Comic Reviews by Walt

I happened to notice that yesterday saw the release of the new My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series from IDW.

I’d heard about it before, but it came back on my radar when I was researching what exactly a “Ghost Variant” was, and that led to several discussion forums as well as Bleeding Cool, which pointed out there were a BUNCH of variant covers, all for ONE issue…including some sort of package/boxed-set of several of the “main” covers.

It seems MLP is not the first to do such a collector’s set…and I found a different one FAR more to my own interest. No MLP for me:

Go back to 1991, and apparently DC Comics put out a collector’s set to collect all the Robin II: The Joker’s Wild variants including the standard (or in those days, “Newsstand edition”) covers.

Back in ’91, the set retailed for $30 (USD).

21 years after the fact, I scored the (at time of my purchase) unopened set for a mere $3 (for those of you keeping track, that’s $1 LESS than most Marvels and essentially the same as virtually any other single “new” issue available at present).

I may have known this thing existed, but it was never in the forefront of my mind to track down. But seeing it right there for $3 in a 90%-off bin? It’s an awesome score!

And since even at $3 it would seem a shame (and waste) to leave the thing in its shrink-wrap, I opened it.

Let’s explore what this set contained.

First off, this is apparently #6,000 out of 25,000 such sets. Cool…a nice, round number.

The way this was packaged, I actually envisioned having a slipcase to put other comics in, figuring the case alone was worth the $3…but get the label off, and I found a beautiful sparkly logo underneath:

Once I slid the comics out (they were themselves shrinkwrapped as a package-within-the-package) I found this rather cool sketch/foil/shiney cover (one of the supposed backing boards the set contained):

 

The other “Backer Board” lists the contents of the set in more detail than the cover label:

The cards are trading cards featuring the same hologram images from the direct-market editions of the series:

The back of the cards feature a short synopsis of each issue, as well as the logos for Robin (II), Batman, and the Joker. Classic late-’80s/early-’90s…

The first issue of the series featured four different hologram covers:

The second issue featured only 3:

By the third issue we’re down to two:

And the final issue has only one direct market edition:

And the four standard/newsstand edition covers:

Talking of value to me–the sheer “fun-ness” of getting this set, pulling it apart and seeing the various covers…I spent more time for my $3 than I usually get from any single $3.99 comic I read right away.

Here I have a complete set now of all the covers for the entire series (I’m almost certain I already had the 4 regular and several of the holograms) in one place.

And with the nifty slipcase…I can stick these on a shelf for easier storage than single issues in a longbox. I’m usually not all that interested in holographic/foil-y/shiny covers…but that R logo on the slipcase is quite a beautiful thing against the black background.

14 comics, 4 cards and a beautiful slipcase, all for $3?

Easily one of my favorite “finds” of the year!

Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: Batman, DC, DC Comics, Joker, Joker's Wild, Robin, Robin II, Robin II Deluxe Collector's Set |