Speaking From The Heart – Mr. Bronze Age’s Fond Memories Issue #1

"The best thing about memories is making them".

February 14th , 2018, marked my fourth anniversary of writing my "Mr. Bronze Age" column! I have had fun and I hope that my readers have as well! I have critiqued comic books, comic strips, movies, TV series, magazines and more. I am proud whenever I see my name in electronic print! I also want to thank ENR and Z NEWS for the opportunity to write this column!

As a kid (and a young collector) I used to wish that I could share the fun that I had reading and enjoying the comics I loved back then! And now, I finally have this with my Mr. Bronze Age column. I have decided that for my column's fourth anniversary, I will celebrate by ushering in a brand new feature into the column! Being in an anniversary mood, I am calling the new feature: "Fond Memories".

These are the things that we loved and enjoyed and derived sheer pleasure from! These are the things that stayed in our memory for years; even up to the present day. We all have them -- those fond memories that can take us to that time and memory with a great deal of warmth, comfort or just a sense of nostalgic joy. I hope to make it a reoccurring feature in my column. Today, I will write about some selected fond memories from my childhood days.

For this inaugural column, I will stick to memories surrounding comic books from the good old days! I will start with (where else?) where it all started: comic book number one! I have written of this before, so I will skim through this account. For me, it all began with the vintage TV series "The Electric Company". For the debut of their fourth season on the air (October 21st, 1974), the show had a new feature to announce. The show opens with reoccurring character J. Arthur Crank, played by series regular Jim Boyd, sitting on a bench reading a comic book. His pal Easy Reader, played by Morgan Freeman, arrives and asks Crank what he is reading. "What else ?" Crank replies as he shows Easy Reader his comic book "SPIDER-MAN! He's my BEST!" Easy Reader responds with "I like him a lot myself!" Well, if BOTH J. Arthur Crank AND Easy Reader recommended Spider-Man, THAT was good enough for me! I asked my parents for a Spider-Man comic book! And, that is how it began. The first comic that I ever had was Amazing Spider-Man #138: "Madness Means -- The Mindworm!" The story itself is passable, but for an almost 6 year old boy, it was magic! And, I wanted MORE!!

In November of 1976, I came across a copy of Super Friends #3 - "The Cosmic Hitman" on the spinner rack of a local store. I was amazed to find that one of my absolute FAVORITE Saturday Morning TV shows had their own comic book (the cartoon that had been in reruns since 1973 was about in 1977 to finally get a new series of adventures)! Having a comic book of the TV series made the show into something that I could take along! Once the cartoon was over that was it for another week! But I could read the comic book ANYWHERE! I became an instant fan of the book!

Two more comic books that bring with them fine nostalgic memories are: The FLASH #270 "A Fast Way To Die" and #271 "The Silent Slayer Of Central City". #270 came out in November of 1978 with #271 hitting stands in December of that year. I had found them both together on the spinner rack. Both issues intrigued me and both had memorable covers (especially issue #271! The Flash, gazing, shocked into a mirror at his body embedded with small ROCKS with his wife Iris admonishing him to "hurry up" as they will be late for "the performance"! I was old enough by then to appreciate the irony of the fastest man alive being told to "hurry up"! The cover to #270 was dramatic as well. It had the Flash facing an exploding car, getting a PIE in the face and being halfway embedded into a brick wall, as an evil clown (NOT the Joker) prepares to fire ROCKETS and it proclaimed that "Starting This Issue, The Flash's Life Begins To Change -- And It Will NEVER Be The Same Again!" (In later issues, we would find out that this was actually NOT mere hyperbole! They were SERIOUS!) The ongoing story lines in the book made The Flash a favorite to this day!

I still remember joyfully skimming through both comics on the short drive home. I was lost in their four color world! It is these warm and fond memories of those precious moments of childhood, that I can STILL remember fondly even now, at almost 50 years of age!