Secret Origins

Wednesdays are days when I write Choose Your Own Blogventure, which you should totally check out. I will rant:

I've always been a Spider-Man and Batman fan, but for the longest time I refused to read comic books from either company. However, I've been reading comic books since 1990. What did I read if not Marvel or DC, you ask? Well, it wasn't Archie, at least not the main Archie books. I've nothing against Archie, but I could never get into his antics. No, I read Disney Comics. The closest thing to a superhero comic I got for a long time was an issue of Archie's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is also the only comic book I've ever lost.

My very first comic book was an issue of DuckTales, shown to your left. I read that thing ragged, and it's now a sad and without a cover. I also regularly read Donald Duck Adventures and Uncle Scrooge. As time went on, I became exposed to other companies' comics. My first real exposure to a Marvel Comic was Spider-Man, Storm, and Power Man which I got for free, and was an anti-smoking PSA. It also served the purpose of introducing me to Luke Cage before any of the X-Men (except, of course, Storm). I liked it, but not enough to do anything more than page through the occasional Spider-book at the grocery store. My first foray into DC Comics was the adaption of Batman Returns. Once again, I liked it, but not a lot. I still watched the old Adam West Batman whenever I could. Time continued, as time does, and I gradually branched out from Disney Comics and began reading an action-oriented comic book. That book? Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog, which is so far the first and only comic book I've ever held a subscription to. I also avoided the initial run of "Batman: The Animated Series" like the plague. I've no idea why I did that. It was quite foolish of me, in retrospect.

Eventually, an event occurred which changed my life: the launch of the 1994
Spider-Man animated series. Not only did I begin watching that show, but all the other superhero shows Fox Kids had to offer. What's more is that it left me wanting to see more of this Spider-Man, and so the next time I went to the grocery store (for a long time, the only place I bought comics) I sought a Spider-Man book. Unfortunately, at the time, I had an aversion to jumping into a comic mid-storyline and all the regular Spider-books they had were mid-storyline. Most of them involved the Scarlet Spider and various other clones, and I really had no chance of figuring out what was going on. Instead, I opted for an issue of Spider-Man 2099. It looked safe enough, and had the words "Spider-Man" right there on the cover! How could I go wrong? Once I actually read the book and was totally confused as to what was happening (except for one specific page where it was painfully obvious what was happening), I decided to wait until one of the main Spider-books had a stand-alone story. The issue I picked up featured one of the first appearances of the Phil Urich Green Goblin, and I was content, and decided to say "screw not picking things up mid-storyline". From that point, I picked up back-issues wherever I could, resulting in me knowing about ROM and the New Universe fairly early in the life of my new hobby. I started reading new comics in earnest right after Peter Parker started being Spider-Man again, focusing mainly on Spider-Man and Batman. This served me well, and then I just sort of stopped, probably because the friends I would talk about comics with and whatnot abandoned me and left me feeling quite hurt.

I would pick up a sporadic book until I graduated high school, and then I started reading them in earnest once again. Right now I'm in another lull, but I'll probably start reading comics pretty soon again. At which point, they'll cancel or radically change every single book I buy. Ah, and do endless crossovers, but that's a rant for another time. Thanks for listening.