THE UNBOXING - AUGUST 2014

So, what do we have this month? A little of this, a little of that, it seems. Two items from Marvel, two from DC, and, in a rare occurrence, something from Dark Horse!

Age always goes before beauty, so we'll glance at the DC offerings first. We have AME-COMI GIRLS VOLUME 2: RISE OF BRAINIAC. Readers may recall that I covered the first volume of this Jimmy Palmiotti/Justin Gray alternate universe story back in March. It was enjoyable enough that I grabbed the second volume, and I plan to get to it at some point before year's end.

Also from DC is DC COMICS PRESENTS BATMAN ADVENTURES, a small collection reprinting a sparse few issues from the nineties BATMAN ADVENTURES series, which was based upon BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. This isn't quite a trade paperback, but it's not quite a comic book, either. It's squarebound with a light cardstock cover, not unlike the comics we used to call "Prestige Editions" when I was a youngster.

Anyway -- BATMAN ADVENTURES was the only ongoing DC series I ever read with any regularity, and I picked up every issue of every iteration (BATMAN ADVENTURES, BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES, BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES, BATMAN ADVENTURES vol. 2), plus all the annuals and one-shots. DC has a new printing of the original BATMAN ADVENTURES trade paperback, collecting some of the earliest issues in chronological order, available for pre-order, so I'm hoping this could be a precursor to a full reprinting of the entire series, which would encompass well over a hundred issues in all. I'm doing my bit to support the sales which could potentially lead to such an eventuality by picking this volume up, though I'm torn on the upcoming trade since I already have the original printing from 1993 or so.

Jumping over to the Marvel side of things, we have SPIDER-MAN: THE COMPLETE ALIEN COSTUME SAGA, volume 1, which I already mentioned briefly last month. This collects the early post-SECRET WARS appearances of the alien symbiote costume which would eventually become Venom.

Also present are the original seventies adventures of the protagonist of this summer's big Marvel film, in STAR LORD: GUARDIAN OF THE GALAXY. I've wanted to read these black-and-white stories for years, mainly because one installment is by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin, so I'm pleased Marvel has finally released this material one collected edition.

Last up is THE STAR WARS: THE LUCAS DRAFT. I have great interest in the development of the original STAR WARS, and this book, containing an alternate version of the original STAR WARS adapted from George Lucas's earlier drafts, sounded like a neat concept, so I happily picked it up. I look forward to reading this one relatively soon, so I should hopefully have a post about it before the end of the year.