Bendis’ iteration will follow up on the critically acclaimed second volume made of Marvel’s formerly abandoned cosmic heroes which is due for a summer blockbuster in theaters 2014. As a kid I read the odd issue of the original title and was a loyal reader of the second volume. I like the characters and think there is a lot of potential for great storytelling but sadly I don’t expect Bendis to capitalize on that.

A few weeks ago he did a promotional interview with his employer in order to sell their product where he said,

“My thought as a writer is that space in between planets is where the good stuff happens; this is where they have time to interact with each other. Think about Star Wars; the best scene in Star Wars is when they’re going from one planet to the other and Obi Wan is trying to teach Luke about the Force. And the Wookie is playing chess with the robots. That’s the good stuff, that’s where you get to know everybody. That’s what space means to me.”

The first problem with that statement is the fallacy of stating his opinion as a fact. I doubt many people would consider that the best scene in the movie. I would say the Death Star battle, or the rescue of Princess Leia, or the Cantina scene, or entering Mos Eisley, or “that’s no moon,” or the opening scene. The movie is full of memorable moments and the scene he’s mentioning is one of those, but it’s hardly the one people turn the movie on to see.

The real problem with his statement is that his reasoning doesn’t hold up because, that isn’t when we got to know the characters. The scene he’s describing is the fortieth scene in the movie. By that point we’ve spent time with characters and they’ve distinguished themselves in our minds through their actions. We’ve seen that Luke is an adventurous kid willing to try new things despite anyone trying to discourage him when he set out after R2-D2. We’ve seen that R2-D2 takes risks and that C-3PO will be trying to hold him back when they escaped the Rebel ship and stumbled around in the desert. We’ve seen that Obi-Wan is in tune with something larger than the others when he scared off Sand People and tricked Stormtroopers. We’ve seen that Han is a man who survives by his wits and willingness to fight when he killed the assassin that came to collect him.

No matter how many jokes Han cracks around a chessboard, we’ll never learn more about him than we did when he shot Greedo in the middle of their conversation. But Bendis thinks the best way to illuminate character is to have them sit around a table. He’s been given a character that allows him to send his characters anywhere in the vast Marvel Comics Universe but he’s most excited about having his cast sit around a table and talk. That self imposed limitation is why I stopped reading Brian Michael Bendis’ comics years ago and why I won’t be revising that decision anytime soon.

Until last year there was a dry period with no new Turtles content as Nickelodeon developed their plans. Those began with a line of new comics from IDW beginning last August (with Eastman involved), a rollercoaster at the Mall of America opened on March 17, a new cartoon and toy line will start in the fall, and there will be a movie for Christmas 2013.

It’s nice to see new content but I’m not sure if it’s content I want. I know they don’t need to cater to me but I also know I don’t need to buy what they’re selling. I have the comics, movies, toys and video games from my childhood and still enjoy them. It’s on Nickelodeon to produce something worth my present attention.

The comics are nice but aren’t telling new stories, they’re more focused on redoing what’s come before. I completely understand the need to market to the child who replaced me rather than retain the man I’ve become. I admire their attempt to combine the best aspects of the past continuity into one thread. As they braid these histories together they have introduced new characters (Old Hob) and complications (reincarnation, Young Casey Jones) that I find cheapen the story rather than build on it. I’ll give the book a few more issues to develop into something I want.

The Turtles are a very simple concept with distinct but broad characters who can be easily explained and adapted so it is unnecessary to spend time discussing their origins when there are new adventures waiting. I’ve written before that these characters taught me about continuity at a young age. No matter how I was following Raphael he would be rushing into a fight before thinking it through but the stakes would be different if he was in a black and white comic, a movie, a children’s cartoon or an Archie comic.

This will be true even as Nickelodeon resumes the empire. From its inception the branches will be different: this fall’s cartoon will be less “adult” than the comics and the movie from Michael Bay’s company with aliens will be different than all the others.

The movie is the most controversial and has generated waves of outcry but I can’t find it in me to care. At this point I know that I don’t ever want to see a Michael Bay directed or produced movie again because I won’t enjoy it. And I don’t need to see the movie because it has the Turtles in it. I have the original movies on my shelf right now.

In fact I have enough old movies that I want to watch for a first, second or twelfth time that I don’t need to see everything that is shoved into movie theaters week in and week out. I know that there are classic comics I haven’t read that I’d find more rewarding than 99% of the stuff on each week’s new releases rack. I’m going to keep focusing on the stuff I want rather than what’s put in front of me.

I had grown up a Star Wars fan. I watched the original trilogy whenever it came on tv. I played with a few action figures I got at a garage sale. I memorized Star Tours. And I dipped into the Expanded Universe: comics and novels.

I couldn’t have been more excited for the Prequels. I hadn’t loved the Special Editions but I was ready for more but not what was coming. I didn’t like Episode I and only saw Episode II once, just before it left the theaters. But then came Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars and then Episode III in the summer of 2005. To everyone’s surprise, including myself & my girlfriend of four months (now my wife), I was a fan again.

