Sunday, December 20, 2009

This is What Started My Obsession with the X-Men

X-Men at Steamtown Mall June 1994edit

"Those aren't my grandparent's super heroes," an elder friend of mine said in the Mall at Steamtown in June 1994 when we were visiting the Steamtown National Park Site and went to the mall across the tracks for lunch. I thought not much more than puerile thoughts upon seeing the brunette in blue behind the table, and snapped a slide of the scene for posterity, since I had the trusty railfanning camera at the ready. Once home I questioned some co-workers of mine who those people might be representing (since one of the figures in my slide reminded me of a poster an ex-roommate of mine in college had about the X-Men television series then on air). Naturally, my co-workers suggested that was probably them.

Fast forward to October 1994, birthday weekend and my parents and I are at a CVS pharmacy in the Susquehanna Valley Mall for Benadryl because I had nasty allergies. As I'm walking down the isle I passed the display where the store had a few comic books. One of them was Uncanny X-Men #319, with the scantily clad woman in blue from the previous June. I bought the issue so I could show my elder friend the next time I would see him. Only, I read it, since I used to get comic books as a kid growing up (ironically though, never any X-Men issues. It was always Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Sgt. Rock, and an issue of Rom battling Galactus. I can still see myself skimming the racks at the corner drug store and picking that issue of Rom because the cover looked so cool.(After swinging by Coverbrowser i can tell you it's issue 26). Anyways, I was hooked. I latched onto the X-Men and collected as much as I could, amassing quite a library over the next five years.

Life brings changes and I opted to stop buying every one of the X-Men titles and related stories as I couldn't always buy the newest issues anymore and hated having gaps in the collection. I cashed in much of my library, though I still shopped for the novels when they were published and the three motion pictures on dvd. (I don't have Wolverine Origins, nothing personal, Logan). Even though I wasn't following their stories in the monthly comic books, the X-Men were still a part of who I was. A smile came to my face in June 2007 at the United States of America Air Force National Museum in Dayton, OH, when I saw an SR-71 Blackbird in the collection (the X-Men had a modified SR-71 for many years). I would even skim through an occasional issue or two while my Grandmother & I grocery shopped.

Fast forward again to Winter 2008. I had a hard cover book which compiled the X-Men history up to its publication in 2000 (yes, I had a first printing copy I hadn't read for eight years) so I read it after running out of railroad related books at my residence. I got re-hooked. I still am not able to get each issue every month, nor do I intend to try. Of course, it's nice that Marvel publishes the important story lines into trade paperback volumes. That is, the comic issues which contain a major story arc are compiled together into a single book which can be found at a local bookstore should the time come that I am able to buy it.

Since I first published this entry over at (lowers voice, Y! ou know) I've been able to follow a few X-books monthly again and I'm slowly rebuilding the X-Library as well. Man I wish I could borrow a time machine and slap my past self silly for some of my decisions, but fortunately that isn't possible.

Additionally, I also dug out all of my old fan fiction stories to work on and share publicly after 15 years of being crammed into a crate. Now I just need to get myself to a convention!

1 comment:

  1. Cool entry. It`s interesting what leads us into certain hobbies isn`t it? Shame you sold some of your stash but we all do those kinds of things from time to time and wish we could kick our own rumps for it.

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