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The Weekly Haul: Week of April 25, 2018

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Walt

This is an odd week. For one thing…it’s Marvel-heavy, which almost never happens–not for new issues, anyway. Secondly, I managed to initially flat-out forget to grab (or otherwise missed) a couple issues I’d specifically intended to get!

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I believe this week’s issue of The Mighty Thor is the final issue…well, for a few weeks, as we’re already getting another Thor #1 soon! Thinking it looks a bit standalone, and though I detest the $4.99 price point, it IS 12 more pages for “only” an extra $1 (compared to the 20-page $3.99 Marvel issues) I grabbed my second Thanos Annual #1 of the last several years. What can I say? It would feel odd not to snag the issue, given the movie that premieres this week!

Of the various True Believers issues…I have to say that the Infinity Gauntlet #1 and now this Infinity War #1 are easily a couple of the best values given the size. And of course, I greatly enjoy that they retain their original logo and (mostly) original cover. After all…these are rather “iconic” covers, from some ancient time when variants were rare, and specific comics were actually recognizable BY their covers.

The newest issue of The Terrifics is here, as is the final issue of the Demon: Hell is Earth mini (which is one less title to be picking up, slightly easing the monthly outspend).

And of course, the newest issue of Previews…which at this point is just an odd catalog, with separate publications for Marvel and DC and whatever else is contained.

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Somehow I missed Detective Comics for the week, as well as the start of the newest Aliens mini-series: Dust to Dust (and just before Alien Day 2018, to boot!).

I also realized I’d either missed, or skipped, the newest issue of Batman: Creature of the Night. I feel like this issue was really late, and suspect the next of being the same…such that this has really lost some of its momentum for me.

C’est la vie!

Once again, here it is the day before the next New Comic Book Day. But then, I’m also getting used to a “schedule” of having Ultraverse Revisited posts on Monday/Wednesday/Friday…so the other couple posts of the week are balancing differently than once upon a time.

Also some other stuff coming up that I should be sharing in the near future!

Meanwhile…tomorrow is another Wednesday for new comics, and this upcoming Saturday is Free Comic Book Day at participating local comic shops!

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Filed under: 2018 Non-Review Posts, 2018 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Weekly Haul: Week of March 21, 2018

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Walt

Well, this ended up being a fairly large week, including a bit from past weeks!

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Superman and Batman #43s; newest Super Sons, and the penultimate Deadman!

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A “month”‘s worth of TMNT in the main title, Universe, and the third Batman crossover.

The latest Spawn (and I’m still NOT digging this logo…). I thought the “death” story in Mighty Thor was a 6-parter, but this is “to be concluded” with the next issue. Ugh.

And several Alterna comics…this is the route I’d like to see all comics take: cheapo-ish but far-more-affordable single-issues, and save the fancy paper and such for the “archival” volumes (aka “graphic novels” aka “collected editions” aka “tpbs” aka “hardcovers” etc).

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Venom reprints via True Believers editions. I’d doubled up on a couple of these earlier. There’s also a Greatest Hits issue from IDW for D&D. I’m all for $1 issues, even if they’re reprinting “25-cent books” and such…gets them wider availability, as not everyone has the regular access to bargain bins that I’ve found myself with a number of times.

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Speaking of bargains…snagged Micronauts #1 for $3. Absolutely an excellent price considering what it is, and for the price of a DC issue, CHEAPER THAN even a crummy new Marvel issue!

And the latest issue of the Riverdale digest. At this point, this might be the longest I’ve kept up with any single digest series from Archie!

We’ll see what next week holds…hopefully not too much!

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Filed under: 2018 Non-Review Posts, 2018 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Weekly Haul: Week of February 21, 2018

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Walt

This week’s new haul was a somewhat medium-sized one: not as small as might be "ideal," but not ridiculously huge…in terms of new comics. I’ll detail the large quarter-bin haul in another post!

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New Superman and Batman issues; as well as Super Sons, Justice League, Wonder Woman/Conan…and maybe the top of the week: Batman/TMNT II.

