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TMNT Revisited: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #22

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Walt

tmnt_adventures_revisited

tmntadventures022Rat Trap

Script: Dean Clarrain
Art: Gene Colan
Letters: Gary Fields
Colors: Barry Grossman
Cover: Gene Colan, Steve Lavigne
Edits: Scott Fulop, Victor Gorelick
Published by: Archie Comics
Cover Date: July 1991
Cover Price: $1.25

I imagine it’s just a typo and a missed error, taking stuff for granted…but reading through this issue I was really taken aback by a panel with Shredder addressing Splinter as Hamata Yoshi…rather than the long-established Hamato Yoshi. Were the letters upper/lowercase I’d wonder if it was a case of faded or blurred ink or such, an ‘o’ coming to look like an ‘a’, but the all-caps nature makes the ‘A’ pretty darned distinct from an ‘O’. And I suppose if one’s working with the material all the time, stuff will come to be taken for granted, though I’m not sure if the blame here lies entirely with the writer or letterer, though I’d share blame across both and the editing team for missing the spelling of a primary character’s name.

That all said, this isn’t a bad issue on the whole, though it feels–again–rather generic in the larger scope of things.

We open with a recap of the last few issues, bringing us to Leo, Mikey, April, and Splinter barging into a trap laid by the Shredder, though it’s essentially “we know it’s a trap” and “he knows we know it’s a trap” and “we’re going in anyway because we have to” and “he knew we’d have to and would” and…yeah. So ultimately we wind up with a Shredder/Splinter battle, and just when it seems Shredder’s about to win, a new figure bursts onto the scene and pretty much defeats Shredder…though the figure is revealed to be Raphael, back (without Mondo Gecko) from stopping the alien invasion. The group’s joyful reunion is short lived as they soon notice that Shredder has escaped. But hey, at least the group is back together.

Despite–or perhaps because of–the Shredder’s presence and involvement, this feels like a weaker, generic story to me. I don’t care for the character, and at least for my contemporary 2016 sensibilities being applied to 25-year-old writing geared toward a different age range, I don’t like the lack of explanation of Shredder’s escape, nor having had any foreshadowing whatsoever to his return. This is probably all the more frustrating to me as a reader now because of my high regard and rose-tinted lenses “memory” of all the numerous subplots I tend to think comics used to carry that would weave in and out of “major plot point” status.

Simply AS a TMNT story, in the established continuity, this works, especially with Splinter’s continued active involvement over sitting at home waiting all the time. I know what comes later in the series, so like with the lead-up to the Mutanimals stuff, I’m eager to get to the next several issues for personal reasons, so forcing myself to slow down for an issue like this holds added disappointment.

We again have a different artist on the book…Gene Colan. Unlike some of the other “fill-in artists,” this is a name I recognize (and having paused for a few moments to look up and confirm where I know the name from, I’m even more impressed, as Colan was involved in a lot of early Marvel work). The visual style is similar to earlier presentations of these characters, but different enough to notice that there’s a difference. I appreciate Colan‘s Shredder more than the other characters, and once again also appreciate the coloring, which maintains that much more consistency despite different artists, in a way that I’m sure would be a far more jarring shift issue to issue otherwise.

While I don’t remember for certain on #21 (last issue), I’m pretty sure I remember finding this issue at the same flea market I found #17. Whether this was before or after I’d gotten #25 I’m not 100% but this cover stirs some bit of abstract memory in that regard, to my 10-year-old self starting to figure out comics and the first bits of specifically looking for what I now know as “back issues.”

I hold that this is another issue that could easily be skipped…really, though I’m glad the Mutanimals got their own spin-off stuff, the Mighty Mutanimals mini-series would have worked just fine for me within the TMNT Adventures series even if it meant three months of no Splinter, April, or Leo/Donnie/Mikey.

