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Resumption of X: Purchase #8

Another Lonestar (mycomicshop.com) purchase netted another 11 issues of the Hickman-era X-books. 10 shown, as I promptly after that bought one of the same issues, totally having forgotten to mark it in my ever-dwindling checklist!

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Finished off the Fallen Angels 6-issue mini or whatever it was. It sounds (from what I gather from Chris Sheehan (Chris is on Infinite Earths / X-Lapsed)) that the current Hellions is largely a continuation of this book, possibly "rebranded" or some such (my phrasing, not his). Either way…nice to knock an entire run off the "missing issues" checklist!

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And then four of the five Giant-Size X-Men books from last year; got the Nightcrawler one from Midtown as detailed in my previous post in this series of "Resumption of X" stuff.

Annnnd Juggernaut #1, which completes that limited series. I suppose one thing about such an "unconnected" series is that whenever I go to read it I’ll probably binge the entire series, rather than trying to read through in roughly publication-order hopping across 6-10 books.

Nine purchases in–7 of them ranging from "large" to "huge"–and that being after buying 2/3 of X of Swords in one go–I’m down to a pretty-manageable list of missing issues from this era of X-stuff.

As of this typing (though not sure when this post will go live) I’m a few days out from a possible comic show that I’m hoping might allow me to pretty much be totally caught up to current.

So as always…time will tell for what’s next. Suffice it to say that I think the primary binge-buying is done, now, outside of what I might be able to get at the show–I’ve exhausted what I can find at four local comic shops and two major online shops…which pretty much leaves stuff like a show or otherwise happening across issues.

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A New Grail: Ultimate Spider-Man #1!

A couple weeks back, more or less on a whim, I decided to check mycomicshop.com to see what Ultimate Spider-Man #1 was going for these days. I remember at some point back in the early 2000s seeing it listed in some guide (probably Wizard) for something like $160!

Considering at the time I balked at $2.99 an issue…yeah.

But there was a copy listed for significantly less than that–and I decided that as an issue I was frustrated to miss out on back in 2000, and lamented umpteen sub-standard reprints and such, and yet otherwise stayed with the series for several years…I’d go ahead and order it.

I think I may also have had a bit of a "feeling" about not making it to the March 7th show, too…so this helped make up for that, for me.

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But for better or worse…this issue ALSO pushes me into new territory again. It is now THE single most expensive single-issue comic I have ever (to date) bought…especially factoring tax and shipping on top of the listed price. And having spent this much on an issue…it continues to push my willingness TO spend more on a single issue. All the more when I rationalize it against that price in arbitrary new comics, with basically everything except Spawn being $3.99 as a base price, but SO MANY comics being $4.99-$5.99…and more!

By the time I buy a week’s worth of "this week’s new comics" and spend whatever on 7-10 comics…by the time I realize that I have several weeks’ worth of unread comics…and eventually give up and file stuff away…I’d get much more enjoyment out of a singular issue–like this–that I display on a wall and IS a single, special, "key" issue that I appreciate far more than a bunch of already-forgotten single issues.

This one is definitely what I’m considering a "forgotten grail," in that it’s an issue I’ve wanted for more than 20 years, but really until the other week, had simply left as some issue I just was settling with cheap reprints on.

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The Weekly Haul: Week of March 10, 2021

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And here we are…this week marks one week since the company I work for immediately transitioned to 100% remote work. That didn’t affect me too much as I was already working 100% remotely. But it was also only a week ahead of what felt like stuff hitting all the more a week later…and then the shutdowns catching up to the comics world.

And of course…DC. In their (Or rather, AT&T‘s) rush to do stuff, dropping Diamond and all the other shenanigans of stuff…well, look at this image below. NO DC. And of the 8 issues this week…7 of them are Marvel!

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This week starts with MY first new X-book #1 with the obvious trade dress/branding of the Dawn of X/Reign of X stuff since 2019’s X-Men #1…Children of the Atom #1. Not sure what to expect from the title, but as I’m currently all in mostly all-in on these I suppose I’ll find out. And being a #1 maybe I’ll find out sooner than some other stuff. Or save it for when I catch up as I’m (as of this typing) currently plugging through the #4s of Dawn of X wave 1.

X-Factor #8 adds to the X-stuff for the week, and is my first new issue of that title since diving back onto the family of titles!

