Which character(s) made you a Marvel fan.

[KOSLOX]

For me it was my Dad's Luke Cage box...when I was a kid my parents were really into making me identify with my black-side since I grew up in a mostly white town. I had all sorts of toys like Sun-Man...this black He-Man knock off but I just sort of gravitated towards Luke Cage. My second all time favorite marvel character is Magneto because of the fox-kids X-men cartoon, he was just so cool, costume attitude powers the whole nine...anyway who's next.

[jade_nova]

John Byrne's Sensational She-Hulk series.

[Haunt]

at first, it was Terror Inc. but then i took a long leave of absence. so i guess the true answer would be the interview with Robert Kirkman on his upcoming Irredeemable Ant-Man series. he had me at worst superhero ever. before that i was just salty and reading Marvel because DC wasn't offering much.

[dazzler_slave]

I first discovered Marvel through the kiddie titles like GI Joe, He-Man, Transformers and Thundercats, but the first 616 Marvel title I ever collected was New Mutants. I was fascinated by the issue (forget the number) with Danielle Moonstar on Brightwind. They were both on fire, and the rest of the team seemed to be trying to stop her. It wasn't long after that that I moved on to X-Men and X-Factor and eventually became a huge Marvel fan

[drwho]

To this day i remember the first few comics i ever got. F.F. was my fave characters. That team has been my fave ever since. Although along the way i picked up more favs, but they were the first.

[Atom_basher]

the fantastic four got m into marveel

[The Shadow]

Captain America

The look, the desire to be the best, the morals, the "never give up" attitude, the leadership... he was always the total package to me as a kid and he's still a favorite.

Some of the stuff I remember earliest was Byrne's Captain America. I don't know if I (or my parents) bought it or if it was given to me.

[J. Robb]

John Byrne's run on Fantastic Four.

[Economist]

G.I.Joe and then Punisher

[Nomad]

Captain America.
Believe it or not, when I was really young, I saw that TERRIBLE Captain America movie on TV and it blew my mind. I though to myself, "the comic HAS to be better than this." Before that, my mom always bought me Batman and Superman, so that's all I knew of. I'll always appreciate the way she supported my Cap habit until I was old enough to have an allowance. I bought his action figure, and all of the kids at the playground made fun of me. So I shot his spring-fired shield at their stupid michael keaton action figures. Man, he was a short batman. Anyway, for the rest of my life I'll be singin' "when Captain America throws his might shield/ all those who chose to oppose his shield must yield!!"

[Mark (nonick)]

Spider-Man. But honestly, it was not the book, but the after-school reruns of the 60's animated Spider-Man. Loved that show. Then Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends / Hulk hit the air, and I shortly started collecting the comics.

I was entirely Spider-Centric for over a decade, but my tastes grew, and sadly, Spider-Titles started blowing. Venom (post ASM #317), Carnage, Maximum Carnage, Maximum Clonage, Byrne. Millar's MK run was the first thing to interest me in Peter Parker in a very long while.

Hopefully his new status-quo will reinvigorate the stories.

[Mr. Palmer]

Incredible Hulk

[Frodo-X]

Wolverine (don't stone me!!!). When I was in elementary school I saw a kid with this really neat looking cover. I asked what it was and he showed me "What if the Hulk had killed Wolverine". The cover is Wolverines skeleton all shiny and raised. He gave me the book (which I still have) and I really liked it. Later I got an X-men Adventures where Wolverine fights Sabretooth and loved it (still have that one too). Once I saw the cartoon I was hooked. My only problem was access to comics (nearest store closed shortly after I started collecting, now there isn't one for 50 miles) but the internet has saved me.

[RichStanz]

Beast for me.

There was just something about his character design that blew my 8 year old mind. I didn't really pay attention to the stories, so much as just stare at this awesome looking monster thing.

[Captain Exaggeration]

Spider-Man, and the X-Men were big childhood influences but I went straight for the Avengers/Iron Man/Captain America when I became a comic collecter.

[Nstar83]

I don't know as a little tyke I was a big fan of wolverine an cyclops.I don't know why just liked um both.I used to watch all the cartoon movies at the video store,HULK , FANTASTIC FOUR ETC.I never really bit into DC even thou my dad thru out my childhood always collected SUPERMAN, GL, LEGION, ETC ETC.He never really bothered getting me into DC but i did like comics so I hit the spinner racks at the stores by me even in the early 90s still a few places with them.It was an issue of classic X-MEN, one where it was a red cover an storm had taken a bad whooping.Then my love for Storm an the X-Men stuff weas really born.

