One of the very first comics I bought with my very own money was Fantastic Four 127.   If not on the same rack,  it was within a week or so I discovered the FF reprints in Marvel's Greatest Comics.   I could double dip  into the FF every month,  reading new stories and catching up on the old.  My journey into becoming a fanboy had begun. 

What made the Fantastic Four so appealing was the family dynamics of it.  Reed Richards,  clearly the father figure,  Sue Richards in the balancing act of both mother, older sister and frequent scold,   Johnny Storm as the person you wanted to be and Ben Grimm as the person you hoped you grow up into.   The Human Torch and the Thing were absolutely the draw for this youngster.  The Torch being wild, quick to anger, leaping into action without thinking it through and Thing,  self-depreciating,  capable of great courage and tenderness,  hard fighting and unwilling to give up no matter what.  

The FF would argue with each other,  sometimes rage at one another,  but they always got back together because they cared for each other. The FF also had the best bad guys around.  Holy cats!  Doctor Doom will get his own page one of these days.  If not two pages.  Marvel's First Family was without question the World's Greatest Comic Magazine  -- it even said so on every cover! 

The natural move from the FF was to get more Marvel comics.  Amazing Spider-Man,  Daredevil,  the Avengers, Thor,  Captain America,  Iron Man soon followed.  Of all of those,  I liked Iron Man the most because the concept of a flying suit of armor appealed to me.  The chances of getting bitten by a radioactive spider,  or given a super-soldier serum,  or finding a magic walking stick seemed remote.  But flying armor seemed like something was possible.   Fantastic Four remained the first read but Iron Man soon became the second read.  

It would sometimes take two weeks to save up for the dollar.  But with that dollar I could buy five comic books and before too long had a sizable collection.  If any comic was the continuation of a story,  I would get the first (or second or third) part and read those again before going on with the tale.  I read these comics to pieces. 

Somewhere along the way,  I started spending money on more expensive back issues.  Absolutely love the reprints,  but getting the "original" was desirable as well.  The collection grew and grew.  

When the price jumped to 25 cents,  I had a steadier source of income and would often get all the new Marvel comics plus some DC comics every week. Still liked the FF,  but Spider-Man was now the go to comic.  I was captivated by the Celestial Madonna story in the Avengers and had been completely blown away by Starlin's  Captain Marvel run and his work with Adam Warlock.  When the price hit 30 cents,  I started cutting back on comics becoming somewhat disillusioned with some of the choices both companies were making.  I was either growing up, or the comics were getting dumber...   The 35 cent price tag irritated me greatly.  I wasn't getting the bang for the buck.  And then it was 1979,  I was a senior in high school, I was more interested in female company than comic books and had discovered the secret joy of smoking cigarettes and drinking beer.  And to top it all off, issue 200 of the Fantastic Four was so disappointing and such a terrible let down,  I gave up on comics.  Forever...  Well,  until I got back into them years later.