TIME FOR AN AMAZING TALE IN A CREEPY WORLD - AND IRON MAN AND CLEOPATRA ARE ALONG FOR THE RIDE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

The year?  I can no longer recall with certainty - probably 1968 or '69.  A girl in my class by the name of Lynne took a fancy to a little notebook my father had given me and swapped me this comic for it.  We later swapped back a few days later when guilt at so callously parting with the book began to trouble me.  However, I've told that story before and it's not the point of this little post.

I only had the above comic for a few days at most.  I'd already read the tale in an issue of FANTASTIC, but that comic hadn't used the cover art, and there was just something about that great JACK KIRBY  illo that grabbed me.  I've just re-acquired the comic tonight, and it strikes me that, even if I live for another 30 or 40 years and keep the comic for that length of time, it won't seem anywhere near as long as the few days I temporarily had that first copy back in the '60s.

It's not as though I even need it, as I have the original ish of TALES Of SUSPENSE which the story came from, plus numerous reprints.  Yet I saw it in an auction and it called out to me, and memories of my old playground and school, demolished a few years back, were resurrected in the recesses of my mind.  So I bid on it and won, and soon it will join all the other clones of my childhood comics and toys, and I'll feel reunited with my past - even if only for a short time.

Just think though;  as I said, when I've owned this comic for a week or two, that'll be a longer period of time than I had it the first time, which is something I find amazing.  I often look at replacement items I've owned for many, many years longer than I ever had the originals, and wonder where the time went.  It's ironic that this IRON MAN adventure involves time travel, because just looking at it takes me back in time over 50 years.

Anyway, here's hoping I've got at least another 50 years ahead of me.  That would be nice, however unlikely the prospect may be.

******

Incidentally, that Cleopatra gets around!  As well as meeting Iron Man, she also met DOCTOR STRANGE.  Bit of a MARVEL 'groupie' if you ask me.  (And I'm surprised that ALAN CLASS didn't spot the misspelling of 'Pharaoh' and correct it.  Tsk, tsk!)