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!