THE UNBOXING - JULY 2014

It's a chunky Marvel month hereabouts. First off is a biggie, the INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS. I've been waiting for this for years, ever since Marvel's Omnibus program started up in earnest. I figured it could be only a matter of time, especially as they started getting into the more obscure old crossovers, before they reached this storyline, a favorite from my youth. Watch for a full-length review of this book coming soon.

Next up are two trades collecting a large segment of Roger Stern's AVENGERS run: AVENGERS EPIC COLLECTION: JUDGMENT DAY, which contains issues 278 - 285, plus assorted odds and ends, and AVENGERS: THE LEGACY OF THANOS, reprinting issues 255 - 261. For those who are interested, the gap in between is collected in AVENGERS: THE ONCE AND FUTURE KANG (262 - 269) and AVENGERS: UNDER SIEGE (270 - 277). Add to these THE TRIAL OF YELLOWJACKET and ABSOLUTE VISION, volumes 1 and 2, and the entirety of Stern's fifty-plus issue AVENGERS run is now complete in reprint format. I confess that I've read very little of Stern's Avengers, and I look forward to someday sitting down and binge-reading the whole thing.

But the Avengers aren't the only Marvel super-group making a showing this month. We also have INVADERS CLASSIC: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION, volume 1. Marvel released the full run of the seventies INVADERS series via a series of four "Classic" trades a few years back. I passed on them at that time. But I've always had some interest in the Invaders, so when this "Complete Collection" volume was solicited, I decided to give it a try. A listing for the second volume, which would complete the series, has already popped up on Amazon, so I'll likely wait until it's released before reading this one.

Lastly is X-MEN: ROAD TO ONSLAUGHT, volume 2, collecting several issues of both X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN from one of my personal favorite X-eras -- the year between "Age of Apocalypse" and "Onslaught". As with most nineties X-Men material, I'm thrilled to have this collected, though I don't know exactly when I'll get around to reading it. But having it on my bookcase, available for perusal at any time, is, in itself, exciting for me. And even more exciting is that one more of these should hopefully finish closing the gap, and -- fingers crossed -- pave the way for an ONSLAUGHT OMNIBUS within the next year or two.

...I can't be the only one excited for such a book, can I?