Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Jim Shooter
Penciler: Mike Zeck
Inker: John Beaty

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8, Dec 1984

This is one of my most prized comics both from a dollar value and as a personal attachment.  This issue marks the first full month I officially started collecting comics.  I purchased this at the Signal Mountain Pharmacy, which aside from Pruett's Food Town grocery store was the only place I could buy comics without the transportation help of a parent.  But I could get to the pharmacy on my bike and I started making that trek every week to see what new comics came in.  They kept theirs on one of those metal spinney racks and I would go through all of them again and again, trying to figure out which one I should spend my buck or two on.  The previous month, I picked up Secret Wars #7, just like I had sporadically purchased a comic here or there up to that point,... but after reading #7, something changed.  For the first time in my comic reading I got to the end and began to imagine how the story would continue, what happened next.  So it was issue #8 that I began to anticipate... I thought about it constantly... then one day, it was there!  And look at the cover!  What the heck happened to Spider-Man?!?!  As it turns out, this is a very important comic in the Marvel Universe as it is the first appearance of "The Black Costume" for Spider-Man, which would eventually turn out to be an alien symbiote and turn into the arch villain known as Venom.  The black costume polarized Spider-Man fans for years and years to come.  Since I got on board right when it happened, I always loved the costume and I still think it is his best look ever.  Old school purists hated it, however, thinking it was an unneeded attempt to jazz up the flagship character of the Marvel universe and it was not welcomed.  To this day, the legacy continues.  Brian Michael Bendis recently did his own retelling of the black costume in Ultimate Spider-Man, Venom has it's own on-going title (for however long that lasts), and the black costume Hero-Clix figure is still one of the most sought after.  They are ultra rare,... and here's mine!!! ;-)