Comic Reviews by Walt

This purchase was part of a MUCH larger purchase overall…at the Winston World sale at Carol & John’s the weekend of March 5-7.

I had attempted to attend the March iteration of that show I went to back in October, but they were "at capacity" before I even got there with no signs of that changing and a long line down a hall, through the lobby, and down another hall in the hotel, and that with a $5 "cover charge" to even gain admittance.

So I went to CNJ instead…and wound up spending my entire "show budget" on primarily X-back-issues…current AND back to the ’90s.

With these nine issues…I’m now down to missing Excalibur #12, New Mutants #s 13 & 16; X-Force #s 3, 4, 8, & 13; Wolverine #6; and Hellions #s 3 & 5.

That’s about 33% less than the number of issues I bought in one go back in early February.

Of course, that excludes Deadpool 2-9 of the latest run…but I don’t count that the same way as it’s not a "branded" Dawn of X/Reign of X title with this semi "digital"-looking style to the logos.

And several of these missing issues are early X of Swords chapters…where I’ve passed on 2nd prints. I do want first prints…the "actual" issues, all the way through…it’s my OCD and desire for consistency.

But with the comic shops in the area not having them…I had counted on the comic show to find more…and I suppose now we’ll see how things are for one in the area next month and how compatible that is (or is not) with some real-life situations going on at present.

Filed under: 2021 Non-Review Posts, 2021 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, Resumption of X | Tagged: cable, collecting, collecting comics, comics, Dawn of X, Deadpool, Excalibur, Fallen Angels, Hellions, Hickman, jonathan hickman, Juggernaut, Marauders, New Mutants, Reign of X, Resumption of X, Wolverine, X of Swords, X-Factor, x-force, x-men | Leave a comment »

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!

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!

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.

Filed under: 2021 Non-Review Posts, 2021 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, Resumption of X | Tagged: cable, collecting, collecting comics, comics, Dawn of X, Deadpool, Excalibur, Fallen Angels, Hellions, Hickman, jonathan hickman, Juggernaut, Marauders, New Mutants, Reign of X, Resumption of X, Wolverine, X of Swords, X-Factor, x-force, x-men | Leave a comment »

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.

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.

Filed under: 2021 Non-Review Posts, 2021 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, Resumption of X | Tagged: cable, collecting, collecting comics, comics, Dawn of X, Deadpool, Excalibur, Fallen Angels, Hellions, Hickman, jonathan hickman, Juggernaut, Marauders, New Mutants, Reign of X, Resumption of X, Wolverine, X of Swords, X-Factor, x-force, x-men | Leave a comment »

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).

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!

Filed under: 2021 Non-Review Posts, 2021 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, Resumption of X | Tagged: cable, collecting, collecting comics, comics, Dawn of X, Deadpool, Excalibur, Fallen Angels, Hellions, Hickman, jonathan hickman, Juggernaut, Marauders, New Mutants, Reign of X, Resumption of X, Wolverine, X of Swords, X-Factor, x-force, x-men | Leave a comment »

A couple weeks back, I took the plunge and bought a bunch of X-issues from the X of Swords crossover. I suppose for this post series, that’d make it the "Resumption of X: Purchase #0".

I ended up deciding to start looking at exactly how hard it would really be to dive in and "catch up" on the single issues for the current iterations of the X-titles; the Dawn of X or Reign of X or whatever.

Just out of curiosity as to just HOW MANY printings there’d been for the first issues of the initial series and recalling numerous reprints with House of X/Powers of X and such…I found that several of the first print, regular cover issues were available for slightly under cover price at Midtown Comics…so I decided to put in an order.

I’d already had X-Men #1…after the two HoXPoX minis, I bought the single issue before throwing in the towel over pricing and info pages and all that…as well as stuff being so drastically different from "my" X-titles.

Here are four more of the #1s from that initial wave of books–X-Force #1, New Mutants #1, Excalibur #1, and Fallen Angels #1.

Of the "first wave" of #1s that I recently (re)read via Marvel Unlimited, by far my favorite was Marauders #1. I’d already pretty much decided that I was at least interested in tracking down that first issue in print and possibly the rest of the series for the heckuvit.

Here are seven issues of the series–more than a third of its run so far–which put me closer than any of the other titles to a full run to present.

11 issues…while cover price or slightly under, definitely showed me that this "Resumption of X" or catching up won’t be cheap. But seeking "retail therapy" lately this has been a good focus. And while I’m NOT much of a "thrill of the hunt" kinda guy, there’s a bit of excitement at diving fully into a line of comics and being able to "score" first issues and such at cover price rather than inflated prices and hunting for any but excess variants.

Filed under: 2021 Non-Review Posts, 2021 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, Resumption of X | Tagged: cable, collecting, collecting comics, comics, Dawn of X, Deadpool, Excalibur, Fallen Angels, Hellions, Hickman, jonathan hickman, Juggernaut, Marauders, New Mutants, Reign of X, Resumption of X, Wolverine, X of Swords, X-Factor, x-force, x-men | Leave a comment »