[ultimatespyder20]

Spider-man for sure. I saw the first moive and was just hooked onto the character. Then right after I started buying comics I got into the Fantastic Four.

Alec

[LordEd1976]

It was GIJoe under Larry Hama that got me into Marvel in the first place but if want the character that got me into the Marvel Universe then that honor goes to 2 people;

1. Captain America. I loved his costume and I really liked the comic under Gruenwald.

2. Silver Surfer. The image of Silver Surfer riding his board thru the depths of space is what pulled to the cosmic side of Marvel.

[Ult. Fireboy]

Fantastic Four and Spider-Man as a kid made me start collecting. The first comic I bought was a one-shot Super-Man. Spider-Man was my first Marvel comic. Now days, I collect about 9 different titles with the Civil War.:cool:

[Sophisticated_Gamer]

I got interested in comic books after i watched the X3 movie

[Kyle_Ion]

Silver Surfer all the way and Thor, I play D&D and I was always fascinated by the gods of D&D and when Thor came out I was like oooh a Thor series for a god.

[Pheonix-NoRelation]

When I was little, I asked for Christmas one year if Santa could make a book version of the Spider-Man Animated Series. The next year I asked for a TV channel that over and over played Spider-Man episodes. Then my uncles gave me their collections with mostley Spidey comics. So, if I had to say, I'd say the X-Men. :p OK, it really was Spidey...I guess. :rolleyes:

[Victor]

It was a Spider-man comic. Orange cover with this dragon Cassopeia (sp.). I remember it came with a record. Don't have it anymore, but if anyone knows the number and remembers this let me know I would love to find it again.

In the 80's I bought the big arcs, but it was the anti-hero's of the 90's that really brought me back...gotta love Sabretooth and Venom.

[Golon9977]

I started reading comics when I bought my first issue of Gladstone in the late '80s. I only bought Gladstone then and drifted away from Gladstone when Disney took over the titles. I wanted to read more 'grown up' comics so I picked up then current (1990) issues of Spidey, X-Men, Avengers and FF. The X-Men got me hooked more than the other ones.

[Mariah]

Well, considering, I got hooked because growing up, I was the only girl cousin in the age bracket of my other cousins, and I loved to read fantasy books. One year at a family reunion, my cousin Humberto had his stacks of comic books, and I got hooked from that moment on. Growing up, I mostly read x-men, but when I started buying older issues, it was Misty Knight who made me really fall in love with Marvel Comics.

[Nefarius]

Spider-man

Well,i was five years old back then.My father bought me a comic just to kill my time.This period i was very young to know reading but i loved the pictures.I remember my first comic was a Spider-man story who wears his black costume and helping Alpha Flight to face some aliens.(sorry i don't remember the issue).I start collecting Spiderman after that and X-men(i started from the Claremont era).This period most of issues had 2 stories(for example some comics had a spiderman story and a Hulk story for example).The same happens with X-men who had one story about X-men and one about Avengers etc.(well i'm not american and i don't know if this system was used in USA).

You can tell that i was born a Marvel fan.:D

[scottv]

Spider-Man all the way for me. I started collecting about 2 months ago and have all the Amazing series whether it be the CD set, TPB, or normal comics. I also really love the both old and New Avengers!

[phantom1592]

Started with Spiderman and his amazing friends. Then Amazing Spidey comics Then I moved on to Daredevil. He's been my favorite for years.

[brundlefly]

When I was about seven years old, my dad bought me a random assortment of Marvel comics while I was in the hospital to pass the time (Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Marvel Team-Up). I was already a Spidey fan from cartoons and toys and whatnot, but that got me into the actual comics (mostly Spider-Man, but occasionally I picked up other Marvel titles depending on availability). Then about three years later, a comic-reading friend hooked me on the X-Men and I became a HUGE X-Men geek. So I would say Spider-Man initially followed by the X-Men. I got into DC, Vertigo, etc. later on, but in elementary school I was strictly a Marvel guy.

[Rich L]

Spider-Man through UK reprints and reruns of the 60s show, then the Amazing Friends.

When I got into comics properly (aside from just buying UK reprints), Spidey was still top of the heap (around the time of Gang War) but the FF (Byrne had just left and Engleheart came onboard), the Avengers (Under Siege!), the Whackos (just prior to the time travel saga), the New Mutants, X-Men and X-Factor (Mutant Massacre) all really hooked me.

I've stayed hooked ever since, but to be honest a lot of those books never grabbed me like that again.

