THE UNBOXING - NOVEMBER 2014

Delayed slightly but worth the wait, it's time for November's "Unboxing"!

First up this month, from DC, is BATMAN ADVENTURES, volume 1. I had originally passed on this book because I thought it was a reissue of a trade I already owned from the nineties, containing the first five issues of the series, but then later I learned it actually contains twice that number, BATMAN ADVENTURES #1 - 10.

I've made no secret of my love of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, and I think I've noted before that BATMAN ADVENTURES, which told original stories based on B:TAS, was pretty much the only ongoing DC series I read regularly growing up. I hope DC commits itself to collecting all of BATMAN ADVENTURES in trade, and moreso, I hope they will follow it up with THE BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES and BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES, the subsequent series which followed. At the very least, BATMAN ADVENTURES volume 2 has already been solicited, so that's a step in the right direction.

And on the Marvel front: I've gone out of my way many times to disparage modern Marvel, mockingly called "NuMarvel" in some circles. And while it's true that I've derived very little enjoyment from most Marvel series since around 2001 or so, there are a small handful of runs which I hold up with some of my favorite Marvel material of the past. One of these is CABLE & DEADPOOL, the unlikely "buddy" series which ran from 2004 - 2008. Fabian Nicieza's plots were as labyrinthine and compelling as ever, and he really made the dynamic between the unlikely title stars work. At the time both characters were fairly low on the popularity totem pole (yes, there was a period, not so long ago, when Deadpool wasn't one of Marvel's A-list stars!), which gave Nicieza the ability really go nuts with his stories, as he wasn't sharing Deadpool or Cable with any other writers for most of his run.

I missed out on the collected editions of this series the first time around, but Marvel must've realized this, because they did me a favor and released a DEADPOOL & CABLE OMNIBUS this month (note the reversal of billing from the monthly series to reflect Deadpool's current status as the much more popular character). Collecting all fifty issues of C&DP, this volume will now happily sit on the bookcase alongside last year's DEADPOOL BY JOE KELLY OMNIBUS, DEADPOOL CLASSIC volume 1 (containing the title character's two limited series from the nineties), and DEADPOOL CLASSIC volumes 9 and 10 (collecting Gail Simone's time with the character).

And speaking of DEADPOOL CLASSIC volume 10 -- I received one other book this month, and that's it. Deadpool himself features little in this book, as it reprints most of the AGENT X series from the early 00s, but it's an integral part of the character's history, bridging the gap between the Kelly and C&DP books.

So now I own the only three Deadpool runs worth reading, by Kelly, Simone, and Nicieza. Could there be a Deadpool review series on the horizon around here? Probably. Eventually. Someday.