(By Mike James)

Almost every week I buy a stack of about a dozen back issues off the internet. I’ll be one to say that the big comic book bust of the early 90’s when values took a dump was great for a reader like me. As a rule I never pay more than two bucks each for a comic (unless they’re new and I have to shell out 2.99) and thanks to the market’s big bust I never do, usually getting good stuff. I try to mix up what I get to keep stuff eclectic, though that never seems to stray much from Marvel or DC.

My collection of about 650-700 books is a mix my much older brother’s comics he gave me (late 70’s - early 80’s), my initial collection from elementary school through early high school (late 80’s - early 90’s), and sporadic issues from then until the beginning of the 21^st century where I started getting hardcore into funny books again when I was unemployed for an entire year.

When I was inspired to get back into reading comics again after I was deficiently employed I reread my old issues. A lot of the comics seemed like brand new stories to me because I haven’t looked at some of them in nearly 15 years and forgot what happened in others and some I never read at all.

Since I returned to filling my long boxes I’m employed again and I would like to share some of the stuff I’ve been buying and reading from the wonderful world of back issues…

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #363 - 370’s (MARVEL 1992)

Spider-man is my buggy bro. I had (still have) all his toys and watched all his cartoons growing up. Never collected many of his comics though. One comic I did have was the last issue from the first arc Carnage showed up (#363). That one issue kicked ass old school style. Carnage was carnaging up NYC and Spidey had to team-up with Venom to take him down. They catch him at a heavy metal concert and Mister Fantastic and The Human Torch show up and help Spidey defeat Carnage then trick Venom into being captured. It got me fired up to get a few more issues. Next thing you know his parents who were thought dead, show up out of nowhere. Are they real? Are they clones? What are they what? I don’t know but it’s got me hooked to find out. It’s old news what happened but since I never read it, IT’S NEW TO ME SO BACK OFF! It’s got to be bad because I have sporadic issues up till the present and there is no mention of them.

After this arc ties up I know the Clone Saga is supposed to happen next. Reviews say it sucked but that isn’t what will keep me from buying it. The fact that it’s a two year story running over a zillion issues does. There are so many other comics to explore.

THE IRON MAN MANUAL (MARVEL 1993)

This is an interesting book full of schematics of Iron Man’s various armors. It shows the inner workings of the suit with diagrams of how the transmitters, processors, and energy systems work, told in notes by Iron Man himself, Tony Stark. I also have another issue like this all about The Punisher’s armory. The amount of made up technology in this book amazes me in two ways:

1. The detail of the descriptions.

and…

2 . Who the hell comes up with this crap?

It must have taken forever to come up with all this fake stuff. I always wondered how sci-fi writers (as being a writer myself) make up intricate technology like this, Star Trek, Star Wars, and The Matrix. They must have a PHD in B.S.

AQUAMAN #57, 61-63 (DC COMICS 1978)

His hand me down collection isn’t that big (about 150 comics) but my brother must have been a big Aquaman fan. Sifting through his collection he has about 20 issues of the man who talks to fish, second only to his nearly 40 Superman comics. I personally like that power while others think it’s stupid. Probably because sometimes I get lonely and think talking to a porpoise would be cool. Think of some of the people you know, wouldn’t a large crustacean or a tuna be more interesting to gab with?

Anyway, this set of stories picks up after his mid 70’s run in Adventure Comics, which I also have but haven‘t read yet. The issues were only 17 pages long back then but there is more going on in them than most comics coming out on the shelves this Wednesday. Each separate story is based around the arc of him swimming home to tell his wife that their son is dead, killed by Black Manta. That happened in the Adventure Comics run, in the only issue of that I’m missing, damn it! He makes it home, not before a quick team up with Batman to fight that Kobra guy, and his wife freaks out on him blaming poor Aquaman. Aquababy dying must have been a hell of an issue. She forgives him after a battle with his brother Ocean Master and then the series is cancelled.

I love Aquaman. In one scene his telepathy didn’t work because the fish were turned out to be robots. Awesome. How much more “comic book” can you get? As you can tell I’m not one of those guys who pick up books that are “Suggested for Mature Readers”.

His current series is kind of lame with some other younger Aquaman keeping the oceans safe from underwater bad guys with no real explaination of who exactly this guy is. The original, Orin, somehow turned into a squidman and was killed. It's getting cancelled in a few issues and I think it's going to be a long time before Aquaman is cool again.  

IN CONCLUSION

I’m a nerd’s nerd. The hottest words a chick could ever speak are “baby I got your comic books for you.” My love of comic books is geeky enough to alienate me from the cool people but not sophisticated enough for the elitist fan boys. I may die never hearing those beautiful words spoken to me from my wife the Hooters waitress but I continue to feed my habit so stay tuned for my chronicles into the wonderful world comics…