Filed under: 2016 posts, 2016 Reviews, The '90s Revisited, TMNT Adventures Revisited | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Token Monday Post

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Walt

I don’t even know what I truly want to say at the moment. I’m frustrated. I’m getting so incredibly sick and [redacted] tired of politics and demonization and just simply the flat-out Hate I’m seeing.

I tried pulling up Bleeding Cool Sunday evening, and half the stories at the top of the comics sub-section of the site were protests and such.

If I wanted to see "news" and "coverage" of stuff like that, I’d go to a "news" site.

NOT a comics specific site.

I want some escape from all this crap…not to see it racing into my "comics life!"

Maybe it’s time for a personal "blackout" or something soon.

Maybe I’m just venting and will keep up the usual posts.

But for today, this is my token post, to have a post for the day.

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

JLDark and Early Digital: Really?!?

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Walt

I saw this ad this week, for the new Justice League Dark animated movie. And at first glance, I thought I had missed its release–despite being in a Walmart on Tuesday and actually looking at the movie section and new-release endcap without anything jumping out at me.

jldark_ad_digi_early

But no…I didn’t actually miss it. I realized the ad says on digital January 24.

I swear, every time I see ads like this, they just make me more and more angry, and less and less likely to buy anything new in the way of movies.

Bad enough the high price and shrinking "first week discounts" (if any) the last several years.

But this "digital-only" "window" just bugs the crap out of me.

Is there anyone who is REALLY just so desperate to see something like this, that they’d rather pay the $20ish for digital ONLY when a "mere" TWO WEEKS later for that SAME PRICE they can add blu-ray AND dvd to their stock?

Maybe if the digital version was say, $10, I’d consider it. I’d wait this one out on principle if I didn’t know myself and OCD on these. With the voice cast, content, and having all the previous such animated releases since the line started back in 2008, I’d kick myself for "missing" the thing.

But I’ve already gotten to where–despite loving them in the theater–I refuse to buy Marvel MCU movies; the way they screw around with "formats" and "combo packs" shut me out years ago.

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Weekly Haul – Week of January 25th, 2017

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Walt

At least for Wednesday, this was another "basic" kinda week. Nothing really extra or spectacular…just a huge week OF new books!

weeklyhaul_01252017a

The usual Superman issue-of-the-week with the new Action Comics issue. The premiere issue of the Kamandi Challenge hit. While I was hoping for something squarebound and less expensive, for what it is and everything else they’ve had so reasonably priced, I’ll give DC a "pass" on the extra-sized $4.99 issue. And speaking of "passes," since I’m double-dipping for the immediate read, I grabbed a variant of Batman/TMNT Adventures so at least I have some variety. Finally, the last (I think) of the JLoA ___ Rebirth issues that I neglected from DCBS.

weeklyhaul_01252017b

Then the "indie"-ish stuff. Surgeon X #5, though I can’t find #4 and think I might’ve actually intended to let the series go to wait for a collected volume. Oops. And part of me was gonna let Reborn go for the same reason…finding out it’s "just" a "limited series" rather than an indefinite ongoing was quite disappointing. And again for the heckuvit, decided to "try" Loose Ends #1, since the "A" cover was present and I didn’t have much expectations, and it’s a "new series" and #1.

Finally, of course, is the newest AvP issue in the Life and Death mega-arc.

So the week’s added a fair number of "imminent reads" to my alarmingly-quickly-growing "to read" pile, and I’m thinking a lot about what to cut back on sooner than not, given reading habits of the last half-year or so.

Time shall tell!

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

TMNT Revisited: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #21

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Walt

tmnt_adventures_revisited

tmntadventures021Space Junk, Face Funk, Cyber Punk, Thief

Script: Dean Clarrain
Art: Byron Vaughns
Letters: Gary Fields
Color: Barry Grossman
Cover: Ryan Brown, Steve Lavigne, Ken Mitchroney
Edits: Scott Fulop, Victor Gorelick
Published by: Archie Comics
Cover Date: June 1991
Cover Price: $1.25

While a lot of the earlier issues of this series were ones that I could recall the basics of the issue’s events from before, just looking at the covers…I had this one chalked up as a random, forgettable one-off. I was a bit surprised (even as my memory of the events were rekindled) at some of the issue’s events.