Shortly thereafter a coworker with a Rebel Alliance isignia tattooed on his bicep told me of the early rumors that George Lucas planned to convert the movies into 3D. This was back before the current 3D resurgence of desperate theaters, increased ticket prices, dimmed projection, and movies that either ignored their 3D or went for quick gimmicks. In short, there was potential. The thought of the massive space battles in 3D dug in and stayed in my mind. This would be a big improvement over my childhood habit of looking up into a nighttime snow storm and trying to dodge the flakes.

On October 4, 2005 I woke up and noticed a zit on my face. A few hours later it had doubled in size and had company. This was the beginning of my first outbreak of shingles. Each doctor I saw (and there were many) warned me that if I got a blister on my eye ball it could blind it. This wasn’t an idle threat as the blisters were overwhelming my eyelids.

I was eventually put on a wonder steroid to calm it down but the threat was always there. Since then I’ve had one other outbreak of Shingles (oddly on October 4, 2009). Now at last Star Wars is coming out in 3D. It is not be the best movie, and I’m not the fan I was, and 3D isn’t as enticing as it once seemed, but it is Star Wars in 3D and I can see it, so I will.

Three years later we moved to Northern California which put us in the media market for Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. That meant we could see games of the SF Giants and 49ers and Oakland’s A’s and Raiders. We could still see some of our San Diego games when when they played their division rivals: the Padres vs. the Giants and the Chargers vs. the Raiders. This means to me the Giants and Raiders have always been opponents. I’ll keep track of what they’re doing but only to see how it relates to America’s Finest City’s teams.

Thankfully the 49ers and the A’s only play the San Diego teams once every few years (less before the MLB started interleague play). So I could wear my Red & Gold with pride and without any sense of betrayal. I want to see all four of those teams do well each and every year. The best Super Bowl match up I ever got was XXIX and at the start of every season I hope for another one. But maybe this time The Unconventional City could win their first national professional sports championship.

The first disclaimer is “…because whoever wins the South Carolina Republican primary wins the nomination.” This might be hard for some people to comprehend but it’s important to remember that the Republican nominee for President is not actually the President of the United States of America. To date Clinton and Obama together defeated three Republicans: Bush in ‘92, Dole in ‘96 and McCain in ‘08.

The second disclaimer is “…since 1980.” Which means that the relationship between the South Carolina Primary and the eventual nominee is a relatively new one. 32 years might seem like a long time (it’s longer than I’ve been alive for one) but that’s only eight elections. Three of those primaries/nominations went to incumbent Republican Presidents (Reagan in ‘84, Bush in ‘92, Bush Jr in ‘04) and one was to the incumbent VP moving up (Bush in ‘88). That leaves four other primaries/nominations were there was some suspense: Reagan in ‘80, Dole in ‘96, Bush Jr in ‘00 and McCain in ‘08.

South Carolina shouldn’t be bragging about 32 years of presidential accuracy when they really mean 8 of 8 and more accurately 4 of 4 or 5 of 5. In that same period though the state has given all eight of its electoral college votes to the republican nominee, though the Southern Democrats have made some close races (Carter in ‘80 and Clinton in ‘92 and ‘96).

Most importantly there is a third disclaimer that no one will say out loud: “South Carolina isn’t the deciding factor in the nominations.” It’s only the third state in the archaic and undemocratic primary system and with many more states to vote before the national convention. The people of South Carolina’s primary votes have lined up with the last eight nominees but that’s no reason to think that will happen a ninth consecutive time or a tenth or so on.
Thankfully South Carolina is not America. It’s just a small part of it.

To round out her analysis she then asked how much prodding I got from my parents. Had they made me play sports or join clubs I didn’t want to or keep me from ones I wanted? Had they insisted I go to college? Had they said which school I should go to or what I should study?

I was happy to answer “No” to all her questions.

The only team sport I played in a league for was children’s soccer. I liked the game and my friends played so I asked to join. I enjoyed it for a while and then decided not to renew for third season. My mom was fine with that and asked why so I explained I was tired of my friend’s mother who screamed throughout the game.

My parents met at college but neither of them graduated from there (though my mother went back later to complete her degree and later still to get an MBA) and I made up my own mind to go to college. A few colleges sent me offers but I applied to only one school which accepted me and then gave me a full ride scholarship. I went in with a plan of what I wanted to study, found I didn’t care for that and switched. If at any point my parents didn’t agree with my plans they never vocalized them in front of me.

The one thing my mom told me I couldn’t do when I grow up was join the military. This came up when I came in from playing with my GI Joes in the backyard and said I wanted to join the army. She flatly told me that would not be happening. And she was right. I didn’t want to join the real army, I wanted to join GI Joe.

I haven’t joined GI Joe but my life has gone pretty well to date and I’m thankful my parents never pushed me into or kept me from any interest.

After that I searched out a few recordings of his stand up on the untamed internet of the day. He had a brilliant way of twisting the ordinary and could be delightfully vulgar. Whatever he was talking about he could always make me laugh, sometimes in spite of myself.

