As a young lad, in 1983 I was hooked on watching the animated show Spider-man and his Amazing Friends every Saturday morning. As much as I liked Spidey, I never became a collector of his comics. It was a guest group that I fell in love with and one character from that group in particular. The episode was A Firestar is Born and it guest starred both the X-Men and Juggernaut. But the one character that really caught my eye was Wolverine. Those freaky claws! So, in August of that same year, I was sent to the local Dairy Mart to pick up cigarettes (amazing at one time they would sell to kids and even give you matches), milk and bread. I was supposed to give my mom back the change, but I saw something that would make me into a lifetime collector, a copy of Uncanny X-Men 172 with Wolverine on the front cover and bought it. I forget the excuse I used for buying it, but they didn't make me return it so
From that humble start, I would eventually make my way downtown and become a regular at an actual comic shop called Treasure Island, located inside a mini mall. At the entrance stood a cardboard cutout of Blackbeard the pirate next to a treasure chest full of bundled $1 books. As you walked in, the glass display case on the left held some nice keys that included X-Men #1 which was far beyond my reach at the time selling for $1000. Next to the case were dollar bin books and back issues in long boxes. My head would spin as I gazed upon the great assortment of wall books displayed, wishing my parents were millionaires so I could snatch them all up. The place was fun and magical all at the same time. It was also the site of one of my greatest comic collecting missteps. A shop employee whom I had gotten to know was big on a book that had just released and he highly recommended it to me. He handed me a copy and I took a look at the cover and flipped through it quickly. "My money is for real mutants!" I told him as I put it back on the shelf. Little did I know those dang mutant turtles would be big and that copy of issue #1 that I put back would be worth a pretty penny some day! Oh well, I was pretty happy with all the X books I came away with from there and still have Wolverine's limit series I bought from them. The place has since closed down and I was sad to see it go, but the memories remain.