[Jeff-E]

The original Secret Wars, my next door neighbors were in to comics and they let me read the Secret Wars as they came out in the early 80's. We were friends and they (I don't even remember their names it was two brothers) would always come over because at the time I had a pool and was one of the original "Latch-key kids". We would raid our parents liquer cabnets and only drink the margarita mix (we were only 6 or 7 and booze didn't taste good at the time and we didn't know you needed tequila, but we thought we were cool) and they would swim and I'd read their comics. I stayed for the Xmen, the "Fall of the Mutants" and "Mutant Massacre" storylines kept me hooked.
I still remember when I was about 7 or 8 my parents went to visit family here in Missouri and at a comic store in Cape Girardeau I found a copy of Giant Sized X-Men #1 for $65 which was funny because that was the exact amount of money I had from my birthday. However my dad wouldn't let me buy just one book with my money, he thought I'd loose them so I bought a bunch of older issues I bought Spiderman 87,88,89,90,91, and a few others. I kept the Spiderman Issues until a couple of years ago when I traded them off or sold them. I wouldn't have sold an Xmen #1.

[Hippy-san]

X-men for me, just because of how edgy and different it seemed from normal kid's entertainment. But, specifically it was Marrow. I was intrigued by the sheer brutality she posessed. I got one issue of X-men in the mid ninties from my dad ( along with some spidey) and figured he'd by them for me all the time. That never happened and I forgot about comics 'till about 3 years ago. Needless to say, I jumped right back into X-men, getting hooked on Bobby's characterization. Sadly, though, the quality of X-comics have lost my interest (save astonishing and ultimate)

[Frodo-X]

Sadly, though, the quality of X-comics have lost my interest (save astonishing and ultimate)

You may want to give "adjectiveless" a go, Mike Carey's doing some wonderful things with it at the moment.

[Ikaris]

All new - all different X-Men

(my favorites was Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey and Colossus - and in many ways, they still are)

[mattbib]

I'd been aware of Spider-Man for years, but I fell in love with the X-Men on their few appearances on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. I was heartbroken to learn that Firestar wasn't an X-Man (and later to find out she hadn't even existed prior to the cartoon).

[firestarfan]

Spider-Man. But honestly, it was not the book, but the after-school reruns of the 60's animated Spider-Man. Loved that show. Then Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends / Hulk hit the air, and I shortly started collecting the comics.

Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends was my intro to reading comics as well - though the arc that got me truly and thoroughly hooked was the Overmind/Squadron Supreme story from the mid 80's in The Defenders. That blew me away.

I then stopped reading for a while, but got pulled in again with the New Warriors (which is why I love Firestar so much) and aside from a few years in the late 90's when comics kinda sucked, I've been a pretty constant reader ever since.

[Eliseu Gouveia]

For me it was a double whamy!

I even know what book it was.

I once got my hands on this brazilian compilations called Superaventuras Marvel #21 with John Byrne´s X-men (the Proteus saga, where the muties travel to Muir Island) and Frank Miller´s Daredevil (where he goes to the sewers to retrieve Kingpin´s wife Vvv...ness..ssssa)..

Instant hook.

[Ivan Isaacs]

Hawkeye.
I was always facinated by him (and especially a guy could wear purple and still look cool).

Ah yes and then there was Wolverine (one of my first Marvel comics was "Bloody Choices" by Tom DeFalco and the late John Buscema).

It hooked me up with Marvel and I dove into the rich X-History.
I outgrew my passion for Wolverine but "Bloody Choices" remains one of my favorite comic books EVER!

Hawkeye is still my absolute #1 male marvel character (followed by Force Works' Century).

[32Cage]

Originally a DC and Superman fan, my interest was drawn to Spider-man with his 1960's cartoon series. At age 16 the deal was sealed with the introduction of Luke Cage Hero for Hire in the summer of 1972.

[Kirk G]

Which characters made me a Marvel fan?

Fantastic Four, hands down.

I read issues #18, 22, 25, 33, 36, 39, 44-50 in one sitting and I was hooked.
I bought the next issue I saw on sale on a spinner rack, #55, and I was off and running. Thank you Stan and Jack...

[Miss Kitty Fantastico]

Dan Slott's She-Hulk. I read (in a toy review, in fact) about how Shulkie used to break the fourth wall, and do stuff like jump between panels and talk to the writer, and that sounded like a hell of a lot of fun, so I had a look at the local comic store to see if a) she was still around, and b) if she was still doing fun stuff. And she was, and she was (albeit not so much fourth-wall stuff, but still hella fun). And having snatched up Single Green Female and Superhuman Law, I got infected by Dan's enthusiasm and affection for the Marvel universe as a whole. GLA quickly followed (Squirrel Girl!), then Avengers TPBs for the 'history' that the She-Hulk book referenced like Disassembled and The Search For She-Hulk, FF Visionaries vol.5 for Byrne's She-Hulk with the FF, every back-issue I could scrounge up... and that, when my enthusiasm for discovering more of Marvel was at its peak, was when I heard about this Civil War thing. Never looked back :D

[Black_Shift]

I would have to say without a doubt it was The X-Men... Colossus was my favorite, and the assortment of international characters I always enjoyed due to my facination with the world at large. But the biggest hook was the basic underlying theme of the X-Men, that people who are different will always be faced with adversity when dealing with the masses... Old issues of Fantastic Four, The Inhuman apperances specifically, because I loved The King's style and substance, and still do.

I got away from comics for a bit but came back with Jenkins and Lee's Inhumans, which blew me away and solidified Black Bolt's place as my all time favorite Marvel character... I'm still waiting on them to show up in Civil War.

[doodlebob]

First off it was Spider-Man. When I was 6 or so I just loved all of Spider-Man's animal-based villians like the Scorpion and the Lizard. Once the animated series came along about five years later that just made me an even bigger fan. Then one day i picked up an issue of Sleepwalker (purely because is had Spider-Man in the top corner, kids are easily lured in by such things!) and completely fell in love with the character and started collecting any issues I could find.
I also used to travel out to a nearby seaside town to play the X-Men arcade game, and although i knew near enough nothing about him back then, thought Nightcrawler was just about the coolest character imaginable.

[Mark Wallace]

For me it was my Dad's Luke Cage box...when I was a kid my parents were really into making me identify with my black-side since I grew up in a mostly white town. I had all sorts of toys like Sun-Man...this black He-Man knock off but I just sort of gravitated towards Luke Cage. My second all time favorite marvel character is Magneto because of the fox-kids X-men cartoon, he was just so cool, costume attitude powers the whole nine...anyway who's next.

G'wan, make me feel old, ya bassa!

Ditko's Spidey.

[Elegance Liberty]

Jean Grey.

Admittedly, the 90's X-Men cartoon wasn't the *best* interpretation of her, but it's the one I remember most fondly. Whenever my sister and the neighborhood kids and I played 'X-Men' (or a massive cartoon crossover thing, as we were prone to do), I ALWAYS had to be Jean Grey. Always.

But I didn't really ever read the comics, but Jean always stood out to me as my favorite. I have almost *every* action figure of her, save for a few things and some wear and tear. (Hey, I started in '98, I was like... 11-12)

Recently though, Beta Ray Bill is who *really* got me into Marvel comics for real. With Jean I had a passing aquaintance with the Marvel U, but Beta Ray Bill was the catalyst for me to learn more about it. (The whole BRB thing is serendipity at its finest)

[darkhawk76]

I loved the Spidey & Incredible Hulk cartoons as a kid

but it was Secret Wars that got me into collecting Marvel comics, before that I was mainly into UK comics like Buster, and Whizzer & Chips

Transformers was my biggest passion for majority of the 80's, thanks to the UK reprints. Then I started to get heavy into superhero comics just before Acts of Vengeance and stayed ever since

[Cephus]

Originally it was the old X-Men and Fantastic Four that made me interested. There was a little hobby shop on the way home from school that carried comics and games, etc. and I used to stop in every day to see what was going on and I started buying a couple comics here and there if I saw something I liked. That was over 30 years ago now. Of course now, I mostly can't stand X-Men, so I guess times change. :)

[streator]

the x-men (particularly gambit and wolverine) and spider-man.

[Cosmic Book Fan]

For me, it wasn't a character at all, it was the whole MU concept. In fact the first book I ever collected was the OHOTMU: Deluxe Edition. From there, I added West Coast Avengers which is what really sealed the deal.
So I guess you could say that the Marvel character that got me into comics was Mark Gruenwald.

[Green Goblin]

For me spiderman all the way ,followed by the fantsic four and idea that charcters coulld crossover any time

[moon knight]

Spider-Man and the Avengers brought me in

[mosnab]

For me it was Spider-Man as well. I was always a fan of Spidey, as long as I can remember, and my first comic books were in the "Spidey World". Amazing, Web Of, Spectacular, etc....those were my first experiences in the Marvel Universe, and in comics in general. I'd have to say that a combination of other things contributed as well - I was a dedicated viewer of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and liked the Secret Wars toy line as well. As a kid though, it was all about the Spidey comics. I eventually branched off into Uncanny X-Men and Batman/Detective (and a few other issues here and there), but that was about it. A few years ago I got back into comics, and started again with Spidey - thinking at the time that was all I would read - but that eventually started branching off into other areas. If I had to cut back more on comics though, the Spidey ones would be the last to go.

[Lurch]

I was reading a lot of Silver Age DC Comics as kid, but three things from that period stand out; Lee and Romita on Spider-man, Lee and Kirby/Buscema on FF, and those great 100 page super spectaculars that DC put out in the late sixties/early seventies. Marvel got me hooked on comics, but the golden age reprints from DC really piqued my interest in the history of comics.

[Euchre0]

Funnily enough, I really got into comics by getting into Spider-Man as the Clone Saga(!) was starting up. In the mid-90's, marvel trading cards were HOT for jr. high kids, and i had a ton of them, so I knew alot about the marvel universe and when aunt May died in ASM 400, I decided to pick it up. I loved Bagely's art, so i stuck with the entire expansive storyline. halfway through the clone saga, i realized that it sucked and i started reading all the X-books, Cap, DD, FF, pretty much everything, with a little bit of Batman and Superman, etc.

[jj9126]

Strangely, Iceman. When I was a real little kid - I loved Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (the cartoon). My favorite character was Iceman just because I thought his powers were cool.

A few years later, I remember finding out that Iceman was in X-Factor and I purchased my first Marvel comic book. It was right around the time of the "Mutant Massacre" crossover and pretty soon I was hooked on a bunch of titles.

[The Confessor]

Without a doubt it was Spider-Man for me.

I was already aware of the character of Spider-Man from re-runs of the 60's cartoon on TV in the late 70's but I can vividly remember going into a discount store as a nine year old kid and picking up Marvel Tales #142 (a reprint of ASM #5) and being totally blown away by it. I just read it over and over and over again. I still have this actual issue of Marvel Tales in my collection and I still rate the story as one of the very best of the Lee/Ditko era.

After that I just started collecting Spider-Man comics (and Star Wars comics) as often as I could afford to on my meager pocket money. Over the years I got into other Marvel Characters and the whole Marvel Universe.

[tonearcher]

Iron Man. All the ghostface killah albums with the Iron man samples from the original cartoon.

[barbariansheep]

X-Men, but not the books. The TV series led to the books, but not until I was grown and lonely for my abbreviated childhood.

The cartoon is still good crack.

[The Eternal Thor]

Spider-Man and the X-Men mainly. Still my favorite Marvel properties to date (with Avengers and Daredevil near the top too!)

[Babylon23]

Ant-Man (Don't laugh) and the Beast (in his original human form)

When I was young, I read an Australian reprint of Fantastic Four 16, guest starring Ant-Man. I thought he was cool, so I picked up a reprint of Avengers 1-4. Suddenly, I was introduced to Thor, Captain America and Iron Man. At the same time, I also read Uncanny X-Men 3, with the Blob. Some some reason, the Beast stood out as a cool character.

Anyway, I decided to check out Avengers, and my mum brought me Avengers 147. I was surprised to see the Beast, in a completely different form, in that books, alongside Cap, Thor and Iron Man. That issue also introduced me to the Scarlet Witch, my favourite Marvel character.

I've been a Marvel fan ever since.

[-S-Man-]

UK: Astonishing Spider-Man 100: Sinister Six onwards and Essential X-Men 100 onwards.

I used to wacth watch X-Men cartoon on saturday mornings and that was my first taste of Marvel as a kid and I loved it to bits more than the Batman cartoon but I never never really had anyone to expose me to the comic side of the coin.

I started to buy Astonishing Spider-Man and Essential X-Men at £2.40 or $5.00 each but it was too expensive so I stopped. Then I started watching the Animated Spider-Man cartoon and I saw the Spider-Man and X-Men movie and it gave me this motive to look for comics.

And Civil War came along and kick started my passion for comics.

But to answer the question: Spider-man and Cyclops and Wolverine.

[Calybos]

Nightcrawler and She-Hulk.

If it ain't fun, why read it?

[Dark Soul # 7]

The 90's Spider-man and X-men cartoons are what got me into Marvel. Thouh it took some time for me to find anything besides Spider-man and X-men.

[Kaos]

.....i can't remember....heh..prolly spidey cartoon and x-men cartoon