For me, comic book collecting is a slice of pop culture which I have been interested in for more than 25 years. Now as father of two small boys I am collecting the same titles I did when I was a kid.. Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four. I mainly collect comics for the story and art, the characters, and for the connection to comic history. I like the changing narrative threads weaved by writers and artists over the course of time. I buy new and back issues to help fill in some gaps and have found many great deals on eBay.

TALES TO ASTONISH #35, appeared in January 1962 and was the second appearance of Dr. Hank Pym as Astonishing Ant-man. The classic TTA #27 story, "The Man in the Ant hill" featured Hank's first appearance and origin, where he shrunk down to ant size and and made a desperate escape. TTA #35 was his return as a crime fighting super hero in a new costume and cybernetic helmet.

Hank Pym went on to become Giant Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket and eventually just Dr. Pym during his stint as a West Coast Avenger. He was the father of Ultron, an artificial intelligence experiment gone awry. His guilt from creating the Ultron was resolved in the recent pages of the The Avengers vol. 3 issue 22. He was actually a founding member of the Avengers along with the Wasp, Iron Man, Thor and Hulk.

Avengers #1 hit the stands in September 1963.

One year earlier, in the summer of 1962, a certain wall crawling costumed hero first appeared in Amazing Fanstasy #15

Hero worship is a deal big for kids, myself included... When I was a kid my older brother Steve and I mainly just collected Marvel comics, we never were big DC fans. We collected various silver age titles for a number of years and have a large collection of Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spiderman, X-Men, etc.. We grew older, went away to college and stopped buying comics. But now many years later, a parent myself I have returned to my roots and started collecting again.

Here are some favorites from the Marvel Age of Comics..

Avenger #4  Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, 1964 "Captain America Lives Again"	Fantastic Four #50 Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, 1966 "The Startling Saga of the Silver Surfer"	Captain America #100 Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, 1967 "Cap in his Own Mag At Last"

I have many favorite comic books artists but there are only a few who can rub elbows with Jack Kirby. For instance, someone like Jim Steranko.

Shield #4  Stan Lee & Jim Steranko, 1968 "Shield Origin Issue"	Captain America #111 Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, 1968 The 2nd of 3 Steranko Cap comics

I also was drawn to the tragic figures in the work by Jim Starlin.

Adam Warlock

Warlock first appeared as "Him" in the FF #66-67 storyline. He emerged from his Beehive Cocoon as a scientific experiment and ended up destroying his creators. He scrapped with the Mighty Thor and eventually became a Demi-God on an alternate Earth. The Power of Warlock was revived in the late 70's by Starlin and he ended up being killed off and reanimated several times since. He has become close allies with the Silver Surfer in battling against and along side of Thanos, the mad Titan.