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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 10:49am | IP Logged | 1
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In another topic, we discussed "Superman/Spider-Man" and how amazing and incredible it was at the time. It was downright unfathomable that DC and Marvel could possibly work together*, let alone match up Spider-Man and Superman!
Today, such a book would be of interest, but not really all that exciting. Too many internet spoilers, too much "We've just topped this!", and - as Mr. Byrne is wont to cite - too many ennui-gorged fanboys running the business.
So let's take a look back. Pick three moments in your collecting history when you saw or heard of something that made you sit up straight and utter, "Oh my God! They're actually DOING it!"
Give us up to three examples of moments of wonder you had. Could be an event, could be a character getting introduced or getting their own book, could be a creator taking over a series, could even be just a single occurrence or panel in a book - whatever. What are three awesome moments you had?
I'm kind of a crossover freak, so...
1) Fantastic Four #26 - a crossover between the Fantastic Four and the mighty Avengers! ALL battling the Incredible Hulk!
2) JLA #s 147 and 148 - the Justice League and the Justice Society meet the Legion of Super-Heroes.
3) George Perez is hired by DC and takes on the Justice League, the New Teen Titans, and Firestorm.
What are yours?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:00am | IP Logged | 2
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1) The biggest one would have to be discovering that Superman, who I'd been watching on TV, also appeared in comics -- and that there were other characters there, too!2) Next up, moving to Canada, walking into Eaton's department store on Jasper Avenue, in Edmonton, and finding myself, age 8, confronted by a whole wall of comics, all in color for a dime. 3) Marvel. 1962. FANTASTIC FOUR 5. And so it began...
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11264
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:10am | IP Logged | 3
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1,Wolverine emerging from the sewer.
2, Walt`s Frog of Thunder.
3, Bullseye killing Elektra.
A bit obvious, but they stick in my mind!
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 4
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1.) Superman VS The Amazing Spider-Man. Just discovering it...wow.
2.) Spider-Man appearing in a Transformers comic. I never saw that coming. (Of course, some had to ruin it years later with, "Why weren't giant robots mentioned before in the Marvel Universe?").
3.) Seeing the announcements for MOS. And seeing that a very familiar name was creating it...
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Michael Casselman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 January 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 1225
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:20am | IP Logged | 5
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The wonder of my first comic, Justice League of America #134
The announcement of Crisis On Infinite Earths. All these characters in one massive story?!?!?
The announcement of JLA/Avengers... and that it was REALLY HAPPENING this time, after a 20 year wait!
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Dave Phelps
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:24am | IP Logged | 6
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Somehow I don't see mine being all that popular around these parts...
#1 Crisis on Infinite Earths - all those characters in one story was mind-boggling, the death of Barry Allen with Wally assuming the role was something you never thought you'd see but could only be done properly in a shared universe with decades of history behind it, etc. (Of course, it's the kind of story you could/should only do ONCE, which I wish Didio and company had remembered a couple of decades later.)
#2 Spider-Man marries Mary Jane - my earliest Spider-Man comics were the "Secret Story" book that had reprints of Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man #80, the Lee/Ditko reprints in Marvel Tales, the Stern/Romita Amazing Spider-Man and the Mantlo/Milgrom run in Spectacular. So all at once I'm seeing him as a High School student dating Betty Brant, an undergrad with roommate Harry Osborn dating Gwen Stacy (who I knew was fated to die) and a young adult living alone dating the Black Cat (meanwhile Harry and Liz (who was chasing after Peter in High School) were expecting a child), all of which made me think of Spider-Man as a character who was allowed to grow and change over time. That said, I figured there were certain lines they wouldn't cross. So Marvel marrying him off really made me feel like the sky's the limit.
#3 Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing - the original sidekick going off on his own? Amazing.
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Jeff Scott
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Joined: 27 November 2016
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:32am | IP Logged | 7
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1.Crisis on Earth Three Justice League of America #29. 30
2. New Teen Titans and X-Men crossover one-shot special #1 Darkseid/Dark Phoenix
3. Alpha Flight #1/X-Men # 120/121
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Shawn Kane
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 November 2010
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:32am | IP Logged | 8
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1. Discovering a Star Wars comic my older brother's comic book collection. The continuing adventures of the characters I loved so much (even though I couldn't read at the time) was exciting.
2. In that collection, the Shooter/Perez Korvac Saga in the Avengers and the aging Fantastic Four needing to find a way to save themselves, I discovered a guy named John Byrne in those issues.
3. The only issue of the X-Men that he owned (#103) which made me seek out more X-Men at the local Drug Fair, 7-11, and High's Dairy Store.