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On the non-DC side…the seond to last issue of The Mighty Thor‘s arc The Death of the Mighty Thor. I bought in with the 700 issue last year, and decided I’d follow the arc…and we’ll see from there. Of course, with Marvel now announcing YET ANOTHER RELAUNCH/RENUMBERING INITIATIVE, I’m pretty much done with them. I grabbed the Infinity Countdown: Prime for Wolverine (the real Wolverine: Logan, the character introduced in The Incredible Hulk, that joined the X-Men, that had his own 180-ish issue series before all the renumbering shenanigans). I have no intention of actually following the event itself, but if I’m gonna grouse about stuff, I can at least get some actual reading in!

Maestros I need to actually read…five issues in, and I’m just hoping it’s worthwhile. And finally, the weekly Comic Shop News.

Outside of these…I had extra time available to me that I haven’t in a long while, so (perhaps recklessly, but that’s a discussion for some other time) I dug through quarter-bins, and found a lot of great stuff that I ended up getting…which will be the basis of a later post!

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Filed under: 2018 Non-Review Posts, 2018 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Mighty Thor #700 [Review]

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Walt

mighty_thor_0700_lenticularThe Blood of the Norns

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artists: Walter Simonson, Matthew WIlson, Russell Dauterman, Daniel Acuna, James Harren, Dave Stewart, Becky Cloonan, Das Pastoras, Chris Burnham, Ive Svorcina, Andrew MacLean, Jill Thompson, Mike Del Mundo, Olivier Coipel
Letterer & Production: VC’s Joe Sabino
Cover Artists: Russell Dauterman & Matthew Wilson
Lenticular Cover: Stephanie Hans (based on the original cover of The Death of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin)
Associate Editor: Sarah Brunstad
Editor: Wil Moss
Published by: Marvel Comics
Cover Date: December 2017
Cover Price: $5.99

Along with Cable #150, I think this was the issue I was truly most curious about, content-wise…and sadly, number-wise. It’s a #700…I think Marvel‘s first. Much like Thor #500 was their first #500 issue back in the ’90s. Then there’s the lenticular cover, playing off of the classic The Death of Captain Marvel…one of my definite Starlin favorites with the whole Captain Marvel/Adam Warlock/Thanos/Infinity Gauntlet/cosmic stuff…a certain classic within my own life and time as a comics reader.

I certainly did not care for the higher price of this issue…but at least it’s a singular issue/narrative (albeit with a number of art teams on its many segments) and not a regular-sized main story with a ton of pointless-ish "extras" and add-ins and such just to inflate the thing artificially. And getting the lenticular cover edition makes it feel a bit more like a special issue and certainly physically/tangibly feel like it’s more worth its price. The quality of the lenticular effect is not good, though, with neither image particularly clear, though it seems the "classic" image is easier to see for backgrounds and title, while "Lady Thor" is fairly easy to see in the center.

Art-wise there’s a bunch of folks on this issue, names both familiar and not to me, perhaps most familiar being Walter Simonson, or Walt Simonson…a classic, notable, significant creator in the history of Marvel‘s Thor title. Given that there’s a lot of stuff happening all over the place–different settings, different times, different characters and types of characters–this issue actually benefits from a number of different art styles. While I don’t much care for some stuff, I can’t deny that overall, characters that I’d recognize look good in this issue, and even ones I don’t. Where the art takes a less-classic or less-realistic turn, it still works with the context of the story segment.

The story itself is lengthy enough and all over the place enough that I’m not gonna try to summarize it in detail here. Plus, not being "up" on the last few years of the characters’ stories outside of internet hearsay, I don’t know that I’d get specifics correct as is. Essentially, there’s a big attack happening that causes the knowledge of everyone’s fate to be removed…now that no one knows what WILL happen, the possibilities are endless. In the course of this, we check in on a bunch of different Thors and Thor artifacts. I still can’t get over this sense I get in reading this that "Thor" has become a "title" more than an actual NAME, and that’s probably where I most balk at the last few years of what I’ve heard of things. THOR might somehow become unworthy to carry Mjolnir, but that shouldn’t change that his NAME still IS Thor. Someone else might get the wield the hammer, but I don’t get how THEY suddenly become THOR. Especially while the genuine god is still around. I don’t know if it’s the same name historically, but at least for this issue, I loved the name given to Throg: Simon Walterson, a play on Walter Simonson.

