A posting from my Marvel blog of long ago, polling the audience as to what their first remembered encounter with Marvel in any form was, and talking about my own.
April 20, 2009 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General
By now, I’m sure that everybody has been suitably stunned by my appearance as a guest judge on Food Network’s Challenge show on Sunday. I’ll be doing a longer post about this in a few days, when I’ve got a little bit more time. But for the moment, I want to switch gears and ask another question to the audience.
What was your first encounter with Marvel? I don’t necessarily mean what your first Marvel comic was (although I’d be interested in hearing about that as well), but what was the first time you came into contact with the Marvel characters, and made a connection with them?
For myself, it had to have been the 1960s Spider-Man animated cartoon. That show ran in syndication in New York all through the 70s, and I can recall seeing it on Channel 5 when I was very, very young. So young, in fact, that I didn’t understand how Spidey’s web-shooter worked–I though he had ropes strung up all around the city from which to swing on, like Tarzan.
The first Marvel comic I ever read would have been MARVEL TEAM-UP #16, with Spidey and Captain Marvel. I wasn’t a big Marvel fan when I first started out reading comics–the books were too wordy, too full of captions (which I never read in the first place), and they always seemed to be continued, as TEAM-UP #16 was. In fact, for the first few years of collecting comics, I would tell my parents repeatedly that I hated Marvel comics (you’ll understand if you’ve ever had to rely on a parental figure buying you a comic when they ran into a store quickly.) This was such a regular occurrence that, once I started following the Marvel titles when I was a bit older, my Father would needle me about it constantly. Had he lived long enough, I’m certain he would have gotten unbridled joy out of the fact that I’ve now worked for the hated Marvel for close to twenty years, and it would come up whenever we spoke.
That’s my quickie story–what’s yours?
More later.
Tom B
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Well, I saw stuff like HULK #6, FF #17, SPIDEY #2, and a # of others on the stands in 1963. But I think Mom brought me an ish of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY w/’ Thor and ASTONISH w/ Ant-Man and the Wasp before I bought my first Marvel, which was a SUSPENSE w/ Iron Man and Cleopatra.
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Tom, Comic books were a major reason why I learned to read at a very young age, and they included SUPERMAN, JIMMY OLSEN, SUPERBOY, FLASH, GREEN LANTERN, CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST, RICHIE RICH, LITTLE DOT, HOT STUFF, etc. I loved them all. Then, one day, when I was seven, I discovered Marvel via a new, British, black and white, weekly reprint title, FANTASTIC – and it was. My first Marvel experience was X-MEN #1. I was so enthralled, and hooked immediately that I completely forgot all about DC, and Harvey comics. I simply went on to be enthralled by the first appearance of both THOR, and DR. STRANGE (and, to a lesser extent, the first appearances of IRON MAN, AVENGERS, and SUB-MARINER). And, I never looked back.
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1968. Macclesfield, England.
Six years old and in hospital to have my tonsils and adenoids removed. My Dad provided me with the POW Annual which contained a reprint (in strange red and white ink) of X-Men No.1. I have no idea where he obtained it – probably someone brought it into the school where he was Deputy-Head at that time and he thought I might like it – but from that moment I was hooked… and fifty four years later remain so.
My wife would have a duck fit if she had any notion of how much I have spent on Marvel comics over the years, but I don’t regret a penny of it because it has always been for the pleasure and enjoyment and continues to be so so even as I enter my seventh decade.
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Does it make sense to comment on a 13 year old post? Regardless, my first Marvel exposure was also to cartoons, but mine was the 1966 Marvel Superheroes show. I was a big DC fan in the late 50s/early 60s, so anxiously tuned in the MSH show since it featured superheroes – even though I had no idea who any of them were. I was hooked right away, and soon decided to buy a Marvel comic. MCIC featured two of the heroes from the cartoons, featuring stories that I knew form the cartoons. Before long I dumped DC for Marvel, even buying books like FF and Spidey that were not part of the cartoons. I’ve been Marvel fan ever since.
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My first exposure to Marvel characters was in 1974, when I was six. . I read the now-famous Spidey epic, The Lifeline Tablet Saga, in the British reprint title Spider-Man Comics Weekly. Coincidentally enough, I reread it in its entirety for the first time just two weeks ago in a modern anthology edition. That was my initiation to Marvel and to Spidey. Soon after, a friend of my brother’s, who would go on to become a renowned comics artist, brought over his complete collection of the Lee / Ditko Spideys, which I read in order over several nights on condition that I didn’t take them out of my brother’s room. Engulfed in an infinitely stranger and more beguiling version of a character I’d already liked and enjoyed, I was thereafter hooked for life,
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First exposure to any Marvel character would have been the Spidey cartoon show. For some reason the even cheaper Marvel Super Heroes show never aired in my area as far as I know.
First Marvel comic seems to have been Marvel Tales 30, reprinting some really great Lee/Romita stuff.
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I’m not sure what my first comic actually news but my earliest memory is The Wedding of Sue and Reed. Which came a couple of months before I was born. So, it has to FF Annual 10 in 1973 when I was 6 going on 7.
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