Fantastic Four 72 completes my collection!

I'm feeling a bit of a sense of accomplishment with this new purchase.

I think this is the final issue I require to complete my back-issue collection. It's a nice FN/VFN copy from ebay bought using proceeds from comic sales (particularly Amazing Spider-Man #361 1st Carnage)

Of course, I will probably buy more single issues but looking at the titles I intend to read when I eventually start reading my Marvel collection, I think I have them all. Some of the early stuff is in Marvel Masterworks or another collected edition but I have all the stories. FF#72 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby was the last single I was after.

If I get the opportunity I'll get more Dr Strange and Thor in collections but I don't mind if I don't.

Now I can look forward to starting Marvel from the beginning!

Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman vol 2

This beautiful, 832 page, deluxe hardcover collects Fantastic Four issues #600-611 and 605.1 and FF (Future Foundation) issues# 6-23. Plenty of comics there but it cost £60 from the Book Depository (RRP £90 though!) so i hope it's worth it.

I bought vol 1 back in Oct 2013 and I've still not read it so I've plenty to crack on with once I've finished some novels I'm reading.

Lots of New Purchases

Had a bit of a splurge recently.

Lots to read here - but my wish list is greatly reduced!

FF Vol 2 Family Freakout

I can't believe it was last August when I read vol 1 and I've only just got vol 2.

With my policy of no Marvel stuff in 2014 it will be some time before I get to read this but I hope I'll have vol 3 by then. In fact, I hope I'll have the complete Matt Fraction run on Fantastic Four and FF so I can enjoy the whole story. Flicking through this - it looks very interesting. Just loving Allred's art style.

The last new purchases of 2013

Fantastic Four Vol 2 and Morning Glories Vol 6 both purchased and delivered after Christmas.

With 6 volumes of Morning Glories now to read I will read them soon.

Marvel Tales by Alan Davis

I bought and read this because it's actually Alan Davis doing a Clandestine story using major Marvel heroes annuals as a vehicle.

Unfortunately, although  the art is the usual Davis superb standard - the story just didn't grab me on first reading. It might if I read this at the end of re-reading the various mini-series featuring the Clandestine characters.

A near miss at the moment though. :-(

Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus

This arrived yesterday. I've been looking forward to it for some time.

It's a bit of a monster oversized hardback book. It collects; Dark Reign: Fantastic Four 1-5, Dark Reign: The Cabal, Fantastic Four 570-588 and  FF 1-5

I hope a second volume will be announced for next year.

FF and Star Wars trades

I raced through these two trades over the weekend. The Star Wars one maybe just a bit too quickly but the action was near-enough none stop.

Some good moments in Fraction's FF too. It's got a nice quirky feel to the book.

Sensational She-Hulk graphic novel

This arrived yesterday.

It's something I've coveted for a long time but never been at the top of my "wants" list as it's a one-off , stand-alone story. It was discussed in an interview with the author John Byrne I read years ago and since then I've wanted it but rarely seen it for sale. This FN copy was on ebay for £5 so that's a pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned.

She-Hulk has always been one of my favourite Marvel characters too and this story is set around the time she was part of the Fantastic Four (circa 1985) - just like she is at the mo in FF by Matt Fraction.

Fantastic Four by Matt Fraction

I breezed through this trade which reprints Fantastic Four (2012) 1-3, FF (2012) 1- and material from Point One Vol. 2.

The reviews from both series had been good particularly FF(2102) which is drawn by Mike Allred and I did find the whole book a fun read. I will certainly be getting Vol 2 of both series as the stories diverge and hence the separate trade reprints.

More trades to add to the "To be read list"

Two relatively modern superhero trades to add to the list.

"Batman: The Cat and the Bat" is another of those stories recommended in the Best Stories articles on CBR. This particular one was in the Best Barbara Gordon stories ever told. It's about 10 years old. When I saw that the art was by Kevin Maguire I knew I had to get it.

"Fantastic Four: New Departure, New Arrivals" is brand new. I've been reading very good things about the Fraction/ Allred run on FF and this trade collects the 1st 3 issues of that run together with Fantastic Four 1-3 which explains why the orginal FF have to leave and the new FF have to take their place.

I also have purchased a new Star Wars trade from Dark Horse. "Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison" is set in the Dark Times and looks really good. Going to have a bit of a Star Wars month soon and will read it then.

More trades this week

A couple of new trades arrived this week. Both collecting relatively new material. The Alan Davies book collects 2012 annuals he did whereas the Terra collects the 2009 mini series by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner. This is actually the second copy of this book as I returned the first one I received because it had a binding error for about 12 pages which made it awkward to read those. Unfortunately the "new" copy had the same error so I've decided to keep this one as I suspect Amazon had a duff batch and it is difficult to obtain from anywhere else. It's still readable - just not perfect.