Rather than a mutant-creature-of-the-month, this issue gives us a mutant/cyborg character in Vid Vicious. Vicious is an ordinary human fed up with bad news about the human-generated destruction of the planet. He gains the power to "do" something about it when a satellite fuses with chemical waste and crashes into the ground outside his cabin. Meanwhile, the turtles spar as they wait for April and Splinter…but before those two can rejoin them, Vicious appears through April’s computer monitor and kidnaps her. It turns out he wants her to record/broadcast his message to the world before he disrupts world wide communications. Fortunately, Donatello’s able to track him, and the turtles arrive to save April. Our heroes gain the upper hand, and the cyborg tries to escape into a nearby computer, but Donatello hitches a ride and is pulled in with him. While the group tries to figure out how they might be able to rescue Donatello, Shredder with some Foot bots bursts in. As the bots are fought, Shredder messes with the computer, copying Donatello and Vicious to a disk before escaping out the window, leaving the turtles shocked and horrified at what they’ve just witnessed.

Vicious is hardly an inspiring villain, nor all that interesting to me. His existence is rather preachy and dated–this whole issue is–and leaves me rather cold. The story is very much of its time, and continues the trend of including an educational narrative within the fiction/fantasy of the issue itself. I’m just not all that appreciative of it right now as an adult. I’m definitely put off by the way computers are depicted here…but then, this comic is a QUARTER-CENTURY old, and computers (and their depiction in media) have come a long, Long, LONG way since early/mid 1991. Despite that–and strange as it may sound–there’s a part of me that sees Shredder’s disk with Donatello and Vicious as being akin to the flat-crystal Phantom Zone from the Superman films and later-2000s pre-52 DC continuity. In that sense I’m ok with it, abstract as that may be.

Visually we have another new/different artist on the issue, and though the style isn’t bad it’s a little weird-looking to me. The characters all seem a bit more cartooney than usual, and some of the perspectives seem just a bit "off" to me.

Shredder’s appearance is out of nowhere to me…though I can appreciate that from the sense of leaving us as readers on the same page with the turtles, there wasn’t even any foreshadowing that he was thinking of escaping, trying to escape, or had escaped prison, so even though I somewhat suspect that’ll be detailed in the next issue, for now with THIS issue it just came from nowhere.

As with #20, this seems somewhat filler-ish while the Mutanimals mini deals with the main payoff and action for the month, leaving this as a secondary story. I’m almost certain there’s recap in the next issue such that this one really isn’t essential to "get" that story. Given that, this is another issue than can be pretty easily passed by–It’s hardly a "mythology" issue and primarily only counts if you’re trying to read every single issue for the sake of having read every single issue.

Filed under: 2016 posts, 2016 Reviews, The '90s Revisited, TMNT Adventures Revisited | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Showing off the Shelves: X-Men January 2017

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Walt

Today, I’m showing off my current X-Men shelf configuration, with some volumes "weeded out" for present, possibly permanently, or to be added back in once I expand my shelving, which my collection has pretty much outgrown at the moment.

showing_off_the_shelves_xmen_shelf01

One of my earliest collected volumes ever was that original The Essential Uncanny X-Men 1 that I bought right before leaving for college back in 1999. Obviously, my X-collection has grown significantly in the last 17 1/2 to 18 years!

I have stuff largely in chronological–or near-chronological–order, moving through the franchise’s history, with this first shelf pretty much covering 1963-1994-ish.

showing_off_the_shelves_xmen_shelf02

Picking up in 1995, this second shelf pretty much takes us through the later ’90s, early 2000s, Morrison, Whedon, and up to 2010 or so.

showing_off_the_shelves_xmen_shelf03

And moving beyond Second Coming and the Fraction run, a bunch of the miscellaneous/skinnier volumes taper off the X-Men proper, and get into other stuff…primarily Wolverine and X-Factor.

