If you had a time machine...

[Shield]

Inspired by the "What if" find of 40,000 Action #1 comics and a reply about a time machine:

 

I think this is worthy of an entire post.

 

If you could travel back in time to late April, 1938:

 

 

1. How would you PAY for those books in 1938? A 2002 $20 bill wouldn't cut it. If you had to find a job during the great depression (1938) would your current line of work "do"? I doubt my skills as an Information Technology Manager would matter much to those folks.

 

2. Pretend you could only go back and stay for 24 hours. What month and year would you go to? Also, would you spend any of that time trying to contact your Grandparents and let them know which key issues to buy multiples of and how to store them? Obviously you couldn't walk up to them and say "Hey, don't ask, but I'm your grandson born in 1973. Please be sure to purchase all #1, #22, #27 issues of comics!"

[PovertyRow]

If I could travel back in time to any period I wouldn't. There is no such thing as "safe time travel."

 

Imagine - Your grandfather walks past a comic book display and stops for 5 seconds to look at an Action 1. Then he leaves. That night he fulfills his conjugal obligations and your dad is born, who later begets you.

 

NOW - you go back in time and BUY that particualr Action 1 - nothing to cause your Grandad to stop for 5 secs. He still fulfills his conjugal obligations BUT - the timing is now wrong. The wroing sperm cell penetrates the egg. Your dad is not born. Someone elses's is.

 

Man - you have to deal with extreme minutae when dealing with time travel!

[valiantman]

Imagine - Your grandfather walks past a comic book display and stops for 5 seconds to look at an Action 1. Then he leaves. That night he fulfills his conjugal obligations and your dad is born, who later begets you.

 

NOW - you go back in time and BUY that particualr Action 1 - nothing to cause your Grandad to stop for 5 secs. He still fulfills his conjugal obligations BUT - the timing is now wrong. The wroing sperm cell penetrates the egg. Your dad is not born. Someone elses's is.

 

...so you DIDN'T go back and screw up the timeline after all, because you don't exist.

 

But, if your dad is born on schedule, then you DID go back and mess everything up.

 

But, if everything is messed up... then you DIDN'T go back... and there's no way

the Delorean will ever get Marty home in time to stop Biff.

[jbud73]

I try not to think about how much I think about this when it comes to comics.

[LucyBop]

Hepcat, spend 24hrs with the HepKitty, and you'll swear its like 1958.....

 

 

And you'll get a ride in my timemachine:

 

[PovertyRow]

But, if everything is messed up... then you DIDN'T go back... and there's no way the Delorean will ever get Marty home in time to stop Biff.

 

Kinda like that - yeah. Now make like a tree and get out of here!

 

::sigh -typoed tree??? Yeah - typoed tree::

[Shield]

Ride? I wanna drive it! Is that the 230 cubic inch 6 cylinder, or the boss 265 carburated V8?

 

1955 was Chevy's first year for the V8!

 

1957 Chevy's 283 "Black Widow" was the first motor to produce one horsepower per cubic inch. Chevy's first fuel injected motor as well.

 

Useless knowledge, for your entertainment.

[Rocketeer]

1. How would you PAY for those books in 1938? A 2002 $20 bill wouldn't cut it. If you had to find a job during the great depression (1938) would your current line of work "do"? I doubt my skills as an Information Technology Manager would matter much to those folks.

 

Why couldn't you just travel back with a vintage $20.00 from 1938 or berfore...... and a copy of the results from the previous day at Belmont Raceway....start at the first race....work your way through the 9 th...even at 4-to-1 odds per race that would come to $5,242,880 on a $20.00 original bet (less $3.50 for program, hot dogs, peanuts and beer)......then break into your Grandmothers house....hide the money in the floorboards in the attic and screw the Action #1's.....,....Then go back to the future and take it out....sheesh...... ...Plus...it would be over 5 million in vintage 1938 pristine currency which would be worth much,much more....c'mon...if you're going to build a time-machine then think man,... think!!!

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Yes but everything would have consequences. The money you would win might have been bills handed to someone else, which now means that you've altered the fates of many just by winning money that wouldn't have been distributed to you originally. Who knows how that will affect small decisions then big ones until finally it changes lives, etc. etc. You just can't know the consequences.

