That moment at the comic shop when a teenager corrected my Silver Surfer knowledge

I was browsing back issues at Golden Age Comics on Broadway last Tuesday, and this kid maybe 14 years old overheard me telling the clerk that the Surfer first appeared in Fantastic Four. He didn't say anything to me directly, just whispered to his friend something about the Surfer being in a solo book before FF #48. I looked it up on my phone right there and he was right - there was a 1968 Silver Surfer #1 that came out before that FF issue. Made me realize how much lore gets mixed up in my head after 20+ years of reading. Has anyone else had a younger fan school them on something they thought they knew solid?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordancoleman1mo ago

Felt the exact same way when a kid at my shop corrected me on when Wolverine first appeared, turns out I had the issue number wrong for years and it changed how I see a bunch of early X-Men history now lol.

the_mary1mo ago

The issue number thing is tricky because it messes with your whole mental timeline. What helped me was actually writing down all the key appearances on a simple spreadsheet sorted by month and year, not just issue numbers. I had convinced myself that The Hulk's first appearance was in Tales to Astonish #60 for the longest time, but it was really #59 and that tiny shift changed how I saw his early character arc completely. When I started adding little notes about who drew each story and what the cover date actually meant for publishing delays, everything clicked into place. It sounds like homework, but it really helped me untangle the years of mixed up facts in my head.