Of course, with Marvel discontinuing the Essential line in favor of the Epic line, I may eventually be swappign out some of the Wolverine and X-Factor stuff, or pay inflated prices to fill the Wolverine run in. Time will tell!

The X-books are–next to Superman–the most significant part of my entire collection, and certainly out-do the rest of my Marvel collection; while not exact, I’d say these account for at least 35% of my entire Marvel collection.

Impressive as they can be…knowing the "gaps" in content from the various X-Men oversized hardcovers and omnibus volumes…I find it kinda hard to imagine sticking just to the omnibus/OHC format…there’s so much more to be had by combining the formats. That said…I’d be interested in the Inferno and Inferno Crossovers volumes if I could get them relatively cheaply…though more immediately I’ll probably be content to just get the paperbacks as those’ll be much cheaper, period, and there are several other paperbacks that I want that do not (to my knowledge) have hardcover counterparts…including several Gambit volumes!

But that all gets off on other topics (like "wishlists")…

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, 2017 Reviews, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Showing off the Shelves: Captain America and Black Panther

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Walt

While there are several Captain America volumes I’d still like to get sooner than not (Captain America vs. Red Skull, the Fighting Chance volumes), for the most part, I think I’m just about where I’m good for now with the character.

showing_off_the_shelves_captain_america_and_black_panther

Of course, the "core" of the collection is the Brubaker Omnibus volumes, collecting about seven years of his work on the character.

And because it’s its own thing and on the shelf immediately preceding the Cap books…I did not crop out the Black Panther by Christopher Priest 4-volume series collecting that series’ run. Though in typing that…it reminds me that there’s also the Captain America and Falcon by Priest volume out there that I’ll want to track down as well…

I’d certainly enjoy a Captain America by Mark Waid omnibus, whether it includes pre and post Heroes Reborn material, or just post. Heck, it’d be great to have a single volume of the Fighting Chance story instead of two half-length volumes.

But it is Marvel, so…yeah.

Anyway…with the addition of the Return of the Winter Soldier Omnibus, this is my current (as of January 2017) Captain America collection.

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

When Seeking One Issue Goes Awry

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Walt

Another "bonus" weekend post!

Last weekend, I snagged a bunch of comics from bargain bins, including these four Superman issues, the Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite! story.

weekendhaul_01142017d

Unfortunately, I’d managed to totally forget that there was a Starman tie-in issue.

Annoying, sure, but hey, not like that series was all that popular in the long run (though it ran at least 43 issues, if not more), totally overshadowed by the James Robinson run that followed post-Zero Hour. Surely it would be a simple matter–with four shops relatively nearby–to locate this one, single issue.

Boy, was I wrong! None of the four shops I made it to this week (including back to the usual, where I thought for sure the issue would be in the bargain bins and I had just missed it) had the thing in any bins, bargain or otherwise.

On a whim, I stopped off at a Half-Price Books, figuring I was already willing to "pay back-issue prices" for the thing, so I could grudgingly pay a higher HPB price since I’d exhausted other simple-ish in-person means of acquiring the thing. (*Still bugs the crap outta me that HPB assigns arbitrary high prices to more issues than not lately! They bill themselves as a USED books store, based on the notion of everything they carry being HALF OFF the printed/published cover price!)

starman_28_found_at_hpb_01212017

Somewhat shockingly enough, they had the issue!

…priced at $3. For a beaten-up condition, newsstand edition (UPC instead of generic box). But as usual and as I would factor for any comic shop back issue…the price is the same or less than what I’d pay for a new off-the-shelf, released-just-this-week comic, so hardly worth "complaining" about: the thing is, after all, over 25 years old, and most comic shops don’t seem to have MUCH stock going back before the early 2000s or so, it seems!

