Make Mine Marvel No More

The more I reminiscence, the more I realized that the mid 1980s were the best years of my comic reading life.

Kaleon Rahan’s recent review of the Punisher: Circle of Blood triggered this jaunt along the memory lane to the time when John Byrne was a hot item and Chris Claremont could do no wrong.

I had subscription orders to mainly the Uncanny X-Men, Alpha Flight and Fantastic Four; copies of which were sent to me all rolled up.

It helped that the exchange back then were something like RM2++ per USD1, so every issue is pretty cheap.

Though for a secondary school student, they’re still a dent to the pocket money.

So I did exactly what any self-respected comic nerd (my better’s half’s description of me) would do: I started a comic book club.

Can’t recall exactly how much was the, urm, membership fee, but business was fairly good.

Usually they are hooked on the X-Men, with FF and Alpha Flight more technical that students care to be.

FF in a scientific kind of tech while Alpha Flight the mythic sort of tech (fans of both will catch my drift).

The days of RM2++ to a US Dollar is long gone and with it, gone also the days when even this once-student who earned the most nominal of pocket money could afford to be eager beaver on a monthly basis for the next installment of the X-Men, FF and Alpha Flight.

Now, my orders in Amazon is on perpetual cart status without checking out as the price in Ringgit is just plain horrendous.

Looks like it will be a while more for my Akira series to get its number 2. 

PS:

The rate is now RM4.1++ to USD1. Ouch. 

But Que Sera Sera for our good old gomen.