My friends and I planned a trip to New York City for March 2003 and to get in the mood the night before I went to see “25th Hour” a second time in the theater. Patrice had a scene in that as “Khari” a bouncer who gives Ed Norton’s character some advice about prison. I left the movie excited about the adventures I was about to have.

The second night we were out there we wound up in The Comedy Cellar without realizing how significant a place it was. We had a wonderful time tucked away in a corner which gave us a view of the whole room including the stage and the entrance. As the show went on I wondered if the only comedian I wanted to see would be there. And then halfway through the night, a large man entered and went through the center of the room towards the bathroom. It was Patrice.

My knee started bouncing under the table and I had to wait another two comedians before he came on but it was worth it. I can’t remember how he got on the topic but he did a really long bit on the sound of a penis going into a vagina. It was everything I thought he would be.

When I got home I put on the tape of the Chappelle’s Show that I missed while travelling and saw Patrice as Pit-Bull attending the Playa Hater’s Ball. It was the most Patrice O’Neal-ish week possible.

Ever since then I tried to follow his career and keep up with his appearance on the second episode of Arrested Development, Shorties Watchin’ Shorties, his comedy specials on HBO and Comedy Central, guest appearances on The Office and more.

Hearing that he had a stroke last month was upsetting but I held out hope that was dashed this morning as he passed away. I’ll always remember how much laughter and insight he brought to my life. Thanks for everything Big Black Cowboy Jesus!

My Little Town

In 1990 there were two places I regularly bought comics: the Chevron and Safeway. The other gas stations and the other grocery store probably did as well, but these were the places my parent’s when and so these were the spinner racks I saw.

I went to Chevron (now a 76 Station) every weekday morning with my Mom as she drove me to school and continued on to work. Their spinner racks were just inside the door, I would stop there and leaf through them while she picked up a cup of ice and a bottle of diet coke.

We went to Safeway regularly and I could sometimes get a new comic from the spinner rack by the magazines or the latest issue of Disney Adventures at the check stand.

It was a simple system and worked well for me. I saw comics on a daily basis and could get them when I was allowed or had money to spend.

Wide Open Spaces

Quincy was and is a great little town, but there are a lot of things it doesn’t have. About once a month my parents and I would head to Reno, NV for a day or a weekend. It was an hour and a half each direction but but worthwhile to stock up on stuff at Costco or Target, buy clothes, or see a movie in its opening month. When my friends and I were old enough to drive, going to Reno was a great Saturday adventure including hanging around in a mall. On these trips I discovered comic book stores.

The first one I probably went to was actually a sports card store (which I was also interested in at the time) in the same shopping center as Target and Mervyn’s. It was run by a friendly guy who also sold comic based cards and a few comics.

Shortly after that we found a real comic shop in a local mall that was huge with new comics and back issues. The place was so massive I didn’t know where to start looking. At first I would start looking through the new releases for anything I might have missed at home and then I’d go into the back issues, rarely hunting for anything in particular but maybe if I was lucky I could find a few consecutive issues of a title for cheap. The problem wasn’t finding something I wanted, it was picking just a few things I wanted.

Costco also turned out to have comic books. They would have shrink wrapped packs of around ten comics for cheap. I’d find a few gems there but lots of random stuff as well. These packs are responsible for the only issues of the Legion of Superhero comics I own.

Once I knew comic shops existed I had to find them everywhere I went. On any trip the first thing I would do when we got into the motel room was find the yellow pages and flip through to comic shops. Then we had to use whatever maps we had to find the place.

My mom remembers one instance where we opened up the yellow pages to comics and on the opposite page were the listings for Convalescent Homes with handwritten notes saying “rude staff,” “appointment 10am,” “will call back.” It was a sobering twist to the start of our vacation.

Another instance of comic shopping I’ll never live down was a trip to Concord, CA with my mom to see her parents. These trips always involved at least one comic shop trip (some in Concord and/or Comic Relief in Berkeley) but on this occasion my mom planned a busy day in San Francisco. We took BART over and bussed to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, then we got on a bus for the SF Zoo but as we rode I saw a comic shop on the street. We noted where it was and she promised I could come back. So we have fun at the Zoo, get back on the bus and go to the shop (which I think was Amazing Adventures). Then we got on the MUNI Metro street car downtown, I insisted on standing in the middle where the long traincar turned and noticed drops of what had to be blood on the floor. We got downtown and went to a store, then took a cab around the corner to FAO Schwarz (so that we could say we rode in a cab) and then BARTed back to my grandparents’ home. When we got there my grandmother asked what we did for the day and I answered, “I saw blood on the bus.” My mom got disappointed looks from her parents as she tried to tell them we had actually done a lot.

Getting close to home

We moved to Quincy because my dad got a promotion and transfer in the US Forest Service and shortly after we moved to town she got a job at the book/gift/art supply/frame store and eventually bought it. Each day after school I would walk to Epilog Express and spend my afternoon doing homework, watching tv (which she had installed in the office for me) and reading until the store closed and we could go home.

