Random thoughts from a former collector

[Matt Young 0]

Hey guys. Back in the day, say maybe 8-10 years ago, I was a hardcore comic book fan. I had a decent sized collection- as much as I could con my family into buying and afford with my pittance of an allowance, at least- along with a great assorment of trading cards, often in complete sets; action figures, etc.

 

I was more of a Marvel guy than a D.C. or indy fan, but I had a lot of random stuff from different series since often my grandma would pick me up an issue or 2 of whatever looked cool when she went to the grocery store on Saturday mornings. The only series I recall collecting on a regular basis were things like X-Men (and all its various spinoffs, at least at one point or another- I had every issue of X-Men from #1 to Jean and Scott's wedding, and the entire Phalanx Covenant) and Batman, but I had several issues from many different series such asSuper-Man, Spider-Man, and others that I can't remember at the moment.

 

Recently, I've been on a nostalgia kick- Not just as far as comics go, but in everything. The string of great superhero movies that have been released over the last few years such asSpider-Man, Daredevil, and the X-Men flicks have piqued my interest. I'm really wanting to get back into collecting.

 

I know my grandma has my old action figures and maybe my trading cards, but I'm not sure about the actual books or what condition they might be in if they are still around. I had a few hundred, so I'm really hoping they weren't tossed. They'd probably be very expensive to replace now, and I really want to go back and look through them all.

 

I already told you some of the series I collected. Some of my favorite story arcs were (and forgive me if I fuck up the names a bit, it's been a while) were the Phalanx Covenant that crossed over into nearly every Marvel (or at least X-Men related) series (These issues had a holographic strip along the front covers), the series which I can't remember the name of that had holographic cards with character images on the front cover, which led up to Magneto stripping the adamantium from Wolverine's bones, the DC Zero Hour saga, the Death and Return of Superman, the Fall of the Dark Knight in the Batman books that saw Bane breaking Bruce's back and all culminated in Batman #500, and some weird futuristic alternate universe story about a time where Charles Xavier was dead and Magneto led the X-Men, which led to all the X-Men book titles being altered temporarily.

 

I'd love to go back and read those, but as I said, I don't know if my grandma still has them around. I wonder how much it would cost to replace them if need be, but it's probably in the hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars range which would not be possible right now.

 

I was just wondering if any of you are going through something similar to what I am, if you would like to share opinions on any of the aforementioned series/story arcs/etc., if you could tell me if it would be possible to feasibly replace any of those if I need to, and then maybe link me to someplace where I could catch up on things. Also, if you have any recommendations for current series or compilations that I could purchase to get back into the swing of things, that'd be great.

 

Thanks a lot for reading, and thanks in advance for any help.

[Jonathon 0]

I was at my "peak" of comic collecting at almost the same time you were, it seems..i remember those story arcs pretty well.

 

The x-series with the hologram strip you're referring to is the..."return of magneto" storyline..ach, that title doesn't seem right...but I know it had x-factor 92, uncanny x-men 304, x-men 25, and Wolverine 75.

 

The alternate reality series where xavier never existed was the "age of apocolypse" storyline, which I enjoyed immensely.

 

One thing I miss about the current x-titles is the "all x" crossovers. It'd be great to see one this year.