Saturday, January 10, 2015

snell's Firsts!

I'm feeling nostalgic for some odd reason, so let's take a little trip down memory lane. Let's visit the halcyon 1970s, at look at the first issues of various titles that young snell bought brand new for himself (as opposed to being presents, or finds at garage sales, or what have you).

It all started, of course, in 1976, and a trip to local shopping emporium/everything store Meijer Thrifty Acres. My mom wanted to shop without me bugging her. So she gave me 50¢, and I had a choice: blow it all on the latest issue of Mad Magazine, or buy 2 individual comic books.

The rest, of course, is history:

Hooked. For. Life.

The other comic I bought that day?

For some reason, that one didn't stick...who can say why?

But only a few months later, I bought the first comic that ever made me cry:

And I was a regular Hulk buyer for quite awhile.

It took a couple of months, but it wasn't long until I was a full-fledged Marvel Zombie. Soon I picked up my first Spider-Man:

Yow!!

And my first Avengers was not too far behind...

Ah, Kirby floating heads narrating the scene...oh, 1970s covers!

I really have no clear memory of what my first issue of Captain America was, or why I took so long to hop on board. I think it was this one...

I not quite sure about my first Iron Man, either, although I'm a little more certain that this might have been where I came on board:

I'm much surer of my first X-Men:

By this time my parents had bought me Origins Of Marvel Comics, and Son Of Origins, and even young snell recognized this as an homage to the cover of X-Men #1. and I was intrigued.

That wasn't the first X-Men I bought for myself, though.

A regional discount chain, Zayre, regularly had big old tables/bins where they would sell off huge quantities of recent comics for 10¢ each.

And there were dozens, probably hundreds, of copies of this issue:

And I bought one. Just one. Only one. Nope, not all of them, nor many of them, nor lots of them. Merely one.

Oh, for a time machine and a bunch of dimes...

4 comments:

SallyP said...

Yup, oh the halcyon 70's. The covers were so garish...and yet so much fun.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I'm an old man at 55. There were several Zayres here in Chicago, and they had tall vending machines for comics, and I saw the prices rise from 12 cents to 15 cents and I never really saved pennies again. One Zayre my Uncle Ed took me to was next to the M&R Drive-In, and there would be massive flea markets on weekends. I miss those days.

Sina said...

Awww...I thought the title of this post was "snell's FISTS!!!" at first and thought was about a losing streak on Friday Night Fights or something, coming back for revenge, etc, lol :(

lol, imagine my disappointment in the end :P

SF said...

OMG, #95 up there was definitely my first issue of Iron Man. I read it over and over again, and have never read the next issue to find out how the cliffhanger is resolved. I can't thank you enough for posting it, I'm going to go poking around on Comixology...