Amazing Spider-Man #61 boasts of a new costume, and the cover reminds me a bit of one of the Complete Clone Saga Epic tpbs’ cover.

While his latest ongoing series (vol. 8? vol. 9?) just ended…we get a one-shot special issue celebrating Deadpool’s 30th anniversary/birthday in Deadpool Nerdy 30 #1. While–like Gambit and Cable–I missed the character’s actual first appearing, I came in only a couple years after…and have been around and aware of the character for a good 28 or so years of this 30!

Next up, we have TMNT Jennika II #5 (of 5? of 6???). Defffffinitely buying this for the sake of TMNT completion…I miss having other minis telling side-stories and such that dealt with multiple characters or other characters. But with the 3-issue 2020 mini and now this, in less than 2 years as a turtle, Jennika the character has gotten more solo-titled issues than any of the other turtles have in 37 years! (Each had a one-issue micro-series from Mirage; I believe I recall each having a 4-issue series from Mirage in the early-2000s under; and each hada one-issue micro-series early in IDW‘s tenure and then each had one-shots leading up to #100. So that’s 7 each in 37 years while Jennika’s already got 8 and maybe a 9th in a few weeks in only a little over one year…)

Wolverine: Black, White & Blood #4 is newly out this week…and I got taken in by nostalgia over the logo, and decided to go ahead and get it, as well as back-issues #s 2 & 3…which leaves only #1 to hunt down (perhaps this weekend?). I suppose DC has pushed me so far that I’m now forgiving and embracing stuff from Marvel that I shouldn’t (look at all these $4.99 books!) but I think for the moment, the X-stuff is approaching TMNT territory where I’ll give a pass that I won’t just broadly give to "everything."


But time will tell with the X-stuff. I’m not sure what’s up next week, but I think the week after is the first Marvel-published Aliens issue. And then the Omnibus in April or so. Still have to decide if I actually want that or not, given my aversion the last couple years TO Omnibus volumes over smaller, more manageable volumes. That being said…Aliens is probably more likely to get "Exception Status" than a broad pass to every X-title.

Who knows?

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DND Icons of the Realm Adult Red Dragon

I’ve long been a sucker for giant-sized "miniatures." Heroclix Galactus back in the day. vehicles and such in Mage Knight. And even miniatures in general, whether D&D, Mage Knight, Heroclix, Warmachine, Warhammer(/40k), etc.

A year or two back, I bought a (used) box of the D&D game Attack Wing or such (the D&D version of the one Star Wars game)…just for the DRAGONS.

So when I recently learned of an upcoming giant-sized dragon–the Adult Red Dragon–from the Dungeons & Dragons Icons of the Realms line, I was all for it.

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The box wound up being significantly larger than I’d expected! But that also made the figure itself larger than I expected…and i’d been a BIT worried about its pose with the wings, whether they’d make the overall figure seem too "skinny" or be opened out and adding depth and "size."

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I needn’t have worried overly much. This thing is huge.

Appropriately enough, I had a "nano mini-fig" D&D mini handy to pose with the dragon.

While still surely out of scale, it at least shows what a couple-inches-tall figure looks like dwarfed by the dragon!

And in the background you can see a Heroclix Sentinel, as well as the lower part of The Spectre.

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Here’s another angle with the figures isolated on a different shelf…

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And another angle to create the illusion of a greater difference of size!

This is probably my favorite of my dragon "minis" thus far–though the Mage Knight dragons have a lot of nostalgia for me, and are still cool artifacts from the past for me and NOT something I’ll be looking to part with anytime soon.

But all the more for the price I paid–my math was broken, so it wound up even cheaper than I’d mentally budgeted despite having the discount %percentage correct–this is an amazing figure, and I’m really looking forward to the Adult Blue Dragon now, and even considering other Adult _____ Dragons. A definite "grail" piece, though, would be the Mage Knight Apocalypse Dragon…but that was a limited-edition thing 16-17 years ago, let alone now!

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Resumption of X: Purchase #7

Here we are…another post in my series continuing to chronicle my "Resumption of X"–the ridiculously-(relatively)-quick resumption of collecting X-books from the Hickman era and trying to be "caught up to current" all the way back to HoX/PoX.

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This was a small order I somewhat gritted my teeth on, ordering from Midtown. Three $5 issues PLUS shipping. I feel like it’s too few issues to place an order–with shipping amounting to 25-30 percent of the entire order!