She also took an active role in the small town serving on several boards. One night she came back from the Chamber of Commerce to say that she had just met a man who had come to town to open a comic shop. He had family in town and had big plans for his store in a small but expensive space just next to the theater. My mom offered to rent him space in her store but he had already bought fixtures and made his plans.

The shop opened up and my classmates made regular pilgrimages down from school each day. I don’t remember much about the man but he was always very nice and enjoyed talking with us as we looked at the new issues or flipped through the back issues he brought along. We were hooked and the guy had great timing. It was comics’ heyday: Batman Returns came out that summer and the Batman cartoon had just started with the X-Men following close behind and Superman was about to die.

Looking back the man must not have been a very good businessman, because I’m probably one of the few people to make a profit buying multiple copies of the Death of Superman. My mom actually went to the shop to pick up two issues in their black plastic bags before I got out of school in case he sold out. We got two issues, one to open and the other to keep sealed so it could stay mint and become valuable. As expected he sold out at the shop and a few days later my mom talked with the guy again and he said he wished he had another copy because he could sell it for more. So I sold him back my open copy for several times what it cost so he could then sell it in his store at an even higher price. I took my profits and got the fourth printing of Superman #75 and a few other comics. But I think I still have a sealed black plastic bag somewhere…

Sadly the comic shop didn’t last. It had expensive rent and steady sales that didn’t reach his expectations. It was only open for six months but that was long enough to get people hooked and for the Safeway and gas stations to pull their spinner racks. Once the shop closed there was no place in Quincy to buy comics.

Coming home

Thankfully my mom decided to step in. She recognized there was a market and that it could integrate into her business but mostly she just wanted to make sure I could keep getting comics. She bought the comic shop guy’s fixtures and got his distributor contact information. She made a few calls and we were in the comics business with our first issues arriving in October 1994.

I say we because my days of hanging out at Epilog were over. Just before I turned 11 I went to work. I would go through the solicitations and pick out what comics we should order (no more than 4 copies of each) and go over it with my mom so she could call the distributor to place the order. When the comics came in I would open the boxes, check the shipping invoice and put the comics on the shelf and move suitably old issues to the bins.

Our timing wasn’t as great as it could have been. We came in just as Spider-Man’s Clone Saga was heating up and shortly before publisher Marvel Comics bought distributor Heroes World and kicked off what John Jackson Miller calls The Eclusivity Wars (http://blog.comichron.com/2010/11/lost-year-exclusivity-war-months-from.html) that would wind up shuttering two of the three comic distributors. We didn’t last very long. While we always had customers there were fewer and fewer coming in, and because of minimum order requirements, we had to order more from the distributors.

After we pulled the plug there were still a few long boxes filled with unsold back issues. Most of them would eventually be picked up for quarters during sidewalk sales and some went to a comic shop owner who was passing through town. The final stragglers filtered down into my personal collection. And while the store did lose money on this venture as a whole and I do feel some guilt, my mom says it wasn’t that much money and there was one great high point in the whole story.

In the summer of 1995 my mom decided to take a scenic route on her way to attend a Quilter’s workshop in Maine. My aunt and I went with her to New York then drove up to Boston before she continued on her way and we went back to our homes. My mom mentioned this trip on one of her phone calls with our distributor who got her in touch with a guy in Marvel’s promotion department. We met him on Friday, August 11, 1995 and he gave us a tour of the offices.

Most of the visit is a blur. We arrived and went to check in at the front desk but were told there weren’t any tours that day but we said who we were there to see and he arrived and whirled us around the nearly empty offices. Since it was Friday most people go to work from home he said which was why the legendary bullpen was empty except for a few people hard at work. I was too intimated to look over their shoulders or bother them but I still wonder what pages I passed by only to read months later. We stopped at a closet where our friend in promotions handed me an all white edition of Spider-Man #400 with the “death” of Aunt May, an uncut sheet of X-Tinction Agenda insert cards and some Spider-Man coasters. Eventually it was over and I could breathe again.

Once we stopped selling comics that was it for Quincy while I lived there (though I hear they have been available in town for the last few years). I would discover though that I could order collections through our regular book distributor and would get whatever I could.

After the comics stopped selling I continued to work there, cutting down matboard and eventually working as a sales clerk. I was able to find a way to increase business when at a sports card convention in Reno I discovered Magic: The Gathering and immediately became obsessed. After a few consecutive trips to stock up in Reno, I suggested we try to sell these in the store. Our first order sold out within days and we quickly reordered. They were a runaway hit selling to people of all ages in town and encouraged by the Sunday night game nights I lead.

My mom wanted to move on from the store and in the fall of 1997 began the MBA program at UC Davis. She sold Epilog in February 1998 and quit in September 1998. I quit in January 1999.

Distant Places

Without a place to get comics in town I became more dependent on out of town stores. I was dependent on Wizard magazine for news and suggestions. Picking up comics once a month made it hard to see everything that was available but it was great to come home with a pile of comics and to sort and resort and then read them by myself. The only conversations about comics I was having at this point was with my parents or when people wanted to talk to me about Superman’s new electric powers.

