Final Purchases of 2017

It's New Years Eve and I thought I'd better blog about my final purchases this year before I do my annual summary early in Jan.

It's been a quiet few months in terms of print editions but I have bought some digital comics but I'll talk more about those in my annual summary.

The fact that these are both collections of DC material is typical for this year. The Omnibus line has been fantastic for me as they are lovely books and I am really keen to read this material for the first time. The only problem with these books is the space they take up on the shelf!

The Batgirl Omnibus features some Bronze Age Batman issues which is wonderful as the actual Batman Omnibus volumes are still reprinting Golden Age material and it will be years before they get this far and I need to double-dip.

New Teen Titans volume 8 will be the last one for me as I started collecting these to read the famous "Judas Contract" storyline and these collection featuring the issues immediately afterwaards appears to have a satisfactory conclusion.

The Last Jedi

Went to see "The Last Jedi" last weekend.

I thought it was great as the story was unpredictable. Looking forward to repeated viewings when it lands on Blu-ray.

Rat Queens Vol 2

Just finished this volume last night. I enjoyed it more than vol 1. I hope somebody buys me Vol 3!

Two Movies in a week!

Blade Runner 7/10 but a reasonable, faithful sequel

Thor 9/10 Definitely one of my fave MCU movies. 

DC Bronze Age Omnibus and Marvel Epic Thor

Some big collections have arrived through the post recently,

The Swamp Thing Omnibus has been on pre-order for over a year but due to DC re-solicitations and Amazon confusion I had to re-order it at a slightly higher price to make sure I got it.

This large volume covers all the issues up to the Alan Moore run which I will also buy in this format although I've got some of the original issues.

I've been coveting the Brave and The Bold Bronze Age Omnibus Vol 1 for some time but had been undecided about whether or not to buy it because I had a few issues already in other collections (particularly my Jim Aparo books) I own. However, this is a great format with oversized pages and covers before each issue (unlike the other ones I had) so I finally succumbed. It looks fab.

The Thor Epic collection is volume 3 which means when combined with my other Epics, Masterworks and original comics I currently have all the issues up to issue 267. Which is enough to be going on with.

I've a couple of other DC Bronze Age Omnibus editions on pre-order but things are generally looking pretty good in my collection right about now and I predict that 2018 will be a year I read more than I buy!!

Atomic Robo Omnibus Vol 3

Just finished this latest omni - which collects vol 7,8 & 9 of the trades.

Actually vol 8 wasn't that great even though it had Doctor Dinosaur in it. It was a bit too long for what actually happened.

Vol 9 was a return to form and has left the reader with a cliff-hanger! How rude!

Update on new purchases

 OK, I'll admit that it looks like I've been on a bit of a spending spree over the last month but some of these were long standing pre-orders. They are all newly published stuff too!

Catwoman by Jim Balent was only published this week.

 So was Dark Knight Volume III collection. Which looks very nice by-the-way and will definitely go to the top of my to-read pile.

 I couldn't resist this 2nd volume of the Flash Silver Age Omnibus and the New Teen Titans volume 7 collects "The Judas Contract" so it's where I'll probably finish collecting.

 I've always been curious about Planet of the Apes comics and I'd seen positive stuff about this recent collection so I went ahead and ordered it. Along with 40+ issues of the old Marvel weekly going cheap on ebay.

Speaking of going cheap, Amazon are currently running another mad sale on Marvel stuff so as well as getting a dozen or so Masterworks volumes I picked-up some "new to-me" stuff too.



  



All for crazy prices! I wish DC would do the same as I am seriously running out of space on my bookshelves!

So that's plenty to keep me going and together with reading RPG rulebooks etc I should have enough to last me for years!

DC Omnibus editions and Hardcovers

Firstly a couple of Omnibus editions. I do love these.

The Flash vol 1 was from ebay but is like new - so a good bargain.

I've binged a bit on the Legion of Super-heroes just recently and this omnibus will allow me to start from the beginning.

That will allow me to read stuff like this and hopefully enjoy it more as a result.

The final Hardcover is my last planned Harley Quinn collection. This is really a result of no-more-space on my shelves. 

Summer Holiday reading

We've been away for 4.5 weeks on  a massive trip to New Zealand and this has given me the opportunity to read some books and digital comics on my Kindle.