But the Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler issue was the only one that Lonestar did not have of those 5 specials and for roughly cover price. And they’re a bit on the "older" side, where as with the other #1s…it was Midtown to the rescue in being able to get them (and first prints/regular covers at that!) for roughly cover price!

So the same followed for Hellions #1, which I had missed when I did the earlier order with the #1s for the first wave of titles. And Deadpool as an "adjacent" title (much as Juggernaut and X-Men Legends…stuff typically tied to X-stuff but not necessarily branded with the trade dress/style/etc of the main Dawn of X/Reign of X titles).

As mentioned above about Lonestar, I was placing orders with them as well as Midtown, and that order should be the next post in this series.

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Resumption of X: Purchase #6

In the ongoing "Resumption of X" I’m chronicling the material actuality of my trying to as quickly as possible catch up on the Hickman-era/Dawn of X family of X-titles.

Here’s another purchase from Comic Heaven, with what I call "priced back issues" (that is, comics bagged/boarded, priced, and filed in longboxes–as opposed to "recent back issues" that are still out loose on the "rack" or such simply at cover price).

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This time, snagged a couple more issues of the Hickman "adjectiveless" X-Men core title…as well as another issue of Excalibur.

Unfortunately for me, I had neglected to mark in my phone’s checklist that I’d already ordered the X-Men issue with Mystique on the cover, so…oops. I’m not too keen on some of the duplicates I’m winding up with between mistakes like that, and variants/2nd printings.

But with a couple more online orders supplementing what I’m able to get at the LCS, and looking at another local show coming up, I’m thinking even if I can’t score any "grails", I’m wondering if I might be able to be "caught up to current" on this era of X-books by April?

Time shall tell!

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Is the Plural of ‘Galactus’ ‘Galacti’?

I recently learned of a new 10" Funko Pop 10" figure of Galactus. When I went to (pre?)order it, I discovered a new-ish Heroclix Galactus as well, and wound up ordering that. Had a bit of a mishap but eventually sorted stuff out and got it from Amazon.

I then finally ‘pulled the trigger’ and ordered the Labbit figure, spending more than I should for something so tiny but figured it was cheaper than 2 individual blind boxes, where I’d still only have a 2:20 chance of even getting Galactus.

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And so the Galactus sub-collection stands updated. There’s another newer Mystery Mini that I’ve been unable to find to purchase individually online, and I am not about to drop $6/box on a bunch of blind boxes for characters I’m not even interested in. There’s also a large Galactus from the toy line for the 1990s Fantastic Four cartoon that I don’t have. And From pictures online, I think there may be another Heroclix Galactus that I’m missing.

But I’m quite happy with the collection I have…there’s a fair bit of memories wrapped up in these, as well as the relative coolness (to me) of having even this many in one place.

I have memories of visiting a Big Lots with a friend probably senior year of high school or my freshman year of college and getting the Galactus from the Silver Surfer animated series line. And there was the botched Origins Game Fair trip that helped lead to my first Gen Con trip to Indianapolis that also kicked off what’s been 16+ years of guys’ weekends with those friends.

I’m pretty sure the Marvel Legends Galactus was my first build-a-figure (with the Sentinel and Apocalypse waves following). And the (I believe) Toys R Us-exclusive electronic talking Galactus from the 3.75" Marvel line at the time remains one of my earliest most expensive toy purchases prior to 2019.

The Mighty Muggs figure is one of my favorites from that line and reminds me of the friend that introduced me to the figures. This is the same friend who bought one single Labbit box on a whim and pulled the Galactus one (As I recall, he only wanted Galactus or Deadpool).

The Mystery Mini is one of my best-luck "pulls," from buying a single blind box of some villains wave. And the regular-size Funko Pop Galactus involved a pre-order and then driving to a GameStop to buy in-person thus getting the figure a couple weeks earlier than projected from the order, where-ever that was through.

While I have far more Robins, Supermen, and Thanos…Thanoses…Thanosi…figures of Thanos…Galactus seems to be a sort of premium, epic sub collection on my shelves, and thus showing off this latest configuration of the display!

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The Weekly Haul: Week of March 03, 2021

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Here we are with another medium-ish week! However, this week has a lot of first issues to it, with little guarantee of any #2s (for me). But time will tell!

Let’s get into the week’s books!

