which comic was your gateway drug?

[grizla]

Just wondering. I'm a child of the 90's but my dad has junk shop, so the first comics i got my hands on from the 60's and 70's. A huge crumbling stack of weird war, sgt. Rock and mille the model. Lol. Weird war still does it for me- makes my whole day when i find an issue in a thrift store

[needler420]

Tales from the crypt comics. I don't own any but always dream of getting some for cheap. As I'm a horror fan.

[dupont2005]

My mom started taking me to the comic shop to buy out of the quarter bin when I was really small. My first comic was the Marvel St. Francis comic. I pretty much always liked them. I think a milestone for me was reading Elfquest when I was about eight years old though.

[CromagnonMan]

Probably the first comics i readwere Spider man and Fantastic Four when i was about 7. shortly afterward, my Dad made me start reading stuff like the Beano and turned me off the american ones (damnit, Dad!). also i had friends who read the Beano so it seemed ok at the time. i collected the Beano up to around the age of 11 then i stopped with comics altogether, and played more video games.

since my return to comics as an adult (probably around 2006) i got to loving them with Frank Millers Daredevil and the original Silver Surfer, both of which i got in omnibus format from amazon. prior to that i was reading Alan Moore stuff and not getting it at all. since 2006 i have read a fair bit, mostly Marvel. ive only been able to read more regularly since 2009 when i stopped working full time. i suppose im a bit of a newb, but my tastes are maturing now and im starting to appreciate the older stuff.

[BlackagarBoltagon]

My first comics were Amazing Spider-Man and X-Men stuff back in '92-'93. At least that's when I got into them seriously. I remember my mom getting me the occasional Archie or Groo issue at the supermarket before that.

[Richard Bishop]

Marvel's Star Wars series in the late '70's. I was six years old, loved the original movie, had all of the action figures and saw the comic book on the newsstand and wanted it. My parents were cool with it since they felt reading was a healthy hobby (plus my dad grew up on the first wave of Marvel books as a teen in the '60's) and it was only $.35 per month to keep me happy.

After that, it was G.I. Joe, then Amazing Spider-Man, then Uncanny X-Men, then too damn many comics.

[MWGallaher]

Mine was Jimmy Olsen #142, as I discuss at the link. Jack Kirby introduces us to the world of Transilvane. The one time I got to meet Kirby, I bought a page of art from this issue, for an incredible $50.

[The Confessor]

Marvel's Star Wars series in the late '70's.

Likewise, but for me it would've been the black & white UK reprints that appeared over here as Star Wars Weekly. I was so young at this point that I couldn't even read them myself, so my mum used to read them for me, like a bedtime story (knowing how uninterested my mum is in Star Wars or comics generally makes me appreciate this even more). I was also getting bought Batman, Superman, Spider-Man or Fantastic Four pocket books at this age, which were my first introduction to U.S. superhero comics.

A few years later, I started buying 2000AD, MAD magazine, Scream! and proper U.S. comics, which a local newsagents sold. In particular, Marvel Tales (which at this point was reprinting the whole Lee/Ditko run of ASM) was what first turned me on to the Marvel Universe and made me a Spider-Man fan (Spidey’s still my favourite superhero).

I've basically been reading comics ever since then, although I did fall away from the hobby from about 1996 up to 2002 for some reason that I've never fully understood.

[Last1oftheJedi]

TMNT, when I heard on the 20/20(...or dateline..or a show of that type, you know?) when they were interviewing the creators that all this turtle-mania started as a comic, I was in the local comic book store that weekend. I picked up the three 1st graphic novels, and was intrigued by the rawness of the book compared to those lovable after-school cartoon characters.
Needless to say I was hooked.
A few weeks later, after purchasing Nightcrawler at the local Wally-world, I clipped the back subscription and in six weeks recieved my first X-men book (284). It, as well as the excellent issues that followed kept me collecting for some time...but I did fall off the whole "collector" bit as the late 90s roled around, and I got my driver's license.
Highschool partying took place of my comic readings, and for this I'm thankful, because I got to completely miss the whole "Onslaught" non-sense.
It was X-Men vs. Vampires that caught my attention as I felt Marvel intended to "jump the shark" on the revitalization of vampires in pop culture (though...those things in twilight...those arn't vampires...another topic and another time.). The cover that had Peter biting Kitty made me do a double take. It's the reason I use it as my avatar, as it was the book that returned me to collecting, you see?
Yeah, I saw that book and thought "There just isn't any bloody way that is possible...or..is it? I have to know!" Again, hooked.
And so here I am, collecting books once more, now with my wife (A huge fan of Witchblade. Her mother burned her books as being part of the "devil", so while that totally sucks, it did give us something to share in, rebuilding as well as adding on to, her old collection.) and son, who, though isn't old enough to read yet, can still say Wolverine, and really enjoys watching ol' knucklehead and the Hulk throw down.

Excellent idea for a thread, grizla, mucho props!

[MDG]

The Superman (in reruns) and later Batman TV shows--they started me buying comics as a kid, though I was pretty omnivorous and read them widely, but not deeply.

[Slam_Bradley]

No comic. Re-runs of the Batman television show.

[Shellhead]

The first comics that I read were a beatup pile of early silver age DC comics from the late 50s and early 60s, heavy on Batman and Superman. The first comic that I ever owned was Fantastic Four #118. But the series that really got me hooked was Avengers, because I quickly realized that I could read two very different eras of Avengers stories every month. Cap's Kooky Quartet was trying to pull together in the pages of Marvel Triple Action, while a much more powerful line-up was appearing in the regular Avengers title, during the Englehart run. The most fascinating part of that contrast to my young mind was Swordsman. He was clearly a standard villain in Marvel Triple Action, but a flawed and struggling hero in Englehart's Avengers.

[thwhtGuardian]

No comic. Re-runs of the Batman television show.

Same here, it used to run in syndication on Saturday mornings on I think CBS or something when I was a kid in the late 80's and my dad and I loved watching it together.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles may have been my first comic though, but Batman, Superman and the Ninja Turtles soon followed.

[Polar Bear]

Spider-Man in The Electric Company started me off buying at random. I became a monthly-gotta-have-it buyer with Amazing Spider-Man 196 (c. 1978-1980, I think).

[grizla]

I was also getting bought Batman, Superman, Spider-Man or Fantastic Four pocket books at this age, which were my first introduction to superhero comics

Batman pocket books!? That sounds great! The only pocket books i see in thrift stores are mad magizine and prince valient. And i always buy them because i love the format. Prince valient is still suck though. (Unless someone really likes it, then it's ok)