I have a “junk pile” of comics. These are, mostly, made up of comics that I owned before I began “collecting” comics; a motley assortment of random drug-store purchases and hand-me-downs from who-knows-where. They used to sit in the bottom drawer of the desk in my old room in my parents house. When I began collecting, these comics were kept separate, from what I was buying and bagging in protective sleeves. If you asked me about these comics when I was a teenager, I’d probably say they were comics in either very poor condition (a few are missing their covers outright) or that they were so corny that I would be embarrassed to include them in my “real” collection. (This junk pile included, among other things: a half dozen random Marvel Tales, Marvel’s three-issue A-Team mini-series, and about twenty semi-random issues of Marvel’s Star Wars comic.) And yet these comics stuck around, because my collecting-mentality couldn’t bear to discard even the comics I had essentially already discarded. When my wife and I bought our house three years ago, my mother unceremoniously handed over four or five boxes of my old crap that she had been wanting to get rid of, and among those boxes was my “junk pile”. I weeded through those comics and ended up pulling out a few dozen issues that, as an adult, I had a nostalgic attachment to. I now have a “not-really-junk pile” and a “junkier pile”; the whereabouts of the latter is unknown, either donated to some Goodwill store, or buried in a basement closet, while the “not really junk pile” sits, unbagged, on a shelf; part of my comic collection but, still, not really part of my comic collection.
I mention all this for two reasons: to explain why I own issue 34 of DC Comics Presents and the why it is not counted as one of the comics in the 5,600+ that are part of this project. This comic is from 1981, featuring a team-up between Superman, Captain Marvel, and the rest of the Marvel family, as they battle Mr. Mxyzptlk , Mr. Mind, and King Kull. Among other things, it also included Supes and Marvel being transported to an alternate dimension populated by talking bunnies, one of whom was, of course, Bunny Marvel. (A serendipitous bonus: the “next issue” blurb promised a Superman/Man-Bat team up! Man, now I need to track that sucker down!) It’s all played straight—even Marvel Bunny—and clearly meant for a young audience. But I got to tell you: I enjoyed reading this issue more than I did these four Adventures of Superman comics.