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Fire Power #9 probably marks the longest I’ve stayed with a non-The Walking Dead Kirkman title in one go. While my interest isn’t nearly as high or hyped as it was for the first several issues, I’m still enjoying the series enough and determined to keep up for awhile just on principle of it being self-contained and not DC.

Given the sheer hype of Peach Momoko and the absolutely ridiculous/crazy/stupid speculation and such rampant in modern/current comics, I "speculated" myself that I’d better snag the first issue just to be ABLE TO at cover price. I do NOT get what the hype is all about for this creator, and while I’m pretty much all-in on the Hickman-led X-books for present…that does NOT (yet) include ALL related mini-series…so as I type this I also feel a little foolish regarding this Peach Momoko Demon Days X-Men book. C’est la vie, I guess.

Despite determining to bail on DC post-Future State and more pointedly on Batman due to the jacked-up $4.99 price and a "backup" feature continued in Detective Comics…for some reason, I’ve been a sucker for Swamp Thing for…heck, I guess it’s been about a decade now (since that Search for Swamp Thing mini-series back in 2011 or so). So I couldn’t quite force myself to not buy this latest iteration #1. Of course, if I opt to (as is likely) pass on #2…that’s probably gonna be the next huuuuuge "key" book for something. (You read it here first, everyone! I’m even scooping Bleeding Cool!)

Hellions #10…aka Fallen Angels #16? Whatever the case…this one threw me a bit by its cover. It not only has a "corner box" which is quite abnormal for a modern Marvel…but even has a faux UPC box with an image of Sinister in the style of direct market editions of many ’90s books. As of this typing I’m nearing the end of the #4s in the initial Dawn of X stuff, so still quite a bit of reading to get caught up totally. But I’m working on it!

DC‘s Infinite Frontier #0 is something I was NOT going to buy. But I think I changed my mind figuring there MIGHT be something to it, something worth reading…and, it WAS their Rebirth one-shot that–a little less than five years ago–prompted me to go all-in on the main DC Universe line for over a year! They’ve pi…ugh…squandered away all goodwill bought with that issue, really, but I’m nothing if not a glutton for punishment.

Walking Dead Deluxe is already at its 10th issue. Only two issues left to complete the second arc. This issue also marks the 1/3 point to where I "discovered" the title for myself way back when, as my getting-onboard-point was the release of the 5th TPB (to issue 30) and then waiting several months for the next arc to conclude to jump into the single issues with #37.

Now we come to three more new #1s…maybe soon I’ll look back and tally up how many #1s I’ve "tried" in the last few weeks…and see how many have "stuck."

Nocrterra grabbed my attention somehow…maybe a well-placed mention on League of Comic Geeks, maybe something else; maybe that it looked to be a small week. But I’d messaged ahead to have a copy held, committing myself to this first issue. As I was checking out, we discussed that it looked like classic Image; and I remarked that the character on the cover looks a bit like Magik from the X-books. We’ll see once I get it read.

Undone by Blood: The Other Side of Eden #1 caught my eye primarily for being a #1, and the Afteshock logo. I’m rather appalled at myself for all the $4.99 comics I’m buying lately, but for the higher paper quality/cover stock it at least feels a BIT more worth it…as well as being a comic from a publisher that does NOT have a huge international corporation behind it.

I feel like Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters has been overhyped a bit…but it ALSO looks to me like something typical for Boom, which I’ve avoided buying anything/everything for over half a decade now over their Power Rangers #0 stunt. However…this is Oni Press. So…seeing one copy on the shelf and it NOT being a variant, I decided to REWARD it specifically for NOT being published by Boom.


And thus another Wednesday’s haul accounted for.

Nothing really that I was singularly looking forward to or excited about (I’m definitely looking forward to Radiant Black #2 and curious about Children of the Atom #1 next week or so). Had I truly "stuck to my guns" so to speak, this week might’ve been Fire Power, Hellions, and Walking Dead Deluxe…a mere 3 issues. Hardly worth rushing to the shop over.

I also specifically passed on Brzrkr (or however it’s spelled) from Boom because as said above…I refuse to (and have for almost 62 months now) buy any single issues from Boom. I’d obviously be part of their target audience for that book, but that IS something I’m sticking to my guns on. No. Boom. Single. Issues. Period. And really, nothing from them at all, if I’m being honest.

Looking like there’s a local one-day "dealer room" show coming up this weekend–masks and temperature-taking required of course–that I’m leaning toward going to. Partly to hunt some grails, partly to hunt more X-stuff, partly just to "do" something…anything…semi-social.