 

That's why if I had a time machine I'd just go back to the early '30s, sneak into a Broadway theater and watch the Marx Bros. try out all their bits for their forthcoming Night at the Opera film. Then I'd come home.

 

Arnold

[Edian]

Yes but everything would have consequences. The money you would win might have been bills handed to someone else, which now means that you've altered the fates of many just by winning money that wouldn't have been distributed to you originally. Who knows how that will affect small decisions then big ones until finally it changes lives, etc. etc. You just can't know the consequences.

 

That's why if I had a time machine I'd just go back to the early '30s, sneak into a Broadway theater and watch the Marx Bros. try out all their bits for their forthcoming Night at the Opera film. Then I'd come home.

 

 

Then maybe you sit on the chair of someone else, and as you say altered his future,

 

Some peoples say that a Time Machine can't exists, even in a million years in the future, and the reason it's that nobody hear from a man from the future.

 

And I have a theory: The past can't change.

[jduran1]

I would go to Boulder Colorado visit my uncle and have him knock on Mrs Edgar Church's door a week after the funeral.

[goldust40]

I would go to Boulder Colorado visit my uncle and have him knock on Mrs Edgar Church's door a week after the funeral.

 

Don't forget the tar and feathers for when the ponytailed one happens along.

[Crowzilla]

Yes, but we know now that Edgar was still alive when Chuckles bought the collection. So that wouldn't work either.

 

How about you go back and stop Snyder and friends from color-touching a bunch of the keys?

 

how about these consequences (just for comics, forget the long-term economic and you might not exist ones). You go back and buy those Action #1's and since you bought the copy Edgar was supposed to buy and he can't find any anywhere, he gives up crazy idea of buying a copy of every single comic that comes out for the next 15 years and throws away the few he already has.

[kahml]

I don't think I'd want to go back that far.

 

I'd stick with the early 1960's and to one Friday afternoon when my father took me to the neighborhood barbershop.

 

I recall I had to wait because one of the barbers wasn't in that day. So, I sat in the back of the barbershop reading (ok, mostly looking at) comics.

 

The owner, to appease me me for keeping me waiting so long, said to take one of the books home.

 

My dad said something like, "He has enough joke books already, no thanks." I was at an age where I didn't argue with those kinds of pronouncements.

 

At the time, I thought the dark colors of the cover weren't so great, but I liked that there was a guy who was like a spider and a flaming guy and a stretchy guy. I wasn't so sure about the rocky guy or the invisible girl, though.

 

If I could go back, maybe I could have said, "Oh, come on - just one book, please ?!?"

 

Amazing Spider-Man 1 - that would have been a nice Friday afternoon give-away.

 

 

Larry

[Timely]

As long as you don't buy any Action #1's from the state of Colorado you'll be fine!

 

Timely

[s-man]

Any Simpsons fans here? Do you remember the classic Halloween episode where Homer goes back in time and tries at first not to touch anything and he accidently squashes a bug, causing the reality to change when he gets back (Flanders is lord and master of everything!)

 

Then he goes back and tries to get back to his reality, over and over again until he ends up nearly wiping out the dinosaurs! Thats my all time favorite Simpsons episode!!

[goldust40]

I agree. That episode was the very final word in time travel and causality. Peerless stuff.

[ablue]

I would go to the paper drive bins and clean them all out of comics.

You know the comics which were all destroyed for the war.

Then I would go back to 1794 or is it 1793 And pick up a mint Flowing bust silver U.S dollar!!

[14 of spades]

if i had a time-machine, i'd go into the future.

 

i'd go forward - bring back some technology or invention or whatever that no one has thought of yet.

 

one could dominate the world in any given field - in military, or science, or exploration, whatever.

 

the possibilities would be endless.

 

of course, we'd get into the chicken/egg dilemna... as anyone who did this would obviously change the course of the future...

[jduran1]

Years and years ago Chuck told some of us that Mrs Church called him after Edgar died. So who can I believe? You or Chuck or the truth out there somewhere. I picked this time period because the time machine only gives us a small piece of time to get a lot done.

 

Also there is an Action 1 NM in a warehouse,house? in Colorado. It is to risky to move it, put it in a car or mail it anywhere. The owner doesn't want to sell it. I would love to see it of course.