My mom going out of town for college helped keep my purchases regular. She had been to enough comic shops to know what a good one was and she found them near the apartment she stayed in for two nights each week and later seven. I would write a list and she would take it to the store who filled it. I once got to come with her when my school was out. The woman at the shop we went to was happy to make recommendations much to my mom’s disappointment.

In the summer of 1999 I went to Australia for two months and used the internet to keep track of what was coming out and asking my mom to get them for me. That was also the summer that she collected Star Wars merchandise for me and Beanie Babies for my aunt.

I go to comics, I mean college

In August 2000 I left Quincy for San Francisco State University for schooling, new friends and experiences and some comics along the way. I knew the city fairly well from visiting my grandparents but with my friends we found the some of the other sides of this multifaceted city. We also discovered comic shops in what seems like every neighborhood. Most of my friends were lapsed comic readers from the boom years and one who was a deeper reader.

Each Wednesday my friend and I would make a regular trip around our neighborhood stopping at Borders, Suncoast, Tower Records and Comics Outpost II on Ocean Avenue. Only the last one of those still exists and I haven’t spoken with my old friend in years.

Comics Outpost was a fine shop. It was a little dark and the walls were covered in old action figures still for sale, but there were back issues to flip through and new comics clearly displayed and easy to look through. The staff were friendly and accommodating and set up my first ever pull list. The best feature it had though was being just a 20 minute walk from State. I lived on campus in the dorms for my two years and in an apartment for the third. In the meantime my parents moved from Quincy to Phoenix, AZ and in when I would visit I’d explore the stores my parents recommended.

In 2003 the owner of Comics Outpost moved and sold the store to a guy named Gary. He was friendly and outgoing but never learned my name or recognized me as someone with a pull list. At this point I was going to the shop by myself and never felt welcomed or appreciated.

The final sour point in going there was when I got my pull list and found a it contained comic called “Spider-Man & Wolverine.” I asked why this was in my list and Gary said that he ordered it for anyone with either Spider-Man or Wolverine on their pull list. He didn’t try to sell me on the comic, he just expected me to buy it despite not knowing me or my tastes.

I see the future

Luckily in the summer of 2003 I finally moved off campus with my good friend Eric into an apartment on Noriega St betweeen 25th and 26th Aves. I was living there for a two weeks and driving to work before my father came to visit and we decided to take the train to a baseball game. Walking home at night we passed by 1653 Noriega where a party was taking place. People were laughing, music was playing and in the corner of the window action figures wrestling. I said to my dad, “I think this is a comic book store.”

By chance I had moved within two blocks of Isotope Comics (http://isotopecomics.com/).

A few days later I went back during regular business hours and met James Sime, Jared and Ryan. Despite not knowing who I was they were excited I came into the store and talked with me. This was what I had been looking for in a comic store. The Isotope sells comic books but offers so much more. Here was a place where I didn’t just come in, get my books and leave. I could get entangled in a conversation about the art and stories on and off the page. I could relax and read through my books with a beverage. Or come back at night for an epic party with a comic creator I admired or was discovering for the first time.

I went back to Comics Outpost, introduced myself and told them I wasn’t coming back.

The Isotope was everything I wanted in a comic shop before I could describe it. I would have started shopping there simply because of the proximity to my house but now I can’t imagine ever leaving it.

Come and see the show

One fun part of living in the city is the constant stream of events and doin’s. One of my favorites is the comic conventions which excite even my non-regular comic reading friends. Each year is a different experience compiled from panels, movie previews, cosplay sightings (which I translate for my friends), back issue discoveries and more.

In addition to attending, I’ve also had a booth at WonderCon and APE for a few years to peddle my mini-comics. It’s expensive and rarely profitable but I’ll always remember those years of sitting with my best friends for a weekend talking comics with anyone who comes by. The best moment I’ve ever had at WonderCon was when someone came to my both and said they loved the comic they got the previous year and wanted to see what new comics we had.

We’re in this together

San Francisco also has a wonderful library system that seems intent on giving the people what they want. I’ve been a loyal customer since I finished college and realized I could read what I wanted from now on. Their comic section has expanded by leaps and bounds since I’ve been here and there are some treasures waiting to be discovered on the shelves.

Old habits

As loyal as I am to the Isotope, I still love popping into other comic shops if I’m out of town or in a different neighborhood. My mom quilts and visits fabric stores and told me that in that community there are FabShop Hops (http://www.fabshophop.com/) to tour different stores and see what unique fabric they have to offer.

These days there is such a wide variety of types of comic shops I like to see what flavor I’ll find. Will the be an old model dark room with dinged up long boxes and dusty toys on display or are they an Isoclone, emphasising atmosphere and experience or something in between?

I rarely buy anything when I travel because I want to keep my dollars local but I’m still a sucker for back issue bins. Though these are disappearing as more and more stores give space to shelves with collections. At first I found this troubling and wondered what we were losing in face of progress. And this is progress, it’s better for stores and the industry to push easily approachable/digestible new complete(ish) stories rather than yellowing samples of those same stories.

