon...this was 1985. I didnt know anyone in the new place so I quickly latched onto comics on a full time basis and have been reading ever since. The first series on the stands that caught my eye were Who's Who....that laid out every comic book character in the known DC Universe, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Green Lantern Corps #201 (7 Green Lanterns all live in the same house on Earth ...holy crap, its "The Real World" in comics before the show ever started!), oh and the Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Byrne's relaunch of Superman.

I guess that's why I've had a special fascination with DC....I started right at their relaunch. The JLA/JSA crossovers and Crisis on Infinite Earths formed the very basics of what I knew of super heroes...and my very first comics' leaps of faith or suspensions of disbeliefs were the idea that there were several worlds each with their own version of the same heroes. Plus, Who's Who, defined EVERYONE for me....at least everyone as of 1985. After that I learned who everyone was just by reading it myself. That said...I UNDERSTOOD what was happening in the Crisis...and though things have gotten a LITTLE hazier, I UNDERSTAND what's happening in Infinite Crisis as well. Heck, this is nostalgia at the very heart.

At any rate, I know that I've covered more then just one or two titles here, but reply to this, however you think is appropriate. What are everybody's earliest memories for the comics....either in broad terms or in specifics.

[Kscriv]

The first comic I ever biught and my fave of the few I got to this day, Sonic #39: Mecha Madness Starts Here.

[LeeAndrew]

Good topic.

I don't remember what happened in the first comic I had, all I remember is the cover. It was a comic called Nightmask and there were two guys fighting on the front, then in the background there were these bests or creatures of some kind also fighting, I want to say throughout the comic the two beasts did everything that the characters did. I don't know really, I've never read the comic since then so I don't know what it's all about.

I really got into comics because of my brother, he is a reader and a collector and has a friend that owns a shop so he got alot of stuff for a really good price. He would always have boxes and boxes of comics. I remember at one point he had the entire garage full of boxes of comics. Once I start getting sort of into comics I told him I'd like to read some. Really the only thing I had seen was that NIghtmask comic I had and Spiderman and X-Men. So I asked him for some Spiderman and X-men, that Christmas he got me about 100 back issues of Amazing Spiderman and Uncanny X-men, one of the benefits of having a friend that is an owner, you get a lot of stuff cheap! Since then every year I've made a list for him of everything I wanted at Christmas and he usually would come up with 100 or so comics for me to enjoy. This year I didn't get any individual comics but I came out of Christmas with a stack of 18 Essentials and 1 Showcase. So I have plenty to read for the next year.

[Skyre]

The first comic I remember reading was Sonic the Hedgehog, Special 25th Issue: Sonic vs. Mecha Sonic; Sonic CD Adaptation.

Sonic's friends, Tails and Amy Rose(first comic book appearance!), were being held hostage(Tails - Caught over Robotnik's airspace; Amy Rose - Kidnapped after Robotnik stole a bag of Archie Comics fan-mail for Sonic) and the only way Sonic could save them was to race against Mecha Sonic in the Stardust Speedway Zone(Although not before going through the Collision Chaos Zone[sonic CD Zone 2] first). After that and a double-pack with issues 20 and 21 I was hooked on Sonic Comics.

I continued to buy Sonic comics (I even had a subscription for a while), as well as almost all of the Super Specials and backorders of issues 1-7, until around #45 which was when the local Mac's stopped selling the series. During a brieftrip to the states I managed to pick up issue #50 EndGame in which Dr. Robotnik gets trapped in another dimension.

Mac's started selling the comics again around issue #60, but the comics had gotten really boring without Robotnik, so I stopped buying them. By the time it finally got interesting again I had no idea what was going on because I had missed so many.

Another one of my favorites is the Sonic Super Special #7. They Freedom Fighters end up getting transported to another dimension that had various super-heros in it. They had to team up with these heros in order to retrieve the Floating Island's chaos emerald and get back home. Following the team and investigating what was happening(basically a way to tell the storyline after the fact) were the agents Scolder and Mully.

Nowadays I don't really read comics that often except for my monthly issue of Shonen Jump and the occasional graphic novel.