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one of my boyhood friends was a Marvel fan and after reading his Marvel comics I was hooked!


Yeah, that's how it always starts. A friend. He gives you the first taste of Marvel. He tells you where to find it. Heck, the dealer usually gives you your first copy free.

From then on, they have you. You need more. You need them all. You get a job after school, but it isn't enough. It's never enough. Soon you're stealing from you mom's purse, your dad's pants, your sister's piggy bank. Still not enough. You have to have them all. Sgt. Fury! YES, GOTTA HAVE IT!
Rawhide Kid? YES! My

You spiral downward. THe hold they have on you grows. Soon you're mainlining Millie the Model and looking in sleezy store fronts and back alleys for back issues, rarities, the ever elusive gold grail of Marvel, Red Raven Comics. Or, failing that, Marvin the Mouse or the Many Romances of Nurse Helen Grant. You gotta have them. You gotta. Nothing else matters. You drop out of school. You get thrown out of your house by parents who won't have "one of those kind of people" in their place. You're a Marvelhead.

Finally, you hit bottom. You awake in an alley surrounded by stacks of comics. Strange Worlds, Tales of Suspense, Peter the Pest, Patsy, Georgie, Where Monsters Prowl -- gawd, is there no end to them? Emaciated , dehydrated, you've hit bottom. You pray for it to end. You raise up your pious hands to Heaven. You collapse, screaming to the world, the Heavens, and almighty Stan Lee. "GET THIS MARVEL OFF MY BACK!"


A. Leedom, President of the Red Raven Revival Society who has completed eleven of the twelve steps towards recovery and a return to decent society. Now, he only needs the occasional Masterwork.
But he remembers the day when he lay under the covers in his bed with a flashlight getting high on Men's Adventures, Red Warrior and Strike Force: Morituri.