Long-time readers of this column (both of you) may have noticed I haven't posted much in the past month or so, and I apologize for that. Sometimes real life gets in the way of our beloved hobbies and priorities have to be adjusted.
To give you an idea of how distracted one might become, it was only over this past weekend that I realized I'd achieved a goal a few weeks ago, one I'd been working toward for some time. It's no secret I'm a big Superman fan; have been ever since I picked up my first comic book in the early 1970s. As a result, some of those old Action Comics stories by Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin are among my favorites.
So a few years back I decided to rebuild my Superman collection by cherry-picking a number of issues I remembered fondly. For instance, Superman #281 introduced Vartox, an extraterrestrial hero modeled after the Sean Connery character from the film Zardoz. Vartox would return from time to time (even enjoying abrief romance with Lana Lang), but he's been conspicuously absent from the current Superman titles.
That issue was followed by Superman #282 is superbly illustrated by Curt Swan and Kurt Shaffenberger, and features the debut of Lex Luthor's purple and green battle suit.
As the number of issues grew, I found myself filling in a few conspicuous gaps, merely for the sake of completeness, the bane of any collector. Eventually I found myself with such a volume of issues that I chose to go for broke by collecting the entire Julie Schwartz era of Superman and Action Comics.
Schwartz took over the reins of the Superman titles following the retirement of Mort Weisinger in the early 1970s, and one of the first things he did was try to update the Man of Steel. In Superman #233, ("Kryptonite Nevermore"), Clark Kent becomes a television newscaster and kryptonite is removed as Superman's primary weakness when a nuclear reaction converts the kryptonite on Earth to iron.
Little by little I've been filling in isolated issues with the odd visit to an out of town comic book store, or lengthier gaps at a convention. Costlier and more rare issues, such as the occasional 100-page super-spectacular, were found on ebay, usually for much less than one might pay through an online retailer.
So a few weeks back Mile High Comics had a rather significant reduction in its back issue prices, and given that I hadn't placed in order in some time, I felt the time was right to leap in. Four issues of Action Comics were missing from my list: #s 424, 427, 471 and 475. They were among those included in my order, which reached a total of $50.07, the beauty of that sum being that orders of $50 or more qualify for free shipping.
But when a family health crisis intruded, I was otherwise occupied when my order arrived in the mail, and went untended to for a couple of weeks. Then there was the inevitable catch-up on bills, e-mails and assorted other tasks that continued to back-burner the comic book collection – until this weekend.
Lo and behold, while sorting through and reading my new old comics and filing them away, I realized what I had accumulated: every issue of Action Comics, from #418 to the end of the Julie Schwartz era with #583, as well as the relaunch issues by John Byrne, which were followed by Action Comics Weekly, which I have up to #608. That's 190 consecutive issues.
I'm sure many comic book collectors can make the same claim. It amounts to almost 16 years' worth of monthly issues, so anyone who has been reading X-Men since the early-mid 1990s might be thinking, "So what?"
But considering that some of these issues issues were originally published more than 35 years ago, I can reap a small amount of pleasure from it all. The print runs were higher back then, but it was a time when comics weren't necessarily intended to be kept and preserved like they are now – or reprinted as trade paperbacks. The best one might hope for along those lines would be a copy of Superman: From the '30s to the '70s.
I am still working on the Superman title, but expect to make significant strides before the end of the summer. My goal is every issue from #231 to 423, and am currently missing less than 15 of those.
I still have a way to go on my Action Comics collection. I'm trying to get as far back as #377, which marks the beginning of the Legion of Super-Heroes as a back-up feature. Prior to that, they had starred in Adventure Comics for several years, another major run I completed this past year. Certainly it might be easier to purchase the DC Comics Archive editions, but where's the fun in a treasure hunt if the goal is handed to you?
Anybody else care to toot their horn regarding their lengthy runs of any particular title?
Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? E-mail me at philip@comicbookbin.com
I've always enjoyed reading stories about collectors' attempts to complete a run. Congratulations! Thank heavens for Mile High Comics, indeed!
I'm currently working on a Batman run starting with #339, when I started reading the title as a high school student, to #400, which I already have. After that, I'm going to work my way back... to the beginning. I can dream!
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