As said, I’m not "up" on the last few years of stuff, so I’m sure there’s plenty throughout this issue to be appreciated that I don’t, and that I didn’t even notice, for that matter. That said, and all other complaints aside…I didn’t really WANT to like this issue.

But I did like it.

I tend to hate when something feels just like an opening chapter of a bigger story, arbitrarily chopped up into issue-sized chunks. This issue probably gets away with that, then, because it’s lengthier. And being a few days after I bought it, the price wasn’t so fresh in my mind and I was just reading the story FOR the story. The extra pages, the story touching on a number of different characters…this just felt like that much bigger a chunk of story overall. It’s by no means complete, but I didn’t feel lost the way I thought I would, and didn’t feel shortchanged when I got to the end of the issue. While this issue kicks off a presumably six-part The Death of The Mighty Thor, that and the lenticular cover are the only real references I picked up to a pending death, outside of the notion of Jane Foster’s cancer, period, being a built-in timer o sorts.

I also definitely enjoyed the fact that "Odinson" was in the book…he may be "unworthy" but is still present and part of the story, so it’s seeming (from this issue at least) like he’s not been absolutely shunted out of his own book.

I really don’t know if this is something ongoing readers would enjoy or not. I believe Aaron is the same writer that’s been on the various titles the last few years, chronicling the ongoing Jane Foster Thor stories, and much of the art team(s) I suspect are from those titles…so this is probably pretty consistent with the overall story that’s been unfolding. And I can’t speak for other fans who have felt put-off by the changes and such.

But me? I enjoyed this issue far more than I expected or intended to. I don’t know if this really falls into the Legacy headline or not, or if the inclusion of Odinson and other versions is simply TO fit into Legacy. But I’ll actually consider picking up the next issue if it’s not out on a huge week and there’s no confusion over which cover is the standard cover (this issue’s lenticular cover is marked as a variant, but due to marketing and hype, I consider the lenticular covers the main covers regardless of markings from the publisher).

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Filed under: 2017 Posts, 2017 Reviews, MARVEL, Marvel Legacy | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Weekly Haul – Week of October 18, 2017

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Walt

A game I’ve been looking forward to for awhile now finally arrived! Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate. This is basically an adaptation of the Betrayal at House on the Hill, with Dungeons & Dragons elements. Given I quite enjoy both, this was a definite one for me to pick up!

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Of course, the next challenge is getting to actually play the game.

On to this week’s comics…

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Hard to believe it’s been over a year and a half now of the "weekly" Superman stuff again, and not liking the "skip weeks" because those are weeks without a new issue of Superman or Action Comics.

Also hard to believe that just between #s 225 and 227, I’ve acquired Savage Dragon 1-101 and assorted mini-series, specials, one-shots, etc.

Quite enjoying the Metal books, story and foil covers! Since the things would be $3.99 anyway, why not have some fun with the foil and such? If ever there was a series that "deserved" the metallic/foil covers, it’s this!

Sadly, the Marvel Legacy stuff is virtually dead on arrival for me. Yet, much as I did this past spring, I’m doing a small sampling to at least (grudgingly) give things a chance. I’m down enough on contemporary Marvel stuff, but if I flat-out never buy anything from them, well, I hardly have room to complain then, right? And at least with these, along with the jacked-up pricing, we get "fancy covers." Unfortunately, these are utterly craptastic quality covers compared to DC‘s. Looking basically head-on, they’re blurry with glare, and neither image truly comes through clearly! More on that matter in another post (or posts) later sometime.

Rounding out the week, trying a randomish Image #1 in Maestros. No clue what it’s supposed to be about, but figured I’d check it out. Wonder Woman/Conan‘s here because I got the 1st issue, and don’t want to have to "hunt" this later. Ditto on Dead of Winter. And I very definitely want to support Alterna and their "newsprint comics," even to being happy to buy an issue multiple times, as even 2 copies of an issue are still cheaper than any one single issue of a Marvel series.

All in all an interesting week with a mix of stuff. Though it definitely pales next to an order I’m expecting by the weekend (that I’ll almost certainly document here once it arrives).

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

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