What is the first Marvel story that you read?

I love asking how people got into comics and have heard some interesting stories. I post a thread like this in the DC forum and thought i would post it here as well. What is the first Marvel story that you read? What did you think about it? Did it turn you on to a character?

For me the first comic I read was The Essential Spiderman vol 1. I had watched the Spiderman cartoon and was becoming a fan. When I saw this at a mall book store I knew I had to have it. I begged my dad for an advance on my allowance. I loved the fact that I could read Spiderman from the start. As i read it I saw that I could relate to Peter Parker. I was and still am a bit of a nerd. Wasnt very popular, and was sometime bullied. I couldnt beleive there was a superhero that had my problems. he was so much different from the dc heroes who were like gods looking down from their tower on the rest of the world. It really turned me on to Spiderman and turned me into a long time marvel zombie.

The first Marvel comics I've read were in some listing magazines. Spider-Man strip, a Hulk vs Zzzax story a Thor vs Absorbing Man story, a Spidey vs Shocker story. Can't remember which ones I've read first, can't remember exactly what happened in the stories.

Now the first comics I've owned was a french anthology, "Special Strange #37". I asked my mom to buy it because there was the bad guy from the Fantastic Four cartoon on the cover.
It contained 4 issues:
*Uncanny X-Men #145 and #146 (the beginning of the X-Men vs Doom vs Arcade arc)
*Marvel Team Up #90 (Spider-Man and Beast vs Killer Shrike and Modular Man)
*Marvel Two In One #60 (Thing and Impy)

I was kinda disappointed. The X-Men story was unconclusive and the X-Men were losing. Spider-Man was getting his ass kicked. The Thing was here, but not the rest of the FF.

A bit later, I tried another anthology, "Nova" (FF, Spectacular Spider-Man, MTIO and later Iron Man). Liked it better and kept purchasing.
A couple of monthes later, it featured an add for another anthology, "Spidey", where an exciting story was about to begin: Secret Wars. Mind. Blown. Turned me into a True Believer.

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Hulk #296.

I remember going to a local grocery store with my mom; the usual routine was - she'd shop, I'd look thru the magazines and toys and wait for her at the cash register.
I'd been on a scavenger hunt for some Hulk coloring books, none of which were in print anymore by then...but you never knew!
I remember looking at the cover and wondered what the heck was wrong with the Hulk's neck...or chin...or tumor.
Then I flipped thru the issue.
There's the Hulk...in purple underwear...on a crutch...with art that looked damn similar to my favorite Hulk coloring book (Wisdom of the Watcher)...and he's fighting on older, creepier Hulk (like from the TV show episode "The First).
SOLD!
I raced thru the store, found Mom and begged her to buy it.
No problem.
I probably read it 3-4 times on the way home from shopping.
Being a typical 8-year old kid, it got trashed pretty quick. The cover got torn apart and I ended up taking a purple crayon and coloring the Hulk's bare legs to make it look like he was wearing pants.
Since it got trashed so quickly, I asked for another one a week later.
Then another...
Then..."NO! Take care of your stuff, I'm not buying another one!"
I didn't understand most of the story at the time, it would be another couple of years before I went into full-collecting mode and bought back issues to understand what was truly going on.
I was a kid, I loved the Hulk and I loved the art.

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Thankfully, it was reprinted a few years back in the "Regression" TPB.
Unfortunately, because of the complicated rights to Rom, only half the issue made it. But at least the most important one did...
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If we're talking anything published by Marvel it was GI Joe #38. But given that GIJOe and the other Marvel comic I read at that time, Transformers, aren't really considered part of Marvel's canon universe, I'm going to go with the first in Universe marvel comic I read, it was Uncanny X-Men 225 - the beginning of the fall of the Mutants storyline. The ads for that were in GIJOE/Transformers and it looked interesting to me. The rest is 30+ years of history.

Marvel Tales #52.
I got it at a Birthday Party. In one of those 3 comics in a plastic bag.
Captain America #176 and Tomb of Dracula #23 were the other two books
But I read the Marvel Tales first.
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Got this from our next door neighbor. After that we had our dad get all the Marvel comics from ye old spinner rack. Took me a while to find the next issue though since the drug stores, supermarkets, etc always sent the unsold issue back. And Doctor Doom is still my favorite Marvel character. I just thought his costume was cool.

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Imagine jumping into this issue with the dozens of characters and being right in the middle of a storyline. I was hooked.

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Either the issue of Uncanny X-men during the Phoenix saga where Wolverine cleans house at the Hellfire Club or an issue of the Incredible Hulk where a smart green Hulk fought Venom.

I likely read more prior to that but they are the ones I remember .

"Blitzkrieg in Central Park" from Avengers #45. That cover with the Super Adaptoid drew me into comics, and I'm still a fan decades later.

In the middle school library

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Some of the more recent Scott Lang Ant-Mans. I really enjoyed the movies so someone recommended I should check out the comics.

Then when I was looking around I saw the 1st issue of Cosmic Ghost Rider and it looked really interesting. Then I tried Venom and Immortal Hulk after that.

The first I read was Morrison's X-Men run. It was at the library and I had no idea what was going on because the only exposure to X-Men I had was from the cartoon.

The first comic I brought was Marvel Zombies 4 #4. I got it because I found the preview online during a search for images from Spiderman: The Animated Series. I was looking for pics of Morbius. I didn't know what comic Morbius looked like, but the preview was interesting.

The first Marvel I ever got off the racks was one of the reprint books coming out in the early-mid 70s-Marvel Triple Action #23 which reprinted Avengers #29.
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Comics were a quarter, and I started getting an allowance of 25 cents a week at that time (I was 5) and my dad would take me to the local drug store where I could either pick out a pack of baseball cards and a candy bar, or a comic book. At first it was baseball cards more often, but with a few months I was getting comics almost every week. This book went a long way towards making me an Avengers fan (I had Viewmaster reels of Cap, Iron Man and Thor too as well as several Megos that helped), and Avengers was the first book I ever sought to get back issues of when I finally found a comic shop in high school after finding several at flea markets in jr. high. Once I started reading a lot of comics, we had several neighbors give me stacks of comics they had form kids who had outgrown them or moved out and left them behind, mostly Marvel stuff from a few years earlier, and I got lot of hand me down comics form my cousin who was a big Marvel reader too. Another local drugstore use to sell Marvels 5/$1 that had been "returned" for credit and I got a lot of stuff earlier than the Marvel Triple Action issue I started with there too (including Marvel triple Action 19 which reprinted Avengers 25 when they faced off with Doom, which was one of my favorites as a kid). I also used to get a lot of the 3 pack polybagged Marvels as stocking stuffers or birthday gifts from relatives at the time which lead me to reading stuff I probably wouldn't have picked up myself. My comic reading got curtailed a lot in 1979 though when my mom decided I was reading too many comics and should be reading more "real" books and wouldn't let me buy or get any more comics for a couple of years, and I didn't really pick up comics again until I was able to start earning my own money and started subscribing to a couple of Marvel books to make sure I was getting them circa late '81 or '82 (about the same time I got into D&D which made my mom reconsider comics as "the lesser of two evils" for me to be interested in.

-M

Mmm, I don't remember it but I think it was a X-men comic book in the 90's.

Was a giant sized holiday special comic which reprinted Marvel Teamup #1, Daredevil #7, and FF #25 & 26.