ReMarvel, Episode 2: X-Men (vol.2) #8 (1992)
To go along with yesterday’s piece regarding Uncanny X-Men #287 and the X-Traitor, I figured today I should probably share the “sister piece” to that episode.
ReMarvel was (and I suppose technically still is) a solo show I did/do, whose purpose was to help me to reengage with Marvel Comics. It’d been a long time since I bothered reading any Marvel… new or old. Ya see, I’ve got this weird thing where, if I hate what a company is doing in “current year”, it kind of sours me on everything from them. I hated current-year Marvel, and so… I could no longer enjoy the very books that made me a rabid fan in the first place.
I only put out a handful of these episodes, though there are several “in progress” at various points of done-ness. Just don’t know if it’s necessarily worth my time and effort to get ’em done. I’m trying to work on my “self-awareness”, and beginning to realize that very few people actually care to listen to my stories and anecdotes.
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Speaking of stories and anecdotes, this episode (like most of my solo-output) is full of them! X-Men (vol.2) #8 has the distinction of being my very first “white whale”… a book, despite not being a “key” issue, that I just couldn’t track down. It took me a couple of years, and I talk all about it during the episode’s overlong pre-ramble.
If anyone wants to share their thoughts and/or earliest memories of “comic book white whales”, I’d love to hear ’em!
Alpha Flight Vol. 1 issue 11. That was my white whale. I started buying AF around issue 20 and followed the series until it ended at issue 130. When the series ended I decided to track down the issues I was missing to have the complete series. I had randomly acquired issue 5 at some point before I even started reading the series, so I had about 20 issue to track down.
It was fairly easy to find 1-4 & 6-19 but I couldn't find issue 11 anywhere. Now I live in an area in Pennsylvania where there were 6 comic shops within a 50 mile radius. I raided them all but no issue 11 was to be found. So three years later (1997) my friend was getting married. Another old friend from college, now living in Atlanta, was coming in for the wedding. Now this was the guy I did all my comic shop hunting with back in college so seeing him again was going to be a good time. Either he called me or I called him and he asked me if I wanted him to bring me anything from down south. I jokingly told him, "Yeah, Alpha Flight # 11." To my suprize when I saw him the night before the wedding at the rehearsal (in the church) he handed me a bagged and borded copy of Alpha Flight issue 11.
Sometimes you just need a good wingman to help you find that white whale.