Comic Reviews by Walt

Another week, another batch of comics. A sorta diverse week publisher-wise…while wholly lacking in any DC product!

First is the new issue of Spawn…#314. I believe the next issue will mark 60 issues–nearly 1/5 of the entire series–that I’ve been buying the monthly issues! I was NEARLY tempted into buying a variant for this issue–as an additional piece–but couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I’m happy to support the $2.99 price point–which is what helped KEEP me in 5 years ago once the cover of #256 drew my attention. But I’d rather have a secondary title at $2.99 to support than variants.

I have to blame Chris Sheehan (Chris is on Infinite Earths / X-Lapsed) for my snagging this issue of Deadpool–#10. And that little shark character. I suppose it helps that this is "only" #10, and I believe the final issue of this iteration of the title, so a little bit of blah/laissez-faire or whatever. Even as a $4.99 issue, I’m apparently going a bit "soft" on the price point for certain issues.

Then the latest Amazing Spider-Man, which I think I’ve pretty well had my "current-year/current-week" Spider-Man itch scratched the last few weeks. This is a frequently-shipping title and I’m not ENJOYING it AS a title the way I would want, so I’m ready to bail…I might determine the immediacy after I’ve read this one, though.

Then we have the third issue of the second iteration of a "color classics" Usagi Yojimbo. I think I even missed an issue or two of the main series, and not sure if I got around to READING any issues past the main IDW Usagi Yojimbo title’s second issue. I see it–sort of–like a companion title to TMNT, but I’m waffling on whether to stay with it or catch back up or what. I don’t want a "mini-series" for every single storyline…I’d much rather see color classic volumes at least matching the original publishing runs–sure, do new #1s when it gets to what was originally published by Mirage, and then when the title went to Dark Horse–but not for each 6-7-issue arc!

A friend had mentioned Kaiju Score recently-ish and I came across the first two issues, so noticing that #3 was out this week, I went ahead and bought it. I’m not keen on its $4.99 price point…but as I continue to bristle at a lot of DC stuff and looking to walk away from that publisher, I suppose I’m wanting to find something else to follow…or at least check out titles I maybe wouldn’t pay attention to otherwise.

I bought the previous issue of Wolverine–#8 (but apparently the 350th issue if you add up alllll the different volumes of the series over the years). And that was gonna be IT. But I’m sort of curious about what the cover depicts–an auction apparently for Wolverine’s hand (including claws!) being auctioned. Seems to me that should be impossible, knowing firstly that there’s been no hype over the character being permanently maimed (like losing the hand Age of Apocalypse-style) and secondly that the adamantium should prevent this. And perhaps thirdly, some nostalgia kicking in and there’s something more interesting to this iteration of the title to me now than some earlier volumes years back.

And finally, as a possible Bought it For the Cover candidate, seeing two issues of apparently the same title caught my eye. Heroineburgh. (Though in the moment I had a bit of a hard time making out the actual title with the coloring of the logo on the cover of the first issue). Some design issues (to my eye) there, but whatever. I flipped briefly through and it didn’t look horrible. Then I noticed a name on the cover and realized that this title’s something truly indy–and figured it was something hand-distributed by a creator (with the issues signed as a ‘bonus’) and decided to give it a shot, cuz hey…why not? And if I’m gonna be grumpy at "the big guys" and their stuff, might as well check out some stuff like this. What little research I did after the fact to see what I could find out about it did not impress me–this is apparently comic adventures bridging seasons of some YouTube video series, so I already wonder (not following nor having seen or heard of said video series) how much the story’ll hit me. Family ties with Pittsburgh, and it’s NOT New York or some other common comics-city, so…we’ll see.

And this week’s Comic Shop News features The Marvels with a pretty picture and I’m reminded that while I like some of the concepts and such the last couple years with stuff recognizing the 25th anniversary a year or two back of the original Marvels series, it just seems like it’s a branding that’s being highly diluted and stretched way too thin for me (all the more with having been sucked in a bit with Marvels X thinking that to be more X-based when it was a prequel to Earth X!).

Along with randomly picking up the Heroineburgh issues, I checked back-issue bins for Dragonlance. I didn’t find any, but being in the generic "D" section gave me Dungeons and Dragons, which in this case was the distant "cousin" of what I was looking for, and I found a #1 for some mini-series and decided to grab it.

And while not part of the actual weekly haul, a rigid cardboard mailer had arrived just before I went to the comic shop, and opening that revealed the Serpent’s Eye…I mean Birthright…issue I’d ordered from some Amazon seller a bit over a week ago.

So these’ll go in the TSR comics collection (though I doubt I’ll go far on IDW D&D…time will tell in the end).

With this post, I think that’s 4 or 5 weeks in a row now hitting each week’s haul. Also looks like this is the 9th post out of 10 weekdays…a post rate I haven’t had in ages.

Let’s hope that 2021 doesn’t blow up like 2020 did after I was getting on track like this last year!

Filed under: 2021 Non-Review Posts, 2021 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: Amazing Spider-Man, Birthright, comic books, Comic SHop NEws, comics, Deadpool, Heroineburgh, Kaiju Score, New Comic Book Day, Serpent's Eye, Spawn, TSR, TSR Comics, usagi yojimbo, weekly haul, Wolverine | 2 Comments »