In 1993 my dad gave me three copies of Superman #75.  Two of these were the “black bag” variant that contained assorted goodies and a variant cover all encased in a black poly bag with a bleeding Superman logo on the front.  The third copy was the widely available basic newsstand version.  In addition to the individual issues, he also gave me The Death of Superman trade paperback which contained the 11 comics detailing the entire Death of Superman storyline.  Growing up, I was always been a fan of comic books but I hadn’t read them with any sort of regularity since I was in grade school so I was a bit surprised by this present but I was still grateful and excited nonetheless.  Little did my dad know that his seemingly simple gift would send me down the long path to becoming a comic book geek.

After reading The Death of Superman, I couldn’t seem to get enough.  Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding had me hooked on Superman.  I kept reading the storyline knowing that nobody in comics stays dead (except for Bucky but he’s back now too) and I wanted to see what was going to happen next.  I started a weekly hold at the local comic book store and was soon deeply immersed in the world of Superman.

About the same time as Superman was being killed off, Gotham City was facing a new villain named Bane who would eventually break Batman’s back in the Knightfall storyline.  The guy at the comic book store gave me a synopsis of what had been happening  and I immediately fell in love with the idea of yet another hero facing a force greater than he.  I was also fascinated by the idea of a normal person with no superpowers whatsoever fighting crime.  Batman was a character that I could relate with – he was smart and had cool toys.  While nobody could be Superman, anybody could be Batman given the proper training and resources.  I decided that I needed to follow the adventures of Superman and Batman so I added the various Batman titles to my weekly hold.

I believe that there were four Superman titles and four Batman titles being published at the time.  The comic shop would get their shipment on Friday afternoons so every Friday night after work I’d stop by and pick up my comics for the week and then spend the evening in my room reading them.  Since I was only reading eight titles regularly, my haul would usually be limited to two issues but, on occasion, there would be a special one-shot or variant cover that I would also pick up.  It wasn’t long before I realized that there was a enormous universe of superheroes that I was missing out on.  Apparently Superman was my gateway comic.  I was soon picking up more than 10 titles per week.  The artwork was so amazing and the storylines were so compelling that I couldn’t get enough.  Add the fact that the comic book guy would tell me about titles that I might like and I was never short on reading material.

In February of 1995 I left on a two year mission to South Africa for the LDS Church.  Before I left, Comic Book Guy offered to keep my hold going so that I would be able to catch up on things when I got home but I knew that two years worth of comic books was a lot so I declined his offer.  While I was in Africa, I would occasionally see a rack of comics in a bookstore but, knowing that I was out of the loop, I would resist the urge to pick up a few issues.  I figured that when I got home, I’d be able to start collecting again and that I could pick up the back issues over time.  I was wrong.

Shortly after arriving back in the States, I met my wife and realized that there was no way that I could support my comic book habit and keep her happy so something had to go.  It obviously wasn’t her.  Over the past few years, I’ve started getting back into collecting comics but nothing like before.  She has decided that it’s OK for me to start a hold again but only if I limit myself to one title per month.  I’ve chosen Star Wars Legacy as my monthly fix but I’ve also started getting digital copies of older issues that I read on my computer.

I decided a few weeks ago that I needed to get caught up on all of my comic reading for the last 14 years so I’ve been acquiring various back issues from the DC Universe so that I know what’s been happening to my favorite heroes.  The fact that my sister is also a comic geek has helped me too because she also gets the trade paperbacks and lets me borrow them as needed.

Right now I’m reading Crisis on Infinite Earths from 1985 and will soon start reading old issues of The Flash dating back to 1987 and Green Lantern from who knows when.  I’ll eventually pick up where I intended to, which is just after Zero Hour, but I just can’t seem to focus on just one hero or storyline.  It’s funny because I figured that I would just read the collections but it’s turning out to be entire comic runs.  I dare say that I’ll be spending hours and hours trying to get caught up.   Maybe I should have never canceled my hold…