And the back issue bins have only moved out of stores and gone online. If I have a craving for a comic that came out before I was born, I no longer have to play the lotto and bounce between the many shops in town, I simply go online and find that specific issue in minutes. eBay is fine but my preferred marketplace is Mile High Comics (http://milehighcomics.com/). They’ve usually got what I’m looking for along with sales and discounts from their mailing list.

Incidentally, Whatever…(http://www.whateverstoreonline.com/) is my second favorite comic shop in San Francisco. If I we didn’t have the Isotope, I’d be there every Wednesday.

Today

Over a third of my comic buying life has been at the Isotope which is where I’m going today. And I’ll be back next Wednesday and next party for the books, community and experience.

Someone had given me a copy of “Batman & Other DC Classics” after the previous summer’s movie and I read it between repeat viewings of the film and VHS. I liked the sampler but the first comic I picked up on my own was Robocop #2 from Marvel in February of 1990.

Two months later I came back and got #4, but in May I changed up and got other things I liked such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Ghostbusters and somewhere I picked up a free Spider-Man about reading (probably the county fair or the library). In June I got another Turtles and Transformers, but July was only a Turtles, I was hooked at this point. August came and I got both Turtles and Transformers. I missed September and then October 1990 when I turned eight then in November got comics again and haven’t stopped.

November 1990

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #16

I love the Turtles and back then they were in inescapable. I watched the cartoon and movie, played with the toys, played the arcade game, bought books and magazines, ate the cereal and more, so finally I read the comic. Of course, this wasn’t THE comic. It was a comic, the one I could find. But it didn’t matter that it wasn’t the storylines I knew, because I knew the characters who were simple but clearly defined enough to translate from one medium and back. This was a comic that had been intended to tie into the cartoon tying into the toys tying into the original comic, but just before I started reading it changed and became about the environmental and philosophical issues that Ryan Brown and Stephen Murphy wanted to contemplate with clean art by Chris Allan, Jim Lawson, Ken Mitchroney and even the great Gene Colan (#22).

December 1990

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #17

January 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #18

February 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #19

Transformers (vol 1) #77

Transformers might have been the first toys I really collected starting before my fourth birthday and leading to other lines like GoBots, G.I.Joe, He-Man and eventually TMNT and superheroes. So a Transformers comic book sounded like a great idea but I arrived too late. The comic was ending with issue 80 and at this point the Autobots and Decepticons were united and arguing politics as their world decayed while some humans were going crazy. This was not what I was expecting. I picked up a few issues but never enjoyed it the way I did the movie, cartoon, or my own stories with my collection.

Married… With Children (vol 2) #7

Yet another comic book based on something else I already watched (despite my mother’s efforts). I don’t recall much about the comic itself but it was certainly something that existed and continues to do so in a box in my parent’s attic.

Marvel Milestones: Fantastic Four (vol 1) #1

At this time Marvel was interested in putting out their classic books just as they looked the first time around so for some reason I thought I’d start with this. It’s hard to go wrong with Lee/Kirby and this of course still held up. But it didn’t make me pick up the on going series, but I did get the reprint Marvel Milestones edition of FF #5 that would come out late 1992. That is probably what made me start following the title at #371 and lasting a long time.

March 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #20

Mighty Mutanimals (vol 1) #1

This would be my first spin-off. It featured characters introduced in the TMNT Adventures book were brought together in this miniseries along with my favorite Turtle, Raphael, to continue battling some villains from the main series. I was all for it.

April 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #21

Mighty Mutanimals (vol 1) #2

Incredible Hulk (vol 2) Annual #17

Like most everyone else up to this point, I knew the Hulk from TV. The SciFi channel used to rerun the show and I understood the basic concept. So this issue was a great introduction. It had a neat little story by Peter David and John Romita, Sr. showing the Hulk’s origin from the perspective of an MP who was there. Then there was a story of the current smart Hulk, Betty, Rick and Marlo getting mixed up in a war between The Mole Man and Tyrannus. I wasn’t too interested in the villains but I enjoyed the Hulk and his friends.

Marvel Age #101

I don’t know why I got this magazine about the latest Marvel comics other than maybe I liked the Al Milgrom cover and didn’t think to flip inside. Unless Fred Hembeck really made an impression on me. I’d pick up this magazine/comic in the future which helped me know what was coming out. This would be helpful as I managed the spinner racks in the future. But that is a nice cover.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie II Secret of the Ooze: Official Movie Adaption

The movie came out in March but the VHS wouldn’t be out for a long time. I had to have this comic to keep it all fresh in my mind.

X-Men Classic #60

I got this comic with a Wolverine action figure but I don’t think it was packaged with it, I think the toy store just handed me the comic. I spent a lot more time with the toy than the comic (which reprinted Uncanny X-Men #156). I think my only other exposure to the X-Men up to this point would have been the comics I’d seen on the rack but hadn’t bought (Uncanny, X-Factor and New Mutants). This was before the line widened, before the cartoon and before the arcade game. I liked the toy and bought more of them, but I can’t remember much other than the great Mike Mignola cover. And despite the years I spent slavishly reading X-Men comics, I’ll admit I haven’t ever read through the entire Claremont saga. I know it was good, because the comics I did read always referenced it and so I saw the after effects.

May 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #22

Transformers (vol 1) #80

Mighty Mutanimals (vol 1) #3

June 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #23

July 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #24

Captain America (vol 1) #391 and  #392

I started reading CaptainAmericajust in time for the end of the Superia Strategem. Whew! Glad I didn’t miss that. But I kid the legendary Mark Gruenwald. I enjoyed these comics despite coming in at parts 5 and 6 of the storyline. I didn’t have a clue who all these characters were but things were at least exciting and I could follow along. I would continue reading Cap though I missed the next few issues and didn’t get back until Galactic Storm, a massive crossover that to this day I only read a fraction of. Luckily I was in the right place to enjoy, which I mean sincerely, the entire Cap Wolf saga. But these comics were fun but afterwards I was left wondering why Paladin wasn’t in more comics, after all he appeared in a Captain America comic book! You have to be a pretty important character if you’re fighting alongside CaptainAmerica, right? Right!

Batman #468

It took me a long time to buy a Batman comic and it certainly didn’t grab me. I liked Batman but for some reason have never felt a need to regularly read his comics. I know they’re good and talented people worked on them but I was content to drop in and out safe in the knowledge that there was always Batman if I wanted him. In the meantime I had the idea and my toys.

Iron Man (vol 1) Annual #12

For a couple of years Marvel’s annuals would tell crossovers with their characters. Since I liked the Incredible Hulk chapter of “Subterranean Wars” I apparently decided to get the next part which featuredIronMan.I was not as engaged and never have been. I find his comics to be pretty boring as most of them deal with either Evil Iron Men or Evil Tony Starks or The Mandarin. I’m happy to have him in my Avengers comics or see his movies, but I can only enjoy him when he’s contrasted with someone more interesting.

Marvel Comics Presents (vol 1) #85

What a comic this was! For $1.25 I got Peter David & Sam Kieth introducing Wolverine to his new enemy Cyber; A story about the end of the Freedom Force; A Beast story by Scott Lobdell, Jae Lee, and Rob Liefeld with Todd Klein lettering; A Speedball story by Lobdell and Ron Wilson. Of course at this point I wasn’t paying attention to who was putting together the books, but this was a real sampler of what comics were and were about to be. The part of the comic that made the biggest impression on me was Sam Kieth’s pencils. I was immediately addicted to how expressive and wild they were. I needed more.

Spider-Man (vol 1) #14

This was one of Todd McFarlane’s final issues before leaving Marvel and going on to create Spawn, but of course we didn’t know that at the time. This was just the comic I picked to follow Spider-Man’s adventures and it was not really welcoming or engaging and I put it out of my mind.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day #1 and  #2

In the late ‘80s and early 90s local tv affiliates of the national networks would fill their Saturday afternoons with movies. These were usually action movies or comedies edited for a general audience. This was where I developed my early love of RoboCop, Spaceballs, The Terminator and more (when I was accidentally allowed to watch the real versions I was shocked but enraptured). That’s why I picked up the RoboCop comics earlier and my excitement after seeing the new movie in theaters, I needed these comics but never any others.

X-Force (vol 1) #2

This is the comic that attached me to the X-Franchise. A comic mostly devoted to Deadpool’s second appearance and Kane’s first while the titular team does stuff in the background. It is at this point that I point out I’m eight years old when this comes out and Kewl Dudes fightin’ was neat. The plot never made much sense and characters didn’t have much character, but dangit, Kane could shoot his robot hands and punch people across the room. That was enough for me.

August 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #25

Marvel Comics Presents (vol 1) #88

Marvel Comics Presents (vol 1) #90

Terminator 2: Judgment Day #3

X-Force (vol 1) #3

Amazing Spider-Man (vol 1) #353

This was the Spider-Man comic I was expecting. It was funny and fast paced with dozen of characters getting mixed up in an adventure in an organic way that made sense. I got more than just Spider-Man here as each of his costars and the villains were engaging and I wanted to know more. But overshadowing Al Milgrom’s writing was Mark Bagley’s pencils. To many the definitive Spider-Man artist might be his creator Steve Ditko, the successor John Romita Sr or any number of folks with a substantial run, but mine will always be Mark Bagley. His Spider-Man was the perfect mix of muscles and flexibility that was always clear and easy to follow. When I think of classic superhero drawings, I can’t help but think of the people who did the biggest books in my mind at the time: Mark Bagley, Jim Lee and Ron Lim.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (vol 1) #117

It took me a relatively long time to start reading this comic but I started here with part two of a three issue storyline and I had no trouble getting caught up. I liked seeing characters I recognized from the cartoons and the new additions to my toy box but in more realistic adventures. They would get out of whatever cliffhanger the previous issue ended on, and get through at least one more harrowing situation before a third came up and ended on a cliffhanger. Larry Hama could really keep an action comic flowing with subplots and distinct characters that you understood. Reading this comic actually changed how I played with the toys. It used to be that my friends and I would get together and have our characters wage war until we got picked up to return home, but after this comic I became interested in what the character’s personalities were, why were they soldiers and what they wanted out of life.

X-Men (vol 2) #1

Of course I bought this. Didn’t everyone? At least once? I knew this was a step up from X-Force, more dynamic art, cooler characters and clearer and wordy dialog. This really let me get an idea of the vast world of X-Men comics filled with interconnected characters whose complicated backstories were always bubbling up to get them in trouble. As daunting as continuity is always described, this only encouraged me. The world was a complicated place butClaremontmade sure to spell out everything in fine point detail. It could get tiresome if you already knew that Pyslocke’s Psychic Knife was “the focused totality of [her] telepathic powers,” but as a new reader seeing her for the first time I needed to know what she was threatening Magneto with. And once I was on board with what was going on, I could pretty instinctively gloss over the repetitive phrases/descriptions thatClaremont(and others) used to focus on the new information.

September 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #26

Marvel Comics Presents (vol 1) #92

X-Force (vol 1) #4

Amazing Spider-Man (vol 1) #354

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (vol 1) #118

X-Men (vol 2) #2

Adventures of Super Mario #8

The Super Nintendo came out on August 23 and I was desperate for one. It would be a major upgrade from my parent’s Atari 2600 and I wanted to fully immerse myself in the Nintendo Culture. That meant picking up video game magazines (often with their own comic pages) and comics like this and watching the Super Mario Bros Super Show.

Conan The Barbarian #250

I don’t remember anything about this comic. I must have liked the big round anniversary number. So apparently those do work. At this point I’m starting to branch out in what comics I like. I’m not just getting comics for the characters, I’m getting the characters in the comics.

Darkhawk #9

I really liked Darkhawk when I discovered him in the issues of Amazing Spider-Man I read and followed him to his own series. It of course makes sense to come to the character this way as Darkhawk was just the latest character created from the Spider-Man template: a teen character with extraordinary powers and try to balance the desire to do right with their troubled personal lives. He is sometimes lumped in with the excess of the comics of the 1990s and that’s easy to see as he had Spider-Man’s personality, Wolverine’s claws, Iron Man’s force beam, razor wings and an edgy name to top it all off. But there was more here than the sum of the parts and the people working on the comics gave their hero Chris Powell unique problems as the son of a crooked (or maybe not) cop trying to takeover the duties as man of the house while battling the mob and discovering the mystery of his otherwordly amulet.

Deathlok #5

Despite my love of Robocop I never really got interested in Deathlok and probably got this because of the guest stars on the cover. Of all these first year comics that I don’t remember, this is the one that I am most interested in rereading for the first time probably. I’ve heard great things recently about what Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan and Mike Manley were doing here. This might be a favorite comic I never knew I had.

Incredible Hulk (vol 2) #387

After enjoying the annual I decided to read the regular Hulk story and picked up the second part of a story of people running around inIsraeltrying to kill or save the next Hitler who is only 10 years old. This was very confusing but I would buy many more Hulk comics in the future.

Iron Man (vol 1) #274

Again coming back for more from the annual I got part 3 of the 4-part “Dragon Seed Saga” which details the history of Fin Fang Foom and the rest of his alien race coming to earth and pretending to be dragons and/or humans and how The Mandarin got his rings from their spaceship. Meanwhile Tony Stark was getting ready to return to the exposition filled fight. This is a necessary point in all stories but I’ll bet I would have enjoyed starting at part 4 more. As it was I didn’t come back for it.

Spider-Man Saga #1

This was a wonderful series that came along at just the right time for me. It was four issues that covered Spider-Man’s entire history up to that point through text summaries and selected panels. By the time I finished these books I knew every major character in Spider-Man’s corner of the Marvel Universe and many other big names as well. I would have still become a Spider-Man fan without this book, but it wouldn’t have been as easy. Now a days people search online for a wiki or issue synposis, but this worked for me at the time.

What the–?! #15

I can’t imagine I got a lot of the jokes about Marvel comics and continuity. But I did enjoy a story about a kid who comes up with a superhero but it’s corny and won’t sell, so instead he comes up with “The Strange Young Fighting Frogs” as an obvious TMNT parody and strikes it rich. In the end the characters all come to life and he has to choose between his noble artistic intentions and his get rich quick scheme. That always struck with me.

October 1991

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (vol 2) #27

X-Force (vol 1) #5

Amazing Spider-Man (vol 1) #355

Amazing Spider-Man (vol 1) #356

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (vol 1) #119

X-Men (vol 2) #3

Adventures of Super Mario #9

Spider-Man Saga #2

Nintendo Comics System #8

These licensed comics didn’t last long and I didn’t get a chance to pick up any other issues. It’s possible they were only intended to drum up interest in the Super Nintendo and if that was the case they did a good job. Still, I would have liked to pick up more of them. I was a fan and would later get the first dozen Sonic The Hedgehog comics despite never owning a Sega system. I just liked comics and video games but I liked comics a little bit more.