The other day I was trying to pinpoint exactly when and where I first started reading comics. As Morrissey is wont to say, "The past is a strange place." Mt personal recollection is pretty hazy for a number of reasons, but there are a few key issues that always spring to mind.
I have the vaguest of vague memories of my older sister buying me a copy of X-Men #1 by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee. There's also an issue of Web of Spider-Man my pop got my at a gas station, most likely to shut me up long enough for him to run errands unimpeded. I can "see" those covers when I peer back in time, but the most vivid recollection I have of actually reading a comic (all by myself!) is the following issue of Batman.
Batman #490 would probably be sold as "zero issue" of a big event these days, as it is a bit of a prologue to the upcoming Knightfall story arc. Knightfall made a big impression on me as a kid, since I hadn't "been on the ride" before, so to speak. I was really worried when the urban terrorist Bane broke Bruce Wayne's back and cautiously optimistic when a psychotic choir boy named Jean Paul Valley took over the cape and cowl. This character switcheroo was right around when the Fox animated series hit, displaying a rare lack of synergy between the screen and the page.
That's all in Little Chris's relative future, however. Batman #490 is a Riddler story. Rather than the usual puzzles and mind games, Eddie Nygma has been endowed with a freakish physique thanks to Bane's venom formula and gets to let out all of his nerd rage on an already exhausted Dark Knight in this issue. This is my favorite part of the setup for Knightfall: Bruce Wayne is already tired and half-beaten before the story begins, making the Arkham Asylum breakout and inevitable battle with Bane all the more hopeless. Riveting stuff for a little kid who was juts dipping his toe into the world of monthly superheroes.
Writer Doug Moench doesn't get enough love these days. His work with the Bat, and with other vigilante types like Marvel's Moon Knight is often overlooked. Of course scribes like Alan Moore and Frank Miller are synonymous with great Batman stories, but its the monthly, in-the-trenches guys like Moench who kept adding fuel to that fire. In my own reading history, Moench might actually have had more of an influence on me than I ever considered previously. He and guys like Chuck Dixon developed an internal voice for Batman that was more in line with what I would later see in the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini stuff than the hyper-violent (almost to the point of self-parody) Frank Miller stuff.
On the art chores this issue is Jim Aparo, a legendary DC artist who was still a regular working stiff at this point. His figures might look a little plain now, but his work was always about strong fundamentals. No experimental layouts here, Gothamites, just solid storytelling. Aparo would go on to be a regular Bat artist for nearly the rest of the 90's. Other than the Bruce Timm animated version, his was the caped crusader I most tried to emulate when I was a littler doodler.
Batman #490 isn't a stand-out issue or anything, it's just one that I fondly remember and may have been my first Batman comic. I no longer have that original copy, I'm sorry to say, but I have since gone back and repurchased all of those Knightfall era books. Similar to how some fans (myself included) have a soft spot for the Clone Saga over in Spider-Man, this is my guilty pleasure as a comic reader and the Knightfall arc sucked me right into the hobby.
Thanks for reading! And apropos of nothing, if you happen to like pro wrestling, I cover it over on my other blog, Work/Shoot.
Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com
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