The price of reclaiming your childhood

This is a pic of yours truly and a poster I recently purchased on Ebay. Needless to say it is out of print, expensive and very collectible. I'm sure it's a better value by the inch as it is 50 x 50 inches. I will not disclose how much it cost me, but it was very expensive (into the hundreds).

Nevertheless, I just HAD to have it. This poster was a way of reclaiming my childhood so to speak. When I was about 12 years old, my cousin and Anthony and I put together this very image in the form of a 5000 piece puzzle. I think it took us all summer. I wasn't into comic books back then but putting together that puzzle and seeing all the characters and costumes got me intrigued. It was long after that I was a full fledged "Marvelite" and "True Believer" to coin a Stan Lee phrase. It was after this puzzle I started buying comic books on a weekly basis with $10 allowance which allowed me to get about 13 comic books. Those were the days.

So naturally when I saw this on EBAY, I had to have it. Getting it framed was an ordeal though, as the frame had be custome ordered the plastic that fits in the frame also had to be custom order (from a different store). So after getting the winning bid, having the plastic made at the plastic store, and the frame put together at the frame shop - I finally show up to get the poster and take it home. One problem though, it doesn't fit in my car. It doesn't fit in my trunk, it just plain doesn't fit. So, I call up a friend who has a mini-van. One problem though, his wife has the mini van for the day and he shows up in his jeep. So, we put the framed poster on top of the jeep and we each reach an arm out the window onto the roof to keep it from blowing away. Problem solved, now it is in it's proper home, and I couldn't be happier.

BTW- I will give a special prize to anyone who can tell me the names of every character on this poster.