Of course, my "quest" for this one particular issue wound up with me making some extra purchases I had not planned on, but for time spent and even visiting other shops, felt like I should buy something rather than walk out empty-handed.

stack_of_quarter_bin_comics_01212017

Being much more meticulous about going through the bargain bins this weekend…I found waaaaaaayyyyyy more than I intended to.

Quite the difference between 36-year-old me and 11-year-old me: 36-year-old me can buy a stack of comics like this. 11-year-old me had a 3-year collection that in its entirety at the time was 1/3 smaller than this particular stack.

Also, those Justice League Action Mighty Minis being…well…miniature…certainly makes the stack look even more impressive.

I wanted 1 specific issue.

There are 122 reasons I would’ve spent less if I’d just tried HPB first…

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

New Arrivals: Cap and X-Men

Posted on January 21, 2017 by Walt

"Bonus" weekend post!

These two books just arrived today!

cap_return_of_winter_soldier_and_xmen_bishops_crossing_arrived_01212017

Back in December 2014, I’d thought I’d "completed" the set of Brubaker Captain America Omnibii with The Trial of Captain America. Of course, turned out I was wrong.

However, over the years, I lost track of and/or just flat-out missed the thing’s release, until several weeks ago when I saw someone post about it in a Facebook group.

So, I believe, if I haven’t missed anything else…NOW I have a "complete set" of Brubaker omnibus volumes for Captain America (I’ll likely "show off the shelf" in the near future).

Additionally, the X-Men: Bishop’s Crossing volume is one that I’d thought I’d missed out on entirely, having known OF the hardcover, but not seeing any listing for it online (except massively over-priced third-party stuff) with the newer paperback edition just releasing recently.

However, doing a last-second search "just in case," it was available, so I’d added it to my order.

Of course, I’d never touch volumes like these without a massive online discount. I absolutely want to support local comic shops, and continue to buy what I’d "usually" buy from ’em (my DC bundles from DCBS are in addition to my "usual"). Marvel volumes are–almost entirely–far too expensive for me to justify ever paying "full cover price" for.

Also continues to be amazing (to me) that virtually everything I do have interest in from Marvel (content-wise) tends to be OVER 10 years old, and in many cases, over 15 years old! Brubaker‘s Cap stuff seems to be a primary exception.

While I was able to squeeze the Captain America volume onto the shelf, that was partly due to it "replacing" (and going beyond) two other books I’d had already from bargain purchases and partly to my apparently having left a little bit of extra space for something like this.

Unfortunately, I am out of space for X-Men volumes, and have to wait til I can get a couple more bookcases and do some rearranging to properly integrate X-Men stuff from the last few months.

But that’s something for another post sometime.

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Black and White Mini Turtles

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Walt

The other day, I picked up a 4-pack of Mini Mates TMNT figures. While I already owned the Leonardo and Raphael Mega Bloks figures styled after the original Mirage comics, getting all four in this new format prompted me to seek out Donatello and Michelangelo in the Mega Bloks format to complete that set.

Which now gives me a set of all four turtles in both formats, very similarly sized, but quite different visually.

black_and_white_tmnt_megabloks_minimates

Despite the recent mega-haul comics-wise, I see 2017 possibly being the year I delve much more concertedly into completing specific "runs" or "sub-collections" much like this. In 2016, I "silently" (I have yet to really cover it in this blog) completed my "reading copy" of the Ultraverse, and it’d be quite cool to "complete" my Mirage run of TMNT (though I content myself with later printings, I still want one of each Mirage-published issue!)

Who knows…I might even (also) expand my TMNT Mega Bloks collection beyond what I’ve already bought–there’s a Second Time Around set to go with the black and white Turtles, as well as a Party Wagon set for the classic cartoon series. I’ve no illusion of coughing up $250 + tax for the Technodrome set, though that one makes the others seem very cheap by comparison!

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Toy Chronicles | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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