I've read quite a bit of the stuff I've picked-up in the Amazon sales recently. I've read

Amazing Spider-man Mastworks vol 14 and vol 15
Black Widow by Mark Waid Vol 1 and Vol 2
The Irredeemable Ant-Man Vol 1and Vol 2
Star Wars Vol 4
"The Hanging Tree" by Ben Aaronovitch

and I'm 60% of the way through "Tarkin" by James Luceno

Maybe not as much as I thought I might, considering we were away for a month, but still a reasonable amount.

The digital comics, both old and new, were great. I am so happy reading stuff in this format. That's something I didn't think I'd be saying 12 months ago. I will happily get more when the price is right. I wish DC comics were as cheap! I'd be able to get more.

Nevertheless, it's so nice having time to read....

Atomic Robo Omnibus

I've recently finished the second Atomic Robo softcover Omnibus.

Very enjoyable comics. 

Spider-man Homecoming

Luke and I saw this yesterday and it was great.

As Spidey is my favourite hero I'm always very critical of any portrayal if it doesn't fit into what I consider to be my "Spidey" which, by extension, is the definitive Spider-man.

This does a great job although it was very different to the Conway/Andru series of the 1970s or the Stern/ Romita Jr & DeFalco/Frenz runs later on.

It was a good plot, lots of comedy and action (very important in Spider-man stories) and I really liked how it tied into early MCU movies.

Legion of Super-heroes collections

As I've said previously, I'm in a phase of being very curious and interested in silver and bronze age DC comics. I never bought any of these when I was growing up and my first "real" exposure to DC was when John Byrne left Marvel to join DC and reboot Superman.

So all this stuff is new to me.

One series that keeps coming up on the DC archives message boards is LOSH and there is a Silver Age Omnibus of their early adventures due to be released in August which is on my wishlist. In the discussions these two collections were recommended as the best stories and as it will take years for the omnibus series to reach these issues I decided to pick up the trades whilst they were still available and not out-of-print. 

"The Darkness Saga" Collects Legion of Super-Heroes #284-296 and Annual #1 and "The Curse" collects Collects Legion of Super-Heroes #297-313 and Annual #2 so these collect a considerable number of issues. 

My plan is to get the omnibus edition and the brand new collection (SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES VOL. Collects issues #234-245.) which will give me plenty to read and hopefully an understanding of what made the Legion so popular with DC fans.

Summary of the Year - so far

Last year I just about completed my Marvel collection, with only a very few individual comics and a few trades, epics, masterworks and omnibuses to obtain.

So naturally I found myself drawn to something new as I like collecting. That something has proven to be pre-Crisis DC. This is as a result of a revamped DC programme to publish archives of their old material collected in Gold, Silver and Bronze Ages. Now I'm still not interested in Golden Age reprints but I definitely like the SA and BA editions and I've bought quite a few with more on pre-order. I've also picked-up other collections where I can and now consider myself to have made a reasonable start.

The other new thing for 2017 is digital comics. There have been some insane deals on the kindle store and I've bought lots and lots. Including quite a bit I already had in print but there is lots of masterworks and other collections I've taken a chance on because it was only £1.89 for the masterworks volume. Well, it would have been rude to pass-up such an opportunity!

I think this is the only edition I've completed  but I reckon I'll be reading quite a bit over the summer holidays.

I have also completed my Marvel Two-in-One collection with the purchase of #13 and I think that just leaves Thor #262 and Giant-size Spider-man #6 to get in this format.

Finally, the scores on the doors are

Comics/Back-issues: Bought 13 :read 0
Trade collections    : Bought 9 : read  11
Epic Collections, Masterworks  & Omnibus editions  : Bought 9 read 4 
Movies 1 (Guardians of the Galaxy 2)
Books 0

The above doesn't take into account the X-Static omnibus which was massive!

Complete Two-In-One (plus another Thor! and Nemo!)

I've now completed by collection of Marvel Two-In-One with this purchase of issue 13. As you can see from the cover scan it's not the VFN as advertised but, to be fair, the seller agreed and fully refunded me when I pointed this out. It'll do but I'd have rather have had that VFN copy.

So, just as promised back in Jan, I've now completed 1-75 of 2-in-1 which was my aim.

I also picked-up Thor #256 from a different seller as it was one of the issues missing from the lot I purchased recently. A nice copy at 99p.

And finally I decided to purchase "River of Ghosts" which is the last part of the Nemo trilogy. I didn't like only having 2/3 of the story on the shelf and this was going cheap. Oh, the completist in me can cause me trouble! 

