THE UNBOXING - FEBRUARY 2016

Marvel, DC, and Dynamite all asked me to be their Valentine today, offering books in exchange for love. I'm still trying to figure out which to go with.

First is a new printing of an older collection from Marvel, THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC volume 1. As evidenced by the fact that I declared it my #5 favorite Marvel run of all time, I loved the Kurt Busiek/Mark Bagley (and later Fabian Nicieza/Mark Bagley) THUNDERBOLTS. But the first printing of this trade came out before I became a collected editions junkie, and I never picked it -- or the subsequent two -- up.

But Marvel is reissuing all three THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC books and, even though the originals aren't exactly hard to find, I've decided to go for these new editions. Volume 2 and volume 3 are available for pre-order, and HAWKEYE & THE THUNDERBOLTS volume 1 and volume 2, continuing where THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC leaves off, are in the works as well, and will bring the reprint series up through issue 50.

From DC, we have SHOWCASE PRESENTS: BATMAN volume 6, a black-and-white collection of severeal BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS issues from the early to mid-seventies. I'm not a huge fan of the ESSENTIAL/SHOWCASE format, generally preferring my comics in color, but there are a few art styles for which I believe the black-and-white newsprint format looks really nice -- and this Neal Adams/Irv Novick Batman stuff definitely applies.

Last up is RED SONJA/CONAN: BLOOD OF A GOD, Dynamite's contribution to the inter-company Hyborian Age crossover begun last year with Dark Horse's CONAN/RED SONJA. I have plans to cover both these collections, along with a couple more items, in a little Hyborian grab bag coming up this spring, so watch for that soon.

Until March, that's it for now.