Added to my collection. Lots!

 It was a bit like Christmas today with so much arriving in the post. Iron Man Masterworks bought from the Book Depository, approx £5 cheaper than Amazon, kicked off things but I also got what was a massive ebay win/parcel. It was all won from the same seller over a couple of nights.

 This win was so big, I'm not going to post all the covers. First off a Marvel Two-In-One run from 20 -31 in VFN condition. A bargain at £6.17.

                                                    
Then there was a run of Chris Claremont's New Mutants 1-15, 18, 19 and Special #1 by Art Adams. £9.50 to me!

I've a few issues of both of these runs but they are still both worth it. The duplicates will go back on ebay.

And finally The Ballard of Halo Jones by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson in the original over-sized Titan Editions from the 1980s reprinting the 2000AD strip. Vols 1 - 3 set me back £13.02 but as they are now unavailable and are in great condition I'm glad my high bid was high enough. This is supposed to be good early stuff from Moore so I am looking forward to reading it.

Very happy with all this!

Added to my collection: Two x Two-In One

It's funny how last month I was getting Marvel team-Up. Well I've started this month with a couple of 2-in -1s from 1976. The Annual is quite rare and is the middle part of a three parter. No. 22 I got for 60p!

Added to my collection: Cheap Team-Ups

These later issues of Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One are not high in priority on my wants lists but I'm not going to miss them if they are going cheap. MTU #134 with art by Ron Frenz (who's a fav of mine) was £1.20 but the other two issues were 49p each.

2-in-1 No. 19 is cover dated Sept 1976. Which is the month I bought my first American Marvel. So that's nice as I would like as many issues as possible for that cover date (which were actually on sale in June in the US and then Sept over here in the UK)

Added to my collection - More Bronze Age goodies

Just added via one ebay purchase 2 more comics to my collection and an upgrade of Marvel Team-Up 84. My old copy was water soaked so it was nice to pick up a FN+ copy for 95p together with Defenders 38 and Two-In-One 86.

The Defenders fills a gap so I now have16-39 except for No. 30. That's a priority. At the time of writing I can't decide if to get some Masterwork editions to get the early issues some of which are quite expensive. No. 10 is approx £40. Too steep for me on this title. All the others I've bought have been about £2.

The 2-in-1 Sandman issue is supposed to be notable due to the fact it goes towards redeeming the Sandman. I know that storyline has now been abandoned but at the time it was popular. I couldn't resist adding this so I could read it even though 2-in-1 beyond issue 75 were not really high one my wants list.

Avengers/FF Annual x-over from 1985

I read these two annuals which I bought from Fantasy World back in 1985 because Bronze Age Babies were doing a review of them on their site and I thought it would be nice to chip in with a comment.

Unfortunately, what with the Olympics and all that, I've only just finished both double size-issues so it's a bit late now. :-)

I thought they were a bit harsh at first, but although it's an interesting experiment to merge the end of the story at the end of each annual, the FF annual in particular was a bit of a mess in terms of script but fantastic with Byrne and Sinnott on art.

Added to my collection...(part 2)

I should have blogged that I received these during the week. Ooops!

Captain America 173 is a hard to find and usually expensive ND issue but I managed to acquire this from EBay at £3.99 so I was very happy. This completes the Secret Empire storyline (issues 169-176) which I was collecting.

The FF Masterworks vol 7 reprints issues 61 to 71 plus the annual. I'd originally had some of the original issues from this time but I've sold them on EBay for approx £35 and bought the reprint from Amazon for £12.15. The profits have gone towards getting the Cap issue above as well as Defenders issues etc. which I discribed yesterday.

Added to my collection...

I've received these comics this week. All from various Ebay sellers and all at 99p except for the Hulk where somebody had the cheek to also bid on on the item taking it to £2.04!!

I've mentioned before that I'm collecting early Defenders issues when I can find them cheap, the Hulk #264 fills a gap which just leaves # 257 to get and the Marvel Two-In-One Annual comes recommended after being voted the 2nd best Thing story of tall time on Comics Should Be Good.

UPDATE:  I actually sat down and read the 2 in 1 annual before storing it in the longbox. Now that doesn't happen very often! It was a fun read but I wouldn't have put it in my top 10 Thing stories.

New Back-issues

I won these on Ebay at the weekend. Old Bronze-age comics from 1974 and 1975. The Dracula is not in the greatest condition but it was acutately described and CHEAP. I am gradually ticking off the issues on these two classic bronze-age titles.

I've noticed they're the first actual comics for a bit - concentrating on trades etc and keeping to my strict budget has limited my purchasing - but as I keep saying, I've got enough to read really.