And "retail therapy" and all that.

We’ll see how it goes!

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Resumption of X: Purchase #5

In my ongoing quest for catching up on the Dawn of X-era X-comics, I had aimed to visit Comics and Friends for the first time in farrrrr too long (first time since stuff started reopening after the initial shutdowns last year) on the Saturday before Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, I also ran a couple of other errands and found myself having arrived at the mall about 15 minutes after closing time. Whether that was just online-posted closing time I wasn’t sure but I decided to forego hiking through a cold parking lot just to find a gated store and such.

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So I went back Sunday afternoon and had no problem getting in and as hoped/expected, finding a small selection of recent back-issues!

Several more issues of New Mutants and Excalibur starting out.

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Then three issues of X-Men. Couldn’t find anything from any of the other titles that I didn’t already have or have coming soon from the online shops.

But I did notice Juggernaut. While they didn’t have the first issue…they had 2-5, which I snagged with the expectation that by the time I get around to reading the series I should hopefully have been able to find the first issue.

While not strictly-speaking a Dawn of X title, I’ve heard good stuff about it and figure–like Deadpool‘s recently-concluded 10-issue maxi-series–it would be a decent addition to my mass of issues.

Despite these significant purchases, I’ve still got quite a few issues to track down for the Dawn of X-era stuff. But I’d say I’m probably a good 3/4 of the way there, and I think what I’m missing is pre-X of Swords, which means I can at least READ the stuff on Marvel Unlimited, even if I don’t yet have it in my OCD-fueled print collection.

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Another Example of the ’90s Doing Gimmicky Covers Better: Avengers #s 379-382

While I don’t have sources to cite/link offhand, nor do I feel like digging for any…I can still say that I frequently "hear" (read) the notion that "the ’90s" were SOOOOO horrible with VARIANT COVERS. Or the comparison made of modern "variants" and ’90s’ covers and such.

I make a huuuuuge distinction, though. For as much as the ’90s are known for all sorts of gimmicks and shiny foil holographic die-cut bullet-shot covers…even the most egregious and "aggressive" such programs did not even touch every single issue of any single series. And for as frequent as they appeared, they were NOT so incredibly prevalent as to be able to suggest that every single issue of every single title from every single publisher every single month had some gimmick!

In the ’90s, typically even IF there was some gimmick cover…it was either simply a "gimmick cover" or it was a SINGLE variant…more a different EDITION with one version being a "newsstand" edition and the gimmicked one being the "Collector’s" edition or such.

(I lay out a bunch of such covers in a post from early 2020 displaying the "era of excess" with Super-Blog Team-Up)


ANYway….

I recently came across a 4-issue block of the original Avengers title…issues 379-382. All were billed as a "double feature" with a Giant Man feature as a "flip book."

That is…you had the main/regular issue…but if you flipped it over, the back was another cover image, and you’d read from that side like the other and it’d be like reading two comics, but they’re a single unit!

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So, what really caught my eye with the issues is that the flip-cover is a 4-part image….when you put all four together you get a larger singular image. Fitting both for it being a GIANT image as well as being a "fun" gimmick if you happen(ed) to get all four issues!

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Nowadays…these would absolutely be VARIANT covers. There’d be NO "flipbook" aspect–it’d just be extra-sized with a "backup" feature, and multiple variants covers per issue, with ONE being this.

Or even more egregiously…I would NOT put it past modern Marvel to have all four of these be variants on the SAME ISSUE, incentivising the purchase of no less than four copies of the exact same issue…and they’d do this for multiple characters or costumes. Getting one to buy 16+ comics for a four-issue story.

But back in the ’90s? The price of the given issue was increased fairly proportionately to the increase in content, with the added bonus of the flip-book to let it "feel" even more like a bonus/extra issue, and all that.

Which–if one is already paying an extra price for an issue at all is far better than chasing variants and multiple variants PER extra-sized & extra-priced issue.

These particular copies of the issues?

I paid $1 for the 4-parter. 25 cents per issue…and incidentally, 12.5 cents per cover!

I would gladly welcome back the ’90s and the ’90s sort of covers over this modern deluge of variants. And heck…at least the way MY memories are…it’d even be preferable to the MODERN speculation bubble that’s been bubbling up more and more the last several years, too!

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