Three new DC Silver and Bronze Age Omnibus

These are all great books. Extremely interesting to me as I've no experience with any of this stuff.

My only criticism is that the JLA vol 1 doesn't match the new trade dress of more recent volumes. Still I got it for just over £50 which is quite a bit less than Amazon's or shop prices.

Vision Vol 2 - Little Better Than A Beast

 I didn't want to wait too long between reading Vol 1 and Vol 2 of the Vision limited series and I kept that promise to myself.

Although quite sombre in tone this was a well told story in terms of both story and art and I'm very pleased to have read it. It was quite different to the vast majority of other superhero comics and an interesting take on the dynamic.

Atomic Robo - Everything Explodes

Atomic Robo is just fun comics done extremely well.

I've read the three trades collected in this omnibus edition before but I wanted to read them again before continuing with the rest of the omnibus. They have been sitting on my shelf calling to me and I finally have caved in,

One point to note. It's a shame these are softcover omnibus editions because I would have paid more for hardback. However, the prices for shipping the hardback editions (of each trade) from the Kickstarter they ran were just too prohibitive. Bit  sad about that.

More hardcovers and trade paperback collections

It's been a busy time with purchases recently although fortunately I've not spent too much as all the books were bargains. These three purchases were via the Book Depository and were approx 1/3 less than Amazon prices even accounting for P&P.

Quite a range of titles here from Bronze Age Superman, to Batman from 2000s and very recent Marvel series. In fact, I'll read the Vision Vol 2 very soon as Vol 1 was so good.

Amazon Digital bargains

A crazy sale of Marvel comics on Amazon Kindle has meant I've purchased loads of stuff at dirt-cheap prices.

I've bought

Daredevil Masterworks vols 6,7,8,10 &11 (£14.40 total)
Dr Stange Masterworks vol 2 (£2.88)
Iron Fist Masterworks Vol 1 (£2.88)
Amazing Spider-man Masterworks Vols 14 &15 (£5.76)
Avengers vs Thanos collection (£4.67)
Irredeemable Ant-man Vol 1 (£0.99)
Wolverine:Logan (£0.72)
X-Men: God Loves: Man Kills Graphic Novel (£0.60)
Black Widow by Mark Waid Vols 1 &2 (£4.32)

An unbelievable amount of stuff. Some I already own but it'll hopefully be in a format where my son will enjoy reading it.

I only got into digital comics recently and this is a fantastic way of reading stuff I never would have got

Added to My Collection: Bronze-Age Thor!

I still occasionally check ebay for bargains and I recently picked-up 11 issues of Thor in two separate lots from the same seller for the total of £3.87.

I got issues 255-267 but #256 and #262 were missing. All in Fine condition too. Still these issues comprise the next Masterworks so I've saved myself some money by buying the originals. I will look out for those two missing issues though.

These issues feature the change in art from John Buscema to Walt Simonson. I haven't got Simonson's later run where he takes over the writing too but a quick glace through these issues I can tell he adopted a similar style to JB for his initial issues.

A nice bargain and I've now achieved my aim to get all the JB issues. Very soon I'll get Vol 3 of the Epic collection which will Mean I've probably got enough to be going on with.

New Teen Titans Vol 5

I've ticked off another NTT trade. Vol 5 this time.

This series is ticking along. It's OK but not exceptional other than for Perez art. I've already got Vol 6 so I'll continue but I am waiting to see why it's just so highly regarded.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

My son and I saw this the other week at the newly refurbished Showcase in Coventry. It's expensive going to the cinema these days but I did like the new comfy seats and the arrangement which guaranteed a great view.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to entertain. This was definitely on a par with Vol 1. Bit of a silly plot but the characters and action sequences were great.

More Silver Age DC Omnibus editions

I'm still keen on the DC omnibus editions and a couple have arrived this week.

The JLA is Vol 2 (I've not got Vol 1 yet as I've not seen it for a good price) and it's massive. It's 1056 pages and collects #31-#76 and Mystery In Space #75

World's Finest Vol 1. is a bit thinner at only 626 pages and collects Superman #75 and World's Finest #71- #116. It was only recently that I realised that this comic was the Superman-Batman team-up book. They first teamed-up in Superman #75 and that was so well received that DC decided to change the lead story in WF to be Superman and Batman each issue.

I'm loving finding out about all this early DC history.