Edited by Shawn Kane on 05 June 2018 at 11:33am
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4635
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:38am | IP Logged | 9
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I think Superman vs. Muhammed Ali made a much bigger impression in it's day, but maybe Supes and Spidey meeting was a bigger deal for comic collectors?
Personally...
1. Adventure Comics (some coverless, late '60s/early '70s Supergirls), but also Shazam and Plop.
2.Donald Duck in Luck Of The North and Ancient Persia (and two others, early '70s digest), and Scamp, every issue I saw.
3. Star Wars #24-28, two paperback reprints of Steve Ditko Spider-Man, Avengers #189, Marvel Super-Action #14-20, Iron Man #130, and X-Men #131-137, in that order, followed by discovering you could get Marvels you missed at a specialty shop.
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Ted Downum
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 11:44am | IP Logged | 10
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Great question, Eric.
If I thought about it a while, I might come up with a lot more than three, but here are the first three that came to mind:
1) Contest of Champions #1--maybe just seeing the cover, with all those heroes crammed into it. C. of C. predated Crisis, Secret Wars, and all the super-mega-crossover events that came after, never mind the heroes-against-heroes trope that made so many of those crossovers even less palatable (to me, anyway). As a story, it was no great shakes. But...as a three-issue miniseries (three issues!), a one-shot event not meant to Shake Up the Universe, it was fun.
2) Uncanny X-Men #138, "Elegy." The X-Men were basically new to me when I picked up my first issue, #134, smack in the middle of Dark Phoenix. (I may have read Origins of Marvel Comics by that point, so I might've been exposed to the original team one time, but that's all.) Then along comes #138, and not only am I reeling from this amazing story whose implications I don't fully understand, I get caught up on the whole history of the team in one issue. I pored over that issue, over and over again, studying every panel, trying to glean every possible clue about who was whom...all these incredible characters I'd never seen or heard about. "Elegy," no doubt about it, provided the greatest entertainment value I ever got for fifty cents, considering that I read it until the staples fell out. (And every time I got to the last page, I fell in love with Kitty Pryde again.)
3) Superman #400. Howard Chaykin on the front cover, Frank Miller on the back, and Kirby, Eisner, Moebius, Ditko, Byrne, Simonson, Grell, and Sienkiewicz (and many others) in between, all paying tribute to the Man of Steel. Pure joy.
Edited by Ted Downum on 05 June 2018 at 11:49am
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4635
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | 11
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Interesting that people who stayed with comics long term mention Secret Wars and Crisis as they were among the things that led to me stopping. I felt they were more exercises in cross-over marketing mania rather than being great epic stories in their own right; getting you to spend more, buy titles you normally wouldn't... I felt abused, kind of like with the excessive numbers of alternate covers business. I think the appeal of something being historic and bringing in permanent changes like those series would have been undercut by how they would undo almost everything later on, but then at the time when they killed a character you cared about and it was seemingly just to spike sales... they put a dead Supergirl on a bunch of covers! Basically I didn't see Crisis out, and Secret Wars I bailed after two and was barely even around to see the big push on Secret Wars II.
Contest Of Champions was pretty much a Spidey Super-Stories intro to the 'universe' as I remember it, but it sold so well it probably led to the thinking that produced Secret Wars (I remember jokes about how it should've stayed a secret).
Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 05 June 2018 at 12:30pm
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15878
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| Posted: 05 June 2018 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | 12
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1. First time I saw Secret Wars, I was bowled over by so many superheroes and villains all in one story. I quickly came to dislike crossovers, but Secret Wars contained some magic for me.2. The Secret Wars comics I collected were the UK reprints. Before that run was through, my brother got hold of some US imports. Most notably for me was Iron Man 204. Now, this was a kind of magic. It was like being able to see into the future. It was the first time I had seen the red and silver armour, but I was also bowled over by the US format — every page was in colour and you got a full story all devoted to one hero. In the UK they tended to bundle multiple heroes into one comic, breaking the stories up among several issues. So you might buy a Hulk comic and part of a Hulk story would be the first few pages, then you might get a few more pages of a Daredevil story, and it might all be in black and white or you might get a few pages in colour and the rest in black and white. So to go from that, to have a selection where you could pick which hero to follow and have a whole story in one issue and all in colour... It was awesome.
3. JB coming back to Marvel in the late 80s was a time of high excitement for me. I had bought JB's run on the FF as back issues. So to have brand new tales at Marvel characters with each new issue of West Coast Avengers was something special for me (I did collect the UK reprints of JB's work on Superman, but I was almost totally a Marvel kid).
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