[thechris]

In my younger collector days, I was more into the obscure stuff. Not to say that I wasn't into mainstream stuff. I was collecting Spider-man comics and whatnot but I was intrigued by the obscure characters that weren't featured in newer comic titles. There was this comic book shop that my grandma would bring me to that had really old comics hanging on the wall and tons of comics in the long boxes and I'd do what I could to find stuff with MODOK, Ka-Zar, Man-Thing, the Wrecking Crew, Solo, Guardsman and the Frightful Four. Also John Buscema, Sal Buscema and Jack Kirby's artwork really stood out for me. I loved the Spectacular Spider-man's blocky look as rendered by Sal.

The weirder and more obscure the character, the more I wanted to find out about it. I remember the Marvel Universe Handbooks were around $2 to $3 dollars and I was only allowed two to 3 $1 comics usually so sometimes I'd get the one Handbook instead. I also loved the Marvel Age books for their articles and comic strips. There was also another one that had condensed versions of milestone moments in Marvel comics which I enjoyed. Don't get the wrong idea, though. I wasn't born in the 60s. My first memorable comic was actually a magazine that I think I still have today. It was printed standard comic book size and was basically a preview mag for DC comics coming out that month that my sister picked up for free at the very same comic book shop my grandma ended up taking me to. It had Azrael Batman on the cover and one of the comics it was previewing had Bruce Wayne in a wheelchair with some other guys. I believe this was during the whole Knightfall thing. On the reverse side was the scary Vertigo stuff.

Anywho, always loved the expanded Marvel universe even as a child. Maybe even more so as a child than I do now.