Amazing Spider-Man #162, November 1976, written by Len Wein, penciled by Ross Andru

I picked this up at a little antique store in Schenectady, where they just didn’t quite know what they had. This is exactly why I love finding comics in antique stores that are more concerned with accurately pricing Coca-Cola memorabilia; this is the first appearance of Jigsaw, worth about $50, and I got it for less than what a new comic costs now. Fun!

Also fun? This issue is the 11th time Nightcrawler appeared in a comic (the first 9 being Giant-Size X-Men and the subsequent issues of Uncanny; the tenth being the issue before this one). It was a lot of fun to see Nightcrawler in this issue, in his first non-X-Men storyline. It’s a treat to see writers having fun with these classic characters when they were still new. The spark of excitement is still there, and, maybe because I’m nuts, but the positive possibility that a new character has feels palpable. Like, Nightcrawler wasn’t bogged down with history in this issue. He was just a mutant who teleports and looks like this, and they had fun with it.

Plus Spider-Man and Nightcrawler versus Punisher on one of the New York landmarks